The Wisconsin Assembly will vote on an oral chemotherapy bill. The measure which passed the Senate has been amended by Assembly Majority Leader Pat Strachota. “I gives insurance companies flexibility,” Strachota said. “It’s an either/or. You can have the parity as was drafted originally in the bill, or you can go to a $100 a month co-pay for a 30 day supply.”
“I had conversations with Senator Fitzgerald this morning,” said Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. “I don’t want to characterize what he said, but I think he said as long as were able to work with all the organizations that were involved, especially those fighting for cancer survivors, that he presumed the Senate would take it up.” A spokesman for state Senator Alberta Darling, the author of the Senate bill, said she would review the amendment.
“Today as we’re here in the Capitol, 87 Wisconsinites will be meeting with a physician who will tell them ‘you have cancer.’ This is a highly prevalent, nasty disease,” said Paul Westrick, chair of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Wisconsin. “We’ve made great progress at treatment, and these oral meds are part of that progress.”
Governor Scott Walker has already committed to signing the bill, which requires insurers that cover conventional chemotherapy to also cover the chemo drugs.