1 Emergency preamble. Whereas, acts and resolves of the Legislature do not
2 become effective until 90 days after adjournment unless enacted as emergencies; and
3 Whereas, the federal drug pricing program under Section 340B of the federal Public
4 Health Service Act, 42 United States Code, Section 256b requires prescription drug
5 manufacturers to offer discounted pricing to certain covered entities, including federally
6 qualified health centers; and
7 Whereas, federally qualified health centers serve rural and other underserved areas,
8 delivering health care that would otherwise be inaccessible to residents of such areas; and
9 Whereas, a crucial part of such care is the provision of life-saving prescription drugs
10 at affordable prices made possible by the 340B program, which also generates savings that
11 federally qualified health centers must, as a matter of mission and federal law, use to reduce
12 costs and improve access to services for patients of those health centers; and
13 Whereas, prescription drug manufacturers have recently imposed conflicting and
14 burdensome requirements for covered entities to obtain discounted pricing under the 340B
15 program, depriving patients of access to affordable prescription drugs under the 340B
16 program; and
17 Whereas, the number of retail pharmacies and the hours of operation of retail
18 pharmacies in underserved areas of the State have been dramatically reduced in recent years
19 due to workforce challenges and other economic challenges; and
20 Whereas, federally qualified health centers can compensate for the decline in
21 availability of retail pharmacies and for the restrictive practices of prescription drug
22 manufacturers only by developing or expanding their capacity to provide retail pharmacy
23 services as part of their health center services, yet existing health center revenues and
24 resources are insufficient to support such development and expansion; and
25 Whereas, it is therefore essential to provide immediate funding support for federally
26 qualified health centers to develop and expand retail pharmacy capacity in this State to
27 address the critical shortage of access to affordable prescription drugs; and
28 Whereas, in the judgment of the Legislature, these facts create an emergency within
29 the meaning of the Constitution of Maine and require the following legislation as
30 immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health and safety; now,
31 therefore,
32 Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
33 Sec. 1. 22 MRSA §259, sub-§1, ¶B, as amended by PL 2015, c. 267, Pt. JJJ, §1,
34 is further amended to read:
35 B. Six hundred ninety-nine thousand, one hundred fifty dollars in fiscal year 2001-02
36 to federally qualified health centers to support the infrastructure of these programs in
37 providing primary care services to underserved populations. Forty-four thousand, two
38 hundred fifty dollars must be provided to each federally qualified health center with an
39 additional $8,850 for the 2nd and each additional site operated by a federally qualified
40 health center. For the purposes of this paragraph, "site" means a site or sites operated
41 by the federally qualified health center within its scope of service that meet all health
42 center requirements, including providing primary care services, regardless of patients'