You Can Have An Organ Transplant, But You Can’t Have The Drugs You Need To Keep It Healthy?
In a provocative analysis of a 30-year old Medicare coverage loophole, John Schall explained the following (at the Medicare Policy Summit event):
1. Medicare covers kidney transplants for patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD). Transplant patients, of course, require life-long immunosupressive drugs to keep their bodies from rejecting the new kidney.
2. Medicare only covers immunosupressive drugs for 36 months total. These drugs are too expensive for most patients to afford out-of-pocket.
3. Many kidney transplant patients covered by Medicare are unable to continue their immunosupression regimen after 36 months, and slowly go into organ rejection.
4. Once they have rejected their transplanted kidney, they are eligible to receive a new one, fully covered by Medicare, with (you guessed it) 36 months of immunosuppresive drug coverage to follow.
Wouldn’t it just be cheaper to cover immunosuppresive drugs for the lifetime of the patient who receives an organ transplant? Yes, and that’s what lobbyists have been arguing for 30 years now, without a change in the rules.
Government-run healthcare can have its challenges… and this is only the beginning.
It's even cheaper if they decide to not cover transplants at all.