Bill expanding access to discounted drugs awaits House action
[March 05, 2026]
By Peter Hancock
SPRINGFIELD – Advocates for health care providers that treat low-income
and uninsured patients are pressuring state lawmakers to pass
legislation they say would prevent drug manufacturers from restricting
access to medications that are discounted through a federal pharmacy
program.
The program is known as the 340B Drug Pricing Program. It requires drug
manufacturers to provide outpatient drugs to safety net clinics,
Federally Qualified Health Centers, AIDS clinics and a variety of other
health care providers that treat Medicaid patients at substantially
reduced prices.
The program has been in place since 1992. But in recent years, according
to the Illinois Primary Health Care Association, drug manufacturers have
found ways to limit the distribution of those drugs by restricting where
patients can go to fill their prescriptions.
“What pharmaceutical manufacturers began doing was limiting the
distribution of these drugs to a single location,” Cyrus Winnett,
executive director of the IPHCA, said in an interview. “And when I say
single location, I don’t mean Walgreens chain or CVS or a local
independent. I mean one physical location, which for our organizations
and their patients that have wide service areas, that’s extremely
limiting,”
Winnett’s organization represents about 430 Federally Qualified Health
Centers, or FQHCs, in Illinois that serve a combined 1.5 million
patients.
FQHCs are primary care clinics, often run by local health departments or
nonprofit charities. They receive federal funding to provide
comprehensive primary health services to underserved populations,
including Medicare and Medicaid patients and the uninsured.
Winnett said the vast majority of the clinics his organization
represents do not have their own on-site pharmacies. Instead, they
contract with outside pharmacies to fill prescriptions that are covered
by the 340B program.
He said the practice of restricting where patients can fill 340B
prescriptions began in 2020 with one manufacturer and one drug. But it
has since ballooned to more than 50 manufacturers and thousands of
different medications.
“You have providers in the clinic assessing the patient, reaching a
diagnosis, and then trying to connect them with a drug that’s available
to them and one that they can afford,” Winnett said. “And there was this
problem that crept up where providers were having to scramble to find
alternative medications, either for patients that they were newly
diagnosing or ones who have even been on a particular medication but are
being forced to change because they can no longer access it.”
Pending legislation
The legislation pending in the General Assembly is a Senate amendment to
House Bill 2371. Sponsored by Sen. Dave Koehler, D-Peoria, it would
prohibit anyone, including drug manufacturers, from imposing any
restrictions on the ability of 340B-eligible clinics and hospitals to
contract with outside pharmacies to fill 340B-funded prescriptions.
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Legislation is pending in the Illinois House that advocates say
would expand access for safety net clinics and certain other
providers to low-cost outpatient medications. (Capitol News Illinois
photo by Peter Hancock)
It also prohibits anyone, including manufacturers, from requiring 340B
clinics and hospitals, or their contract pharmacies, to submit
ingredient cost or pricing data about 340B drugs beyond what is required
by state or federal law. And it prohibits anyone from imposing
requirements regarding how clinics, hospitals or contract pharmacies
manage their inventory of 340B drugs.
In testimony before the House Executive Committee near the end of the
2025 legislative session, Jessica Lynch, of the Pharmaceutical Research
and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, denied that drug makers are
restricting access to discounted medications and said the proposed
legislation would not benefit health care consumers.
“This is not an access bill,” she said. “This bill does not directly
impact patients at all in any clear or comprehensive way. A pharmacy’s
status as a contract pharmacy has no impact on whether or not a patient
can go pick up their medicines at the pharmacy.”
In an email statement Monday, PhRMA spokesperson Tom Wilbur did not
comment on the specific language of the legislation. But he said the
organization believes generally that the 340B program needs broader
reforms that would be best addressed at the federal level.
“The 340B program was created by Congress to help low-income and
uninsured patients access medicines, but there is little evidence that
patients are benefiting,” Wilbur said. “Instead, large tax-exempt
hospitals and their for-profit partners are exploiting the program,
buying medicines at steep discounts, and then marking them up by
thousands of dollars.”
The bill awaits final action in the House before it can be sent to Gov.
JB Pritzker. A spokesperson for House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch said
in an email the bill is still under review and the next steps will be
determined in consultation with the Democratic caucus.
The next session of the House is scheduled for Wednesday, March 18.
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government
coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily
by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
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