Call Senator Reid: Help Ensure Clinical Trials Coverage Doesn’t Get Left Out of Health Care Reform

UPDATE DEC 19, 2009:  Your calls made the difference!  The Brown-Hutchison clinical trials provision is included in the Manager’s amendment.

The Senate is rushing to get 60 votes to wrap up a health care reform bill before the end of the year.

However, the Senate health care reform bill does not currently ensure patients coverage for the costs of routine care in clinical trials like they would if care were provided outside of a trial.  You can help change this!

Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) have introduced an amendment that would prohibit insurers from dropping coverage because an individual chooses to participate in a clinical trial and it would require insurers to cover the costs of routine care for patients enrolled in clinical trials.  It also ensures that states that have stricter clinical trials coverage rules will not have those rules pre-empted by new federal legislation.

Call Senate Majority Leader Reid at (202) 225-3452 today and tell him to include the Brown-Hutchison clinical trials amendment in the manager’s amendment he is writing.

You can help ensure that the Senate doesn’t rush to pass a health care reform bill without protecting clinical trials coverage!

Read on for talking points you can use during your call.

Tell Senator Reid:

• Include the Brown-Hutchison clinical trials amendment in the manager’s amendment to the health care reform bill.
• Cancer advocates have worked steadily for more than a decade to ensure that third-party payers cover the routine patients care costs incurred in clinical trials.
  • The Medicare clinical trials coverage policy has been in place since 2000, and more than half of all states have enacted clinical trials coverage laws.
  • These coverage standards ensure that cancer patients can receive their care in clinical studies, providing them access to a variety of treatment options and ensuring that the pace of clinical research is not slowed by reimbursement issues.
• However, the Senate health care reform bill does not currently ensure patients coverage for the costs of routine care in clinical trials like they would if care were provided outside of a trial.
• I’m a cancer survivor and received my treatment in a clinical trial.  I strongly support protecting clinical trials coverage.
• Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) have introduced an amendment that would prohibit insurers from dropping coverage because an individual chooses to participate in a clinical trial and it would require insurers to cover the costs of routine care for patients enrolled in clinical trials.
• Without this protection, cancer patients cannot be assured that they can receive care in a trial, which may be their best or only treatment option.

Don’t forget to thank Senator Reid for supporting access to life-saving treatments for cancer patients. And thank you!

Once you make the call, please leave a comment below or email me at Catherine.Knowles@FightCRC.org and let me know how the call went.