Keep paying for transplant drugs, Camp proposes

[okarol]

08/06/2007

Keep paying for transplant drugs, Camp proposes

    Rep. Dave Camp, R-Midland, and a Democratic colleague are trying to reduce repeat kidney transplants and resumption of costly dialysis treatment due to rejection of transplanted kidneys.
 
     A bill proposed by Camp and Rep. Ron Kind, D-WI, would have Medicare pay for more than 36 months of immunosuppressive drug medicines for kidney transplant patients in Medicare's End Stage Renal Disease program.

     Social Security recipients already are eligible for longer therapies, but the ESRD program also includes others.

     "Breaking this 'transplant-temporarily treat-transplant again' cycle makes good health care policy; it is the right thing to do for patients; and it is the right thing to do for taxpayers who pay for these services," Camp said in a prepared statement.

     "Failing to permanently pay for these drugs is more than just being penny-wise and pound-foolish; it unnecessarily puts lives at risk," he added.

    The National Kidney Foundation and American Society of Transplant Surgeons reportedly support the Camp-Kind proposal.

     Low-income people's failure to continue taking high-cost immunosuppressive drugs is a main cause of acute organ rejection, Goren Klintmalm, president of the surgeons' group, said in the statement from Camp's office.

http://www.ourmidland.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18667903&BRD=2289&PAG=461&dept_id=472542&rfi=6

[jbeany]

Are we sure he's really a politician?  He's making sense. . .

[KT0930]

I went to the NKF website yesterday and wrote to my congressman, then sent the link to six friends and family members asking them to do the same...how about everyone on IHD do that, especially those of us who have had in the past, or are awaiting transplants??

[okarol]

Good idea KT! Thanks for following through!