Utah's Fox 13 recently reported that retired architect Gary Saling of St. George, Utah, is bagging groceries to offset the cost of caring for his deceased wife. The woman suffered from two forms of dementia at the time of her death. Saling opted not to put his wife in a nursing home and took care of her until she passed. In the process, he incurred around $80,000 in medical bills and came out of retirement to pay them down by working four days a week as a bagger.
A fundraiser has been started to help him recover financially. Still, there can be no doubt that healthcare is a big business, and it does not take long for medical bills to reach astronomical proportions, whether we are talking about a hospital stay, a major procedure, or even just purchasing certain prescriptions, particularly ones under patent.
Utah's S.B. 69, which was introduced by State Sen. Evan Vickers and signed into law in March, is designed to give clinics, hospitals, and similar facilities better access to purchasing discount pharmaceuticals.
KSL TV notes that Utah’s new law is focused on companies that provide drugs under Section 340B of the 1992 Public Health Service Act. The act mandates that manufacturers participating in Medicare must sell outpatient drugs at significantly reduced prices to entities serving low-income patients. It does not apply to the neighborhood pharmacy you visit to pick up your meds.
Bills always seem to be written in the most complicated way humanly possible, even ones that are only two pages. So here is a very quick thumbnail sketch of what is in it: The new law prohibits drug manufacturers from directly or indirectly restricting or prohibiting a pharmacy from contracting with a 340B entity by denying the pharmacy access to a drug that the company manufactures or a 304B entity from contracting with a pharmacy by denying that entity access to a drug it manufactures. It also prohibits manufacturers from prohibiting the delivery of a 340B drug they create to any authorized location not declared off-limits by federal law and prevents them from interfering with contracts between pharmacies and 304B entities.
Still with me? Great.
Essentially, it makes it easier for hospitals and clinics to obtain 304B drugs at lower prices and tells drug manufacturers to stay out of it. There is more to it, and I could go on, but those are the nuts and bolts. I could cover several more paragraphs, but you get the gist. Besides, I’m tired of typing the word “manufacturer.”
Enter AstraZeneca, which has filed a lawsuit against the state over the law. According to KSL, the pharmaceutical giant claims that SB69 “unlawfully expands the 304B discount program, violating the supremacy clause.” That, says AstraZeneca, makes it unconstitutional. The suit also contends that it will suffer financial harm and reputational damage:
The Utah statute requires manufacturers to make 340B-discounted drugs available for sales at any and all pharmacies that are 'authorized by a 340B entity to receive the drug.' SB69 thus extends Section 340B's price caps beyond the scope of the federal program to reach unlimited contract pharmacy sales — in effect, vastly expanding discounts under the federal 340B program to an entirely new category of transactions not covered by Section 340B itself. Apparently dissatisfied with the scope of federal law, the state of Utah has enacted a statute seeking to achieve under state law precisely the same result that federal courts have resoundingly rejected.
The suit also claims that SB69 ”requires manufacturers like AstraZeneca to offer steeply discounted prices for the sale of their patented drugs, thereby extending federal price caps to an additional category of patented drug sales (contract pharmacy sales) that federal courts have held fall outside of the 340B program" and "impermissibly interferes with important federal policies and objectives" and imposes costly new obligations for manufacturers.”
In other words: "Show me the money."
I contacted the Utah Attorney General's office, which said it could not comment on pending litigation.
This may sound like a problem between hospitals and Big Pharma, and to a certain extent, it is. However, bear in mind that hospitals often purchase drugs and then sell them at inflated prices, but this is not solely to generate a profit; there are expenses associated with running a hospital, such as salaries, the physical plant, and operations. Be that as it may, this cost is still passed on to the patient.
In the defense of hospitals, if a patient is uninsured but needs a particular medication, the hospital's financial counseling department can assist them, provided the medication can be purchased at a reasonable price. If it is not, the patient can suddenly find themselves struggling to get the medication they need to stay healthy.
The intent of the bill is to find a path toward making healthcare accessible. In this case, accessibility does not just mean physical access, as in you can get your prescription in your state, but it also means affordability. If you cannot afford your medication, it matters very little how abundant it may be. This, apparently, is something that Big Pharma cannot tolerate.
Luigi Mangione is an arrogant, deluded, spoiled narcissist who has delusions of becoming a folk hero and being featured in a modern-day Bob Dylan song. He took it upon himself to commit murder, not because he actually cares about causes but because he is entranced with his own perceived greatness. While we can’t have well-heeled leftists wandering the streets shooting executives, we also cannot have well-heeled federal legislators, executives, and lobbyists allowing Big Pharma to determine who gets what meds in the name of profit.
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