Senate Health and Welfare delays vote on S.266 after debate over 340B reporting and 'white bagging'

The Senate Health and Welfare Committee postponed action on S.266, a bill that would expand hospital reporting on participation in the federal 340B drug pricing program and repeal a prohibition on insurers or pharmacy benefit managers requiring pharmacies to dispense medications directly to health care settings, a practice known as "white bagging." The committee agreed to revisit the bill at its next meeting on Tuesday.

Jen Harvey, legislative counsel for the Office of Legislative Counsel, presented two instances of amendment to S.266. She said the first amendment (subsection a) would require hospitals to submit to the Green Mountain Care Board, in a form and manner prescribed by the board, a report detailing a hospital's participation in the 340B program during the previous fiscal year. Harvey described the required data as aggregated acquisition cost and aggregated payment amount for 340B drugs dispensed or administered during the previous calendar year, reported separately for four distribution channels: 1) drugs dispensed from an in-house pharmacy; 2) drugs dispensed from a contract…