Denise Terry remembers the lines at the pharmacy, the long wait, the worry as she held the prescription bag. A survivor—53 years old, an amputee, and one-time breast cancer patient—she fought with everything she had. There was no whisper about 340B, a program that could have eased her burden with discounted medications. That silence echoes in too many corridors across Detroit and Michigan. Awareness should never come too late.
Michigan’s 340B Drug Pricing Program stands now at a pivotal moment. Senate Bills 94 and 95 passed the Senate May 30, 2025, and now rest in the House, waiting to become law. One will ban manufacturers, wholesalers, or distributors from obstructing access to 340B drugs. The other links hospital debt collection to compliance with transparency rules. Supporters in Michigan hope these twin bills will reinforce the full potential of 340B: affordability, access, and accountability working together to uplift communities.
Voices in support rise in unison. The Michigan Health & Hospital Association, representing much of the healthcare infrastructure, affirms what their members already know: “The program is a lifeline for providers treating underserved areas.” They point to mobile clinics, mental health services, cancer treatment, food assistance, home visits. Michigan Medicine describes saving lives and nurturing neighborhoods. Their 340B savings have funded meals-on-wheels, survival-flight air transport, food pantry support, pharmacists in rural health clinics, COVID-19 vaccine efforts, mental health programs, nursing outreach. These are more than cost-cutting measures. They build health equity.
Trinity Health Michigan echoes this mission. They use 340B funds to deliver outpatient pharmaceuticals at discounted prices, expand vaccine access, manage chronic disease, and support community initiatives.
Henry Ford Health in Detroit invests those discounts in embedded pharmacists, courier services, question-and-answer consultations—programs that weave care deeper into patients’ lives.
Then comes the rip of conflicting tension. Drug manufacturers and business groups raise flags. PhRMA argues large health systems may mark up medications, benefiting insurers more than patients. A spokesperson insists this leaves patients, taxpayers, employers “negatively impacted by hospital markups…does nothing to help low‑income and uninsured patients.”
Michigan Health Purchasers Coalition warns these savings can drive cost increases up to $5.2 billion annually for employers, brought about by prescription arbiter practices. They call for limits to protect working families and small businesses.
Transparency becomes a buzzword with sharp edges. SB 94 would ask 340B entities to report annually on usage, community impact, and audits starting July 1, 2026. Manufacturers would report on high-cost drugs exceeding a 15% price hike. Yet critics worry these measures still miss the mark without mandating that hospitals ensure savings flow directly to patients.
Enter BlackDoctor.org. On the national stage, this community-focused health platform has amplified the call for transparency, noting its power to close racial health disparities by ensuring savings reach Black families. Their persistent advocacy has brought visibility and urgency to the issue. Their push for accountability resonates in Detroit’s neighborhoods and beyond.
In Lansing, the Michigan Advance quoted Rep. Alabas Farhat: “340B is a federally designated program…ensure that there’s access to [expensive] drugs at rural community centers, at cancer centers…,” emphasizing local pharmacies’ critical role. Still, PhRMA voices continued dissent, pointing out “no requirement for 340B hospitals or the pharmacies they contract with to share the significant discounts…directly with patients.”
This all plays against federal currents. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services submitted new “340B rebate guidance” to the Office of Management and Budget on June 2, 2025. The outcome unknown, timing unclear. At the state level, Mich. Department of Health and Human Services revised its STI/HIV policy manual May 7, 2025, tightening audit and program procedures.
Amid the policy fight stands Denise Terry. The program she never accessed still lives in her heart. She imagines revised pricing slipping into her hands when she needed them most. She knows how hard it is to hear about resources available too late. Her survival becomes advocacy: “Had I known, I could’ve fought cancer differently,” she tells her circle of friends. But Detroit demands more than personal testimony. The city needs proof.
That proof shows up in ambulances fueled by discounts, clinics kept open by program reinvestments, low-cost prescriptions that ease families into stability, and in institutional accountability. SB 94’s reporting would spell out intentions and outcomes precisely. Hospitals would submit annual metrics on how many patients received discounted drugs, audit findings, unmet needs, and areas for expansion. Manufacturers, too, would disclose spike pricing—information advocates argue should build public trust.
During testimony to the Senate’s Oversight Committee, Ben Frederick from Memorial Healthcare revealed something powerful: his father’s palliative care was possible because of 340B. Deidra Wilson from McLaren Health Care spoke of covering copays and transporting cancer patients. They said that current limitations threaten community access and that legislation is necessary to put patients over profit.
Transparency becomes a matter of accountability, not mere rhetoric. Without it, hospitals might prosper, but patients remain invisible. With it, Detroit’s most vulnerable will have data-driven proof that care exists, works, and evolves.
The opposition is not silent either. Michigan Health Purchasers Coalition warns of employer impacts. PhRMA insists on accountability pushed further. These voices demand a system that balances support with restraint.
That balance could look like SB 94 and SB 95 becoming law. It could look like hospitals continuing to weave care into neighborhoods and families. It could look like communities understanding how savings translate into meals, medicines, mental health, translators, transportation.
It could look like a cancer warrior fight being lighter—not by chance, but by design.
It could mean BlackDoctor.org’s national campaign becomes reality here, not just an article, but everyday life.
It could mean health equity stands on both legs—financial relief and transparent records; hospitals serving, yet accounting; patients affirmed and informed. It could mean Detroit, Flint, Ypsilanti, Kalamazoo, Muskegon and the Upper Peninsula encountering health systems that prove themselves every year, in spreadsheets and heartbeats.
There is no finish line yet. The House must hold these bills. The governor must sign. Federal changes must not dilute state action. Local groups—MHA, Michigan Medicine, Trinity Health, Henry Ford Health, community health centers—must transform intention into intervention.
But imagine if they do: imagine a Detroit where Black families receive medications at a $4 copay because hospitals treat savings like sacred trust; imagine mobile vans rolling through neighborhoods funded by 340B; imagine annual reports full of patient stories—not spin, but evidence; imagine Denise Terry knowing before her first chemo that help existed.
That’s the work of melody and metrics, compassion and numbers—the work Angela Rye would demand, Oprah Winfrey would illuminate. It needs to flow—not like a press release, but like conversation at the kitchen table on Sunday morning. Not generic, but intimate. Not abstract, but local.
Detroit, Lansing, and communities across Michigan are watching. The bills in the House chamber now hold the fate of these possibilities. For Black Detroiters, for Amputees and survivors, for low‑income moms, for rural elders—this is tangible policy poised as humanitarian practice.
So raise your voice. Call your representative. Use the MHA Action Alert. Track the House session on SB 94 and 95. Know that transparency isn’t bureaucracy—it’s trust. Ask: is that form public? How many patients benefited? Who speaks for you?
The 340B program, when it works as intended, is not charity. It’s correction. It’s access delivered to people who’ve been historically priced out of care they deserve.
These bills waiting in the Michigan House carry more than bureaucratic weight. They carry the potential to shift how institutions prove they serve us. Not through polished promises, but by putting numbers behind their mission, dollars into neighborhoods, and medications into hands that can’t wait.
Denise Terry’s story should not repeat itself in silence. Her fight—and the support she never got—deserves to be the last lesson we learn too late.
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