SB 422, the Cancer Treatment Fairness Act, cannot succeed for the 324 Floridians diagnosed each day with cancer without your help, Rep. Corcoran.
I'm appealing to you now on their behalf to reconsider and rescind the crippling amendment your Health and Human Services Committee attached to this bill.
I have no politically expedient or financially driven motive to address you, sir. I am writing this because only you have the ability to make this vital piece of legislation happen.
SB 422 would increase access to orally administered cancer treatments.
As written, it would require insurers that cover intravenously administered chemotherapies to provide oral drugs at no greater cost to patients. That's all the Cancer Treatment Fairness Act is about.
Under the sponsorship of Lizbeth Benacquisto, R-Fort Myers, SB 422 sailed through the Florida Senate with unanimous support. That gives it 40 sponsors in the upper chamber.
The bill has 98 sponsors in the House, where it was introduced by Debbie Mayfield, R-Vero Beach, with the same earnest commitment as Benacquisto afforded it in the Senate.
Rep. Corcoran, I realize you consider SB 422 a mandate. But please understand that your amendment renders the bill virtually useless. How? By carving out exemptions for 1) out-of-state group policies; 2) small group policies and 3) "grandfathered" plans (Blue Cross has 130,000 policies in this category alone).
That means there will be a lot of patients this bill won't cover. Even the bill's advocates, Komen and the Cancer Society, have said they would prefer no bill to this amended bill.
Another point -- a most important point: Your amendment pushes the implementation date to 2015. That means insurers would be able to raise premiums next year, prior to the law taking effect.
Please, Rep. Corcoran, don't let any of that happen.
Insurers are going to be all right, don't worry about them. The Legislature already enriches Big Insurance in tidy fashion, with a $220 million-a-year tax credit. Blue Cross alone gets $32 million a year.
It's all in your hands, sir. There's still time for eleventh-hour heroics, to do the right thing for Florida's suffering cancer patients and their families. Please be a hero to these folks. Kill your amendment.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.
