Medicare drug changes would be devastating those with chronic illness
Many of the 6 in 10 Americans who live with a chronic illness are able to control their disease only with a specific medication or complicated mix of medications, a regimen often developed after countless trial-and-error attempts to find the right treatment.
Alarmingly, their access to these critical, lifechanging treatments is in jeopardy with coming policy changes to Medicare Part D, which provides prescription drug coverage for more than 47 million beneficiaries.
Last-minute changes under the Trump administration’s Payment Modernization Model threaten to severely limit patient access by impacting coverage for Part D’s six protected drug classes that treat HIV, mental illness, cancer and organ transplant rejection. Under the new regulations sold as “cost-saving” measures for the government, participating Part D plans would no longer be required to cover all drugs in those protected classes.
This means doctors will be stuck with prescribing a limited number of medications even if they are not the most effective treatments for an individual and patients currently following successful treatment plans may suddenly find their medications are no longer covered.
We must convince Congress and the Biden administration to halt implementation of these changes. Any policy designed to prevent and upend successful treatment plans is not only cruel but — especially in a pandemic — unconscionable.
As executive director of Action Wellness, I, my colleagues and countless volunteers work with individuals living with HIV and other chronic illnesses to help them achieve wellness and stability while maintaining access to the health care services they need.
We know how important uninterrupted access to life-sustaining medications is to them. We often walk hand in hand with them on their journey through multiple treatments before they find the most effective one.
Limiting doctors from prescribing the most effective treatments and forcing patients to use whatever one drug that is covered even if it does not adequately address their needs jeopardizes patients’ health. For patients who have found stability, upending their care plans could cause them to remain sicker longer and increase health care spending.
There is no upside to this for patients. Limiting individual health care choices and preventing doctors from offering effective treatment is the antithesis of the American health care system. Join me in carrying that message to our federal officials, and demand they let the millions of Americans dealing with a chronic illness seek personalized health care options and not a one-sizefits-some treatment.
We must convince Congress and the Biden administration to halt implementation of these changes. Any policy designed to prevent and upend successful treatment plans is not only cruel but — especially in a pandemic — unconscionable.