In the Bronx, healthcare isn’t abstract. It’s personal.
It’s the senior choosing between filling a prescription or paying for groceries. It’s the working parent stretching a paycheck to cover rent, childcare, and rising medical costs. It’s families in the 84th Assembly District doing everything right and still struggling to make ends meet.
So when a program is supposed to help patients, we should be able to prove it.
Right now, with the federal 340B Drug Pricing Program, we can’t. That’s a problem for New York and it’s especially a problem for communities like The Bronx.
The 340B program was created to support safety-net providers serving low-income and vulnerable patients. The idea was simple: allow providers to purchase prescription drugs at a discount and reinvest those savings into care: expanding services, lowering costs and strengthening communities like the Bronx and neighborhoods across New York State.
But today, there is no consistent requirement that providers show how those savings are actually being used. And new data suggests the consequences are real.
A recent IQVIA analysis of state employee health plans found that 340B providers are marking up discounted drugs and generating billions in excess charges nationwide – costs that are ultimately passed on to patients. In New York, that means more than $118 million in added costs and higher out-of-pocket expenses for everyday New Yorkers.
For families in The Bronx and for working families across our state, that’s not just a statistic. It’s another bill, another impossible tradeoff, another reason care feels out of reach. And the impact doesn’t stop there.
The program is also driving up costs for state and local governments and for employers, including small businesses from The Bronx to Buffalo, costs that inevitably get passed down to workers and their families.
Let’s be clear: that was never the intent of 340B.
This program was meant to expand access, not quietly shift costs onto the very communities it was designed to help. It was meant to support patients, not operate without basic accountability. Yet today, we have no clear answer, in The Bronx or anywhere in New York, to the simple question: are these savings reaching patients?
In a borough with some of the highest rates of asthma, diabetes, and chronic illness in the state, we cannot afford uncertainty. We rely on safety-net providers. We depend on programs like 340B working as intended. When they don’t or when we can’t verify that they do, it’s our communities that bear the burden.
And the truth is, the same questions are being asked in communities across New York. From urban neighborhoods to rural regions, patients depend on affordable care and transparent systems. That’s why Senator Binoe and I have introduced legislation to require 340B-covered entities in New York to report how much they are saving through the program and how those funds are being used.
The New York State Department of Health would make that information public, giving patients, taxpayers, and lawmakers a clear picture of whether this program is delivering on its promise statewide.
No guesswork. No assumptions. Just transparency, which is not an attack, but a safeguard.
If providers are using these savings to expand care in neighborhoods like the South Bronx and in communities across New York to invest in public health and reduce costs for patients, they should be able to show that. And if they’re not, then we have a responsibility to fix it and deliver for our communities.
What we cannot do is continue operating in the dark while families across our state pay the price. There are ongoing conversations about expanding the 340B program. But before we expand it, we must ensure it’s working. Before we grow it, we must make it accountable.
Assemblymember Amanda N. Septimo represents the 84th District in New York State.
