Senate Passes Equal-Cost-for-Cancer-Drugs Bill

Tallahassee reporter/videographer Dave Heller reports this:

TheFlorida Senate on Thursday unanimouslypassed a bill that would require insurance companies to charge the same price for IV andoral cancerdrugs.

Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, R-Fort Myers, made an emotional appeal to her colleagues to pass the legislation.

Benacquisto choked up as she recalled her mothers fight with cancer and how she sat in the doctors office with an IV in her arm, watching the slow drip of thechemotherapy drugs.

Benacquisto said IV medications typically cost about $30 for the insurance co-pay. But the same medication in oral form can cost thousands of dollars a month.

So some people face a terrible decision: Will they go deep in debt or take a cheaper, but less effective, IV drug?

Benacquisto said not enough cancer patients are getting access to oral cancer medications.

For every patient that gets access to this medication, 324 new people every day" ... the senator fell quiet for a moment ... "that sound is the silence of people who wont get that access.