LANSING, MI (AP)-- An effort to require health insurers to provide cancer patients the same coverage for oral drugs as for intravenous medications is expected to advance in the Michigan Legislature.
The Senate has scheduled a vote for Tuesday on the bill designed to reduce the cost of cancer pills, which can be much higher than the expense of sitting for IV drippings or injections.
Chemotherapy parity laws are on the books in at least 39 other states, according to the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network. The nonpartisan Senate Fiscal Agency says individual cancer patients' costs would be lowered, while the cost of insurance more broadly would rise nominally.
