Cover Clinical Trials Now!
This week, the Senate will return its attention to healthcare reform, with a goal of completing action on the reform bill before Christmas. The Senate bill provides critical protections against pre-existing condition stipulations, annual and life-time spending caps, and unreasonable out-of-pocket spending – all of which would make life easier for cancer survivors.
However, the bill does not currently ensure patients have coverage for the costs of routine care in clinical trials like they would if care were provided outside of a trial. Right now, many people whose only hope of finding life-saving cancer treatment may be through a clinical trial cannot afford and do not receive the best treatment available. This needs to change!
Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) are seeking to amend the bill so that it requires insurers to cover patients with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses who are 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. In addition, if this coverage gap is not eliminated, the pace of cancer research will suffer.
To ensure approval of the amendment and its survival through House-Senate negotiations, we need your help right now in persuading your Senators to co-sponsor the amendment and vote for it during Senate debate this week.
