Cancer bill is personal issue for Newcomb

By MARK TODD - Staff Writer - mtodd@starbeacon.com
Star Beacon

June 27, 2009 08:55 am

— COLUMBUS — Personal experience gives more meaning to a cancer treatment bill recently introduced by State Rep. Deborah Newcomb, D-Conneaut.
HB 237, awaiting a committee referral, would address the cost of chemotherapy in pill or capsule form compared to intravenous treatment.
Also, the bill would eliminate “brown-bagging,” the term applied to insurance companies that require cancer patients to bring their own chemotherapy drugs to their health care provider to be administered. The practice puts people at risk because it takes “quality control out of the hands of professional health care providers,” according to a statement.
Cancer care hits home for Newcomb, who disclosed she is a breast cancer survivor. She was diagnosed last year.
“I’m on post-treatment now,” she said. “I expect a good outcome. I’m fortunate doctors caught it early.”
Trips to the doctor’s office for treatment provided plenty of research for the cancer bill, Newcomb said.
“It provided different insight,” she said. “While in waiting rooms I talked to people. I was doing research while recuperating.”
Newcomb learned oral chemotherapy can be preferable and more convenient than the traditional IV method, but the cost can be prohibitive. The IV version, performed at a clinic, is usually included in a patient’s medical insurance and involves a flat co-payment, according to a statement from Newcomb’s office.
Oral chemotherapy may only be covered under prescription plans, resulting in a heftier co-pay, Newcomb said. Also, the oral method can be subject to health plan authorization. As a result, most people pick IV treatment, she said.
“(Patients) should have the same coverage,” Newcomb said. “It’s a way to help people with their choices. It’s not a mandate (to health care providers), but a health care accessibility issue. Oral chemotherapy has to be more cost effective.”
The brown-bagging component of the bill would no longer oblige patients to tote their own, home-delivered drugs to a medical provider, as required by some insurance companies as a cost-cutting measure, Newcomb said.
“Hearing your doctor say the word ‘cancer’ is devastating, and when it is partnered with the difficult side effects associated with treatment, patients are overwhelmed,” she said in the statement. “I believe patients are better able to cope with these issues when they have access to chemotherapy treatment within the privacy of their own homes.”