Extend Medicare coverage of transplant drugs Nov. 9, 2007 Transplant News
The NKF wants you to support a bill that would extend Medicare coverage of transplant drugs. Find out why …
By Troy Zimmerman, Vice President for Government Relations, National Kidney Foundation
Voters’ impressions of Congress are increasingly unfavorable (sometimes for good reason). Fortunately for nearly 97,000 Americans who are waiting for a life-saving transplant, organ donation and transplantation is non-partisan and legislative approaches to support donation are typical. Perhaps this is because the process begins with an unselfish act by a living donor or donor family.
A transplant gives the recipient a new sense of hope but their concerns are far from over. The new organ could fail at any moment and each additional day, month and year is treated as a precious gift. For many kidney recipients, the fear of organ rejection is intensified by the lack of long-term immunosuppressive drug coverage. Most kidney patients are eligible for Medicare coverage after they begin dialysis or receive a transplant, regardless of age. A dialysis patient is eligible for Medicare indefinitely, but a kidney recipient who is not Medicare-aged or Medicare-disabled receives Medicare (including immunosuppressive drug coverage) only for three years after a transplant.
You might think this is government at its most short-sighted—pay for a transplant but not for the drugs to reduce the likelihood of organ rejection. Congress isn’t to blame and in fact it has extended coverage over the years. When immunosuppressive coverage was enacted, it was assumed transplant recipients would return to work or have other access to health insurance. When this did not always occur, in 1993 Congress extended Medicare immunosuppressive coverage from 12 months to 36 months post transplant. It 2000, Congress stepped up again and eliminated the three year immunosuppressive limit for aged and disabled transplant recipients. Steady progress, but a gap in coverage remains for Medicare ESRD patients.
The transplant community has Congress’s attention again. Reps. Dave Camp, R-Mich., and Ron Kind, D-Wis., introduced H.R. 3282 to provide lifetime immunosuppressive coverage for Medicare kidney recipients if they do not have group health coverage of these medications (discussions are ongoing regarding a Senate companion bill). Contact your Member of Congress electronically by visiting
www.kidney.org/takeaction and help build support for this lifesaving legislation.
http://www.nephronline.com/nephnews/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1003&Itemid=136
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