New Effort Set to Extend Medicare Coverage of Immunosuppressive Drugs

Sens.Mike DeWine(R-OH) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) are preparing to renew the effort to further extend Medicare prescription coverage for immunosuppressive medications -- expensive drugs that nearly all transplant recipients need to take daily for the remainder of their lives.

In recent years, Congress has expanded the Medicare program -- which covers kidney transplant surgery for people of any age with permanent kidney failure -- to also cover immunosuppressive drugs for these patients for at least three years.

But coverage gaps for immunosuppressive drugs have remained for many transplant patients younger than 65, or who became eligible for Medicare after their organ transplants.

Durbin said he and DeWine intended to offer an amendment to legislation this coming week that would cover anti-rejection drugs for Medicare beneficiaries who receive transplants for as long as they are needed.

The amendment also would extend Medicare coverage for anti-rejection drugs to those whose transplants took place before they were eligible for Medicare, or who received their transplants in a non-Medicare facility.

"It seems so basically unfair that a person would be in terrible shape, wait months or years for a transplant, survive the operation -- and then be doomed by the system," Durbin said.