Astroturf Campaign Attacks Discount Drug Program for the Poor
An antiâgovernment waste group is helping its Big Pharma funder oppose a discount drug program that doesnât cost the government a penny.
Steve Ruark/AP Images for AIDS Healthcare Foundation
Protesters rallied outside pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca, October 14, 2020, in Wilmington, Delaware, after the company stopped offering drug discounts required by the 340B program.
Sludge produces investigative journalism on lobbying and money in politics. The American Prospect
 is re-publishing this article.
Each year, thousands of patients at medical facilities that serve the poor are given free or discounted medications through an obscure federal program that pharmaceutical companies are required to participate in as a condition of having their drugs covered by Medicare. Passed by Congress in 1992, the program, known as 340B, has come under attack from the pharmaceutical industry for being too generous to t