We have been warning readers about the impact the pending Food and Drug Administration (FDA) whether to ration the late-stage cancer drug Avastin based on its cost will have on breast cancer patients. Should the FDA move forward their promises to be reverberations throughout our health care system as cutting edge, and frankly, expensive drugs, will be left on the clinic room floor in order to “reduce the cost of health care.”
What we didn’t necessarily realize is the impact the FDA’s decision would have prior to reaching a decision. Big Government has obtained information that three major health insurance carriers have already begun denying breast cancer patients coverage for Avastin because of the FDA’s pending decision.
— Regence Blue Shield, the large regional plan in the Pacific Northwest recently published an Avastin policy listing the breast cancer treatment as “medically unnecessary.”
— Utah Public Employee Health Plan a small regional payer in Utah has begun to deny all Avastin claims but has not yet bothered to publish a written policy.
— Health Care Service Corporation the parent company of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois, New Mexico and Oklahoma recently published an Avastin policy that restricts use of Avastin.
In short, insurance companies are already taking their cue from the federal government and patients are being denied care as we speak.
It should be increasingly apparent to event he most ardent health care reformers that the result of ObamaCare is to ration care to the sick and elderly and sacrifice them on the altar of government budgetary goals. It’s also clear that insurance companies see no problem with denying coverage when they have the blessing of the federal government.
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