The Time is Now! – Contact Your Senators Take Action!
Encourage Your Senators to Include a Medicare IVIG Provision in Medicare Legislation This Year
It is critical that you immediately contact your Senators and ask them to fix the IVIG problem this year and to include a fix in any Medicare legislation that they act on during the remainder of 2007.
Last week, both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate passed major healthcare bills. The major focus of the bills is renewal of the authority and expansion of funding for a program providing health insurance coverage to children, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The House bill goes beyond CHIP program revisions and includes many Medicare provisions, but not one on IVIG. The Senate bill does not include any Medicare provisions, rather, the provisions are limited to the CHIP program. While neither the House nor Senate bill currently include provisions on IVIG, they can lead to a path for dealing with IVIG problems and for addressing the access problems patients with primary immunodeficiency diseases have known since 2005.
Senate consideration of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) remained limited to that program only; it did not broaden the scope to include Medicare provisions. However, it is believed that the Senate will be working on Medicare provisions during August and early September. These provisions might be included in discussions the Senate has with the House to work out differences between their two bills as they reach agreement on a bill that both bodies can pass.
Below on our Action Alert is a letter for you to send to your Senators to ask them to find a solution to IVIG problems this year. Request that they go to leaders of the Senate Finance Committee (which has jurisdiction over Medicare and its provisions dealing with payment for IVIG) and ask that the IVIG problem be included in the Senate’s Medicare package of amendments and in any agreement that emerges from discussions with the House.
Even if you are not on Medicare, an increasing number of private pay insurers are starting to follow Medicare’s lead in how reimbursement is determined. Medicare’s actions affect you! It is crucial that they hear from you, their constituents, that this legislation helps patients with PIDD.