FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Washington, D.C. – On August 28th, Gary A. Puckrein, PhD, President and CEO of the National Minority Quality Forum, issued the following statement regarding the 340B PATIENTS Act that was recently reintroduced in Congress:

“The National Minority Quality Forum is deeply concerned that the 340B PATIENTS Act may inadvertently perpetuate a system that fails to deliver meaningful benefits to the marginalized communities the 340B program was originally designed to serve.  After decades of program expansion, communities experiencing the highest rates of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other health disparities continue to face significant barriers to healthcare access and affordability—despite billions of dollars flowing through 340B programs.

The Act would codify the expansion of covered entities through an unlimited number of contract pharmacies without requiring corresponding accountability measures or evidence that clinical and economic benefits actually reach the intended beneficiaries. This approach risks institutionalizing a system of indirect assistance that marginalized communities cannot perceive in their daily healthcare experiences, leading to continued constituency dissatisfaction with policies that promise to help them but deliver benefits they never see or feel.

Effective healthcare policy must ensure that resources intended for vulnerable populations actually reach those communities in ways that measurably improve their health outcomes and reduce their financial burden. When policies rely on indirect mechanisms that cannot be observed or experienced by their intended beneficiaries, they create a disconnect between policy promises and community reality that undermines both health equity and public trust.

The National Minority Quality Forum believes that healthcare policies should be designed to deliver direct, observable benefits that communities can experience in their daily lives, following principles that align resource allocation with biological realities and population health needs. We encourage policymakers to consider frameworks that prioritize accountability, transparency, and measurable outcomes for the communities most in need of assistance.

The National Minority Quality Forum looks forward to opportunities to collaborate on healthcare policies that demonstrably improve outcomes for patients and communities.”

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For more information about our approach to healthcare policy design, visit www.conservelife.org.

For additional information, please contact:
Gretchen C. Wartman

Vice President for Policy and Program | National Minority Quality Forum

202-223-7560

Download statement here.