Sick Patients.
Healthy Profits.
Cancer treatment is already one of the most expensive and stressful things a person can go through. The 340B program is making it worse.
Hospitals in the program buy cancer drugs at a steep discount – then bill patients and insurers full price. The bigger the markup, the bigger the profit. Meaning hospitals have a financial reason to choose the most expensive drugs, not the best ones for patients.
It also means they're slow to switch to biosimilars – lower-cost alternatives that could cut patients' bills significantly. When a cheaper drug means less profit, the hospital has little reason to use it.
“The discounts on drugs, intended for patients, are being diverted to pad bottom lines.”
When hospitals join 340B, the cost of a single patient's cancer treatment jumps by more than $4,000 – and keeps climbing every year after.
340B hospitals admit to buying drugs at discount, then charge patients nearly 5x what they paid.
The profit margin on cancer therapies at 340B hospitals is 10x higher than at non-340B hospitals.
In 2022, patients paid $800 million in Medicare Parts B and D reimbursements to 340B hospitals for cancer drugs.
Tax-exempt, 340B hospitals qualified in poor neighborhoods. They expanded somewhere else.
A common pattern has emerged: covered entities register in underserved areas to qualify for the program, then expand their oncology units into wealthier zip codes where charity care the program was designed to fund is an afterthought.
This isn't an accident. It's a business model. Cancer drugs are expensive, and the markups are enormous. That makes oncology the most profitable place to grow so that's exactly where 340B hospitals grow.
In 2022, the average 340B hospital was pocketing more than $570,000 per doctor from the program. Every year.
The evidence speaks for itself.
The Wall Street Journal
The Washington Post
Congressional Budget Office
American Cancer Society
Cancer Action Network
Community Oncology Alliance
Don’t let 340B hospitals off the hook.
Ensuring that cancer patients have meaningful access to affordable care requires comprehensive federal reform of the 340B program.
“The 340B program was created to uplift vulnerable patients, not to line the pockets of middlemen…”
Discounts must reach patients — not disappear into hospital revenue
Hospitals must be transparent about what they pay and what they charge
Savings must fund care in the underserved communities 340B was designed to serve
Tell us what you've been through.
Congress needs to hear directly from patients and families not just statistics. If cancer drug costs and hospital bills have affected your life, your treatment, or your family's financial security, your story matters.
“Some things are worth getting mad about... Hospitals are getting rich on the backs of cancer patients, state employees and taxpayers.”