Lawmakers target shift of costs for kidney patients

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Lawmakers target shift of costs for kidney patients

10/22/2007, 7:47 p.m. ET
By KEN THOMAS
The Associated Press       

WASHINGTON (AP) — A little-known provision in a health care bill could shift millions of dollars in costs onto private health care plans run by Michigan companies such as General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Dow Chemical Co. for people with kidney disease.

Under current law, patients on private health care plans must wait 33 months before receiving care for end-stage kidney disease, but a bill passed by the House would extend that period by 12 months.

Business and labor groups estimate the changes would cost them about $3.5 billion over 10 years. GM said it would cost them about $70 million more a year while Ford estimated the cost increases would run in the tens of millions of dollars annually. Dow would see its costs grow by $1.5 million a year.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said Monday the extension of the waiting period would simply shift costs and raise them without improving the Medicare system. She said that it could complicate the agreement reached by the United Auto Workers union and GM that would establish a union-run, company-funded trust to cover retiree health care.

"This is not the time for us to be shifting tens of millions of dollars more onto private employer health care," Stabenow said. She said she would try to change the provision in the Senate Finance Committee.

Patients with kidney disease lose the ability to filter waste out of the bloodstream. About 400,000 people develop end-stage kidney failure, which requires dialysis or a transplant to survive.

Dialysis for employer group health care plans typically cost between $125,000 and $180,000 a year per person. About 16,000 people in Michigan have kidney failure.

Dr. Edward Jones, a nephrologist and chairman of the Kidney Care Partners coalition, said the changes would have a minor effect on large employer premiums while striking a good balance between the current law and proposed extensions of up to five years.

"Despite what some large corporations are saying, this extension impacts a modest number of patients spread across a much larger population and would be a huge benefit to patients and the Medicare benefit," Jones said in a statement.

The provision was inserted into the children's health care bill as a way of saving money in the Medicare program. The Congressional Budget Office said the provision would save the Medicare program $1.2 billion over 10 years.

Janet Boyd, Dow Chemical's director of government relations for tax and benefits, said the provision would lead to an increase in overall health care costs because commercial rates paid for by the public and private sector are about two to three times as much as Medicare rates for late stage kidney disease.

In addition to GM, Ford and Dow, several companies oppose the changes, including Caterpillar Inc., AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., along with labor unions such as the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union and the UAW.

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/michigan/index.ssf?/base/news-47/1193083762189850.xml&storylist=newsmichigan