Grabert: Are Michigan hospitals putting finances ahead of patients?

Hospitals across Michigan are exploiting a little-known federal program to squeeze millions of dollars from the state's poorest patients.Congress created the 340B Drug Pricing Program in 1992. It allows certain hospitals to purchase medicines from drug companies at substantial, mandatory discounts. Congress aimed for hospitals to reinvest these savings in patient care.But when I recently examined public data on Michigan hospitals' revenue and investments, I discovered that Michigan’s disproportionate share hospitals are instead using the 340B program to extract higher profits from patients ― and investing tens of millions of those earnings on Wall Street, rather than back into their local communities.Unfortunately, rather than working to fix the program and ensure it actually helps poor Mi