Tom’s vote: YES
Entitled the Honorable Jimmy Carter Cancer Treatment Access Act, this bill provides that no health plan issued in Georgia that directly or indirectly covers treatment for stage four advanced, metastatic cancer will deny coverage for a FDA-approved prescription drug because a patient does not have a previous history of failing to respond to initial cancer treatment medications.
Currently, some insurance companies require that a patient follow a certain protocol for cancer medication whereby they must fail primary drugs before coverage begins for additional, more advanced treatments. This legislation provides that, should a doctor recommend an advanced cancer treatment drug for a patient with stage four advanced, metastatic cancer, the patient will not have had to have taken and failed previous cancer drugs.