SALEM, Ore. (KTVZ) — This week, Rep. Emerson Levy, D-Bend, told legislators on the House Committee on Behavioral Health and Health Care that it’s time to create co-pay fairness, which means if an Oregonian has insurance and receives financial assistance from a pharmaceutical manufacturer, that payment has to count toward their deductible.
“Legislation I bring before you today is the first step to bring balance to a system that has left patients unable to pay for expensive medication and therefore reliant on costlier emergency room care,” said Levy. “Oregonians that pay for their insurance should be able to use it, but because of co-pay limiter programs, each visit to the pharmacy counter can be a game of health care roulette.”
In Oregon, some patients have to either pay out of pocket for prescription drugs or stop taking them altogether because, under some commercial insurance plans, insurance companies aren’t required to accept financial assistance toward an enrollee’s annual deductible. Discontinuation of medication can lead to irreversible or life-threatening health consequences for chronic disease patients, the lawmaker said in a news release, which continues below: