Cost-sharing

Comments on ERISA’s 50th anniversary–reforms to increase affordability and quality in employer-sponsored health coverage

Employer-sponsored insurance is the most common form of health insurance in the United States, covering over 60 percent of the population under 65.[1]  As we detail below, many employers have begun to create new health insurance barriers that prevent employees and their family members from accessing the medications they need to stay alive and healthy.  Our comments focus on certain novel benefit designs that have become more prevalent in recent years among employer-sponsored insurance plans: copay accumulators, copay maximizers, and alternative funding programs, as well as the practice of skirting ACA requirements by designating certain specialty medications as non-Essential Health Benefits.

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Request for prompt enforcement of prescription drug copay assistance court ruling

We have long advocated for affordable access to healthcare, including prescription medications.  A recent United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruling pertaining to copay assistance will dramatically help patients afford their medications. We write to urge you to immediately enforce this decision and the rule that it reinstated, issue a bulletin advising insurers that they are obligated to comply with the reinstated rule, and take necessary enforcement actions against insurers that are not in compliance.

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Testimony on the IL Health Care Availability and Access Board Act (HB 4472)

We believe policymakers should focus on those issues that directly impact patients, such as PBM regulation and reform, standard plan designs with reasonable deductibles and nominal copays, and ensuring copay assistance counts. We realize that Illinois has taken many of these steps already, and that Illinois policymakers are advocating for change at the national level, too, but more can be done.

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Letter in support of Missouri SB 844

It is a pleasure to voice our strong support for Senate Bill 844 (“Requires any amount paid on behalf of a health benefit plan enrollee to count toward the enrollee’s cost-sharing”) which provides that when calculating an enrollee’s overall contribution to an out-of-pocket max or any cost-sharing requirement under a health benefit plan, a health carrier or pharmacy benefits manager shall include any amounts paid by the enrollee or paid on behalf of the enrollee for any medication for which a generic substitute is not available. We thank you for holding a hearing on this important issue and ask that you consider and pass the bill.

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Comments in support of New Hampshire SB 354

It is a pleasure to voice our strong support for Senate Bill 354-FN (“relative to insurance cost-sharing calculations”) which would require health insurers and pharmacy benefit managers to include any amount paid by the enrollee or on their behalf in calculating an enrollee’s contribution to cost-sharing requirements. We thank you for holding a hearing on this important issue and ask that you consider and pass the bill.

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