The May 2, 2018 meeting of the Cuyahoga County Health, Human Services and Aging (HHSA) committee featured two presentations, one, about a federal prescription drug discount program, the other, about the Great Lakes Regional Prevention Council.

The 340B program is used locally to reduce prescription drug prices for medications given to those in the county jails, saving the County money.

The first presentation was from Tracy Jones, Midwest Regional Director of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, about the 340B program. The 340B program is a federal program, passed in 1992 and signed by President George H.W. Bush, which requires drug manufacturers to provide prescription drugs at reduced prices to “safety net” healthcare organizations, including The MetroHealth System. Councilman Dale Miller later pointed that the 340B program is used locally to reduce prescription drug prices for medications given to those in the county jails, saving the County money. According to Jones’ presentation, the 340B program is consistently under attack from the pharmaceutical industry, because the sale of prescription drugs at a lower price means less profit for that industry. Jones went on to explain that money saved from the prescription drug price discounts, is then given back to the healthcare provider institution to provide more coverage and support to other patients. This topic has strong supporters on both sides. The HHSA committee supported writing a letter of support to federal officials asking them to preserve the 340B program.

Prescription drug discounts, child abuse prevention focus of @CuyahogaCounty HHSA committee meeting Click To Tweet

The next presentation was from a member of the HHSA committee, Councilman Dale Miller, about the Great Lakes Regional Prevention Council (GLRPC). The GLRPC is a regional network that divides funding from the State of Ohio to organizations with programming dedicated to prevention of child abuse. Years ago, the state gave an equal amount of money to each county for the prevention of child abuse. A few years ago, recognizing that the needs of outreach and support differ in urban counties vs. rural counties, it changed the distribution method to allow for regional councils to form and meet regularly on how best to distribute the funds. Cuyahoga County is a part of a four-member Great Lakes Regional Prevention Council (Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga and Ashtabula counties) that work together on a regular basis. A copy of Councilman Miller‘s presentation can be found here: http://council.cuyahogacounty.us/pdf_council/en-US/GreatLakesRegionalPreventionCouncil.ppt.

After the presentations, the meeting was adjourned.