A better Lyme bill
Gov. Charlie Baker is back with his second good-faith attempt at a compromise on a controversial Lyme disease treatment bill. The lawmakers doubling as doctors and patient advocates who are behind the treatment push ought to go along with the revised measure and defer to the medical professionals.
The original legislation — tacked, inappropriately, onto the state budget — would have mandated insurance coverage of long-term antibiotic treatment for a condition known as chronic Lyme, a mandate some patients and advocates have sought for years. Given that it is a course of treatment on which there is absolutely no medical consensus — and in many cases, there is outright opposition from doctors, including the Massachusetts Infectious Diseases Society — such a mandate is ill-advised.
Earlier this month, Baker tried to amend the bill to require coverage only if the treatment is prescribed by a rheumatologist, neurologist or infectious disease specialist — in other words, only if it is prescribed by a professional with relevant expertise. Under pressure from patients and patient advocates — and never having met a mandate they couldn’t support — lawmakers rejected that amendment and resubmitted the original bill to Baker.
He vetoed it Thursday, and as they take their turn on the see-saw this weekend lawmakers could conceivably override that veto.
Instead they should consider Baker’s alternative. The governor filed a separate bill that directs the Executive Office of Health and Human Services to solicit input on appropriate forms of treatment for Lyme through public hearings, and to then revise the available benefits to patients covered under the publicly subsized MassHealth program. Within months commercial insurers would be required to offer the same coverage.
One of the House sponsors and leading advocates of the original legislation is the father of a son who suffered from Lyme, adding to the pressure on lawmakers to go along with the mandate. But Baker’s alternative is more responsible, both fiscally and medically, and lawmakers should support it.