New prescription benefits help fight kidney cancer
Twelve years ago I became one of the 28,000 Americans diagnosed with kidney cancer annually.
Medications are used to treat kidney cancer by combating the disease directly or by relieving pain, reducing the side effects, and assisting recovery. And for older kidney cancer patients who rely entirely on Medicare for their health insurance coverage, the cost for those medications came right out of their pockets.
The new Medicare prescription drug benefit will cover between 10 and 25 percent of the cost of prescriptions beginning this June. Beginning Jan. 1, 2006 it caps the price of each prescription for low-income seniors at no more than $5 and most seniors will save around 50 percent on their prescriptions beginning in 2006.
Kidney cancer patients rely on special treatments like biologic therapy to beat this disease, which requires drugs to manage the pain, discomfort and side effects of treatment. The bill provides choice and flexibility for patients and their doctors by authorizing at least two medicines per type, and by initiating an appeals process in case a necessary drug is not covered by the benefit.
No less important is the inclusion of preventative measures such as routine check-ups and diagnostic tests. This will aid in detecting kidney cancer early and sparing patients and their families pain and anguish later on.
We don’t yet know what causes this terrible disease but we do have a number of drugs to treat it. As a kidney cancer survivor, I believe enabling every senior and disabled person to access these life-saving drugs was worth fighting for.
William Bro
Chief Executive Officer
Kidney Cancer Association