Medicare will cover gene therapy for some cancers
Expanding access to a promising but costly treatment, Medicare said Wednesday it will cover for some blood cancers a breakthrough gene therapy that revs up a patient’s own immune cells to destroy malignancies.
Officials said Medicare will cover CAR-T cell therapies for certain types of lymphoma and leukemia. The cost of the treatments can runtohundredsofthousandsofdollars per patient.
Medicare Administrator Seema Verma said the decision will provide consistent and predictable access nationwide, opening up treatment options for some patients “who had nowhere else to turn.”
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell is resisting pressure to bring senators back from recess to address gun violence. Instead, the Republican leader is taking a more measured approach, as GOP senators are talking frequently among themselves, and with the White House.
President Donald Trump is privately calling up senators — and publicly pushing for an expansion of background checks for firearms purchases — but Mcconnell knows those ideas have little Republican support.
“I can only do what I can do,” the president told reporters as he departed Washington for visits to Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, where 31 people were killed in two mass shootings over the weekend.
On Wednesday, Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown made a personal plea to Trump during his visit to “call on Sen. Mcconnell to bring the Senate back in session this week, to tell the Senate he wants the background checks bill that has already passed the House.”
House Democrats signed onto a letter urging Mcconnell to act immediately on the House-passed legislation, which would require federal background checks for all firearms sales and transfers, including online and at gun shows.
In Kentucky, where Mcconnell is recuperating from a weekend fall that left his shoulder fractured, activists have been demonstrating at his home and protesting at his downtown Louisville office.
“House Democrats are moving prayerfully and purposefully to advance action,” wrote Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a letter Wednesday to Democratic colleagues. The Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., may take action during the recess on so-called “red flag” legislation to allow removal of guns from those deemed a threat to themselves or others.
But none of it has moved the Republican Senate to act more urgently. Mcconnell’s office is declining comment, referring back to a short statement he issued late Monday saying he was tasking three GOP committee chairmen “to engage in bipartisan discussions of potential solutions.”
In the meantime, Trump has been dialing up Senate Republicans about what is possible. Trump spoke at least three times with Sen. Pat Toomey, R-PA., who has long pushed a bipartisan background check bill with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.VA., the GOP senator said.
Trump continues to say there’s “great appetite” for background checks legislation. “I think we can bring up background checks like we’ve never had before,” he said before departing Washington.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday, “We Democrats are not going to settle for half-measures so Republicans can feel better and try to push the issue of gun violence off to the side.”
Manchin, who said he talked with Trump on Monday and Tuesday, said the president is “very committed to getting something done that will make a difference.”
He said, “At this point in time leadership comes from President Trump.”