For more than 30 years, the 340B Drug Pricing Program has helped community clinics like the Damien Center provide affordable medications, mental health services, and essential support to Hoosiers — regardless of their ability to pay.

At a time when healthcare costs are rising and more families are struggling with insurance coverage, 340B helps keep care within reach.

If 340B is weakened, patients will feel it first.

How the 340B Program Works

The 340B Drug Pricing Program requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to provide discounted medications to qualifying safety-net providers like the Damien Center.

Those savings are reinvested directly into patient care — not profits and not taxpayer funding.

Each provider operates under strict federal oversight and accountability standards to ensure savings are used to strengthen services and expand access.

Damien Center Impact

In 2024 alone, 340B savings helped the Damien Center provide:

• More than $500,000 in food, transportation, housing, and direct assistance

• Mental health counseling

• Substance use treatment

• Transportation to medical appointments
  

• Medication assistance

• Support for basic needs
  
  

For many patients, this support bridges the gap when insurance falls short or coverage is lost entirely.

WHAT 340B MEANS FOR PATIENTS

Uninsured and underinsured patients at the Damien Center pay:

• Only $6 per prescription on average

• 83% pay nothing at all
  
  

For clinic and mental health visits in 2024, the average out-of-pocket cost per patient was just $7 — lower than Indiana Medicaid's copays of up to $20.

Without insurance, a therapy session can cost between $100 and $200 or more.

As healthcare costs hit Hoosier families harder, 340B helps keep care affordable.

When Healthcare Funding Is Strained, Access Shrinks

Right now, pharmaceutical companies are pushing changes that would significantly alter how 340B operates.

If those changes move forward, community clinics could face:

• Higher drug costs

• Increased financial strain

• Reduced services

• Greater pressure on already limited healthcare resources
  
  

340B protects access to care in communities across Indiana. Weakening it would shift financial pressure back onto patients and providers.

Access to care should not be the tradeoff.

WHY THIS MATTERS IN INDIANA

Indiana’s healthcare system is already under strain:

• 14.4% of residents in Damien Center’s service area are uninsured (compared to 8% nationally).

• 12% of Indiana adults report medical debt — higher than the national average.

• 87% of rural Indiana residents live in primary care shortage areas.

• Rural communities have significantly fewer behavioral health professionals than urban areas.
  
  

When Indiana’s healthcare system is underfunded, patients feel it first.

Community clinics play a critical role in closing those gaps. 340B helps make that possible.

WHAT IS THE 340B DRUG PRICING PROGRAM?

Created in 1992, the 340B Drug Pricing Program allows qualifying hospitals and clinics that serve low-income and uninsured patients to purchase prescription drugs at a discount.

In exchange for access to Medicaid markets, pharmaceutical manufacturers agreed to provide these discounts.

The program was designed to strengthen safety-net providers so they can offer life-saving services without additional taxpayer funding.

In 2021 alone, Medicaid paid pharmaceutical companies more than $210 billion for medications — underscoring the scale of the broader system in which 340B operates.

HOW 340B WORKS IN PRACTICE

1. Pharmaceutical companies provide discounted medications to eligible clinics.

2. Insurance reimburses clinics at standard rates.

3. Clinics reinvest the savings into patient care and community services.
   
   

At the Damien Center, those savings help ensure that Hoosiers can access affordable prescriptions, behavioral health support, housing assistance, and transportation services — even as healthcare costs rise.

The 340B program plays a critical role in keeping medications affordable, clinics financially stable, and care accessible for Hoosiers who need it most.

Weakening 340B would not simply change a federal policy — it would directly impact patients’ ability to access essential services.

Indiana patients deserve a healthcare system that prioritizes affordability, stability, and community-based care.

The 340B Drug Pricing Program was created in 1992 and allows qualifying hospitals and clinics that serve low-income and uninsured patients to buy prescription drugs at a discount. The idea behind the program was to create a way for safety-net health care providers to offer life saving services to their patients without taxpayer funding.

Pharmaceutical companies agreed and enthusiastically signed onto this program because in return the government allowed them to participate in the Medicaid program - opening them up to an extremely lucrative, government funded, healthcare market.

To give you an example of how lucrative this arrangement has been, Medicaid paid out $210.6 billion in tax payer money to pharmaceutical companies for medications in 2021.

The 340B Drug Pricing Program is a very simple program in action.

Pharmaceutical companies provide qualifying medical facilities that serve low-income and uninsured patients’ medications at a 25% to 50% discounts. These clinics are then reimbursed the full amount by insurance companies.

340B entities take the savings from the discounted medication and pass it onto under or uninsured individuals and provide them their life saving medication at no cost to them.

The 340B program saves people’s lives every day, and pharmaceutical companies want to end it so they can provide more money for their executives and shareholders at the expense of vulnerable individuals who would suffer without this program.