Rare-Disease Drugmakers Join in Worries Over GOP Health Overhaul
- Proposal offers states a path to lift ban on lifetime limits
- A threat to drugs that brought in $114 billion last year
How Health-Care Reform Could Affect Hospitals, Insurers
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The Republican health-care bill that’s already encountering stiff opposition from hospitals, doctors, and patients now has another group worried: rare-disease drugmakers and the patients who need those high-priced treatments.
The proposal, which the Senate could vote on as soon as next week, would give states leeway to allow the return of health coverage caps -- called lifetime limits -- that were banned under Obamacare. That could allow insurers, including those that offer plans through employers, to cut off reimbursements once an insured person spends $1 million to $2 million on prescription drugs. With expensive rare-disease drugs, that can happen quickly.