Does your state require coverage for clinical trials

[Elaine]

My current inusrance does provide coverage for costs associtated with clinical trials (even though the state of Kansas does not require the company to cover these costs), but my new insurance does not.

Some states require plans to cover these costs, but most states do not.

The link below shows all the states and what they require.

If your states does not require your inusrance to cover these costs, perhaps you could write to your state legislators asking them to introduce a bill that would make this crucial coverage available to all citizens of your state.

http://www.nci.nih.gov/clinicaltrials/d ... rial-costs

The following link will lead you to information that shows that the costs of covering clinical trials is not more expensive than other treatements, information you could use when you write your letter.

http://cancer.gov/clinicaltrials/digestpage/cost

Thanks in advance

elaine

[Jackson]

Thanks for posting this. We may be running into a problem with a trial being covered by my mom's insurance and I see that WI is not one of the states with a law requiring it. How frustrating.

[BeckyCW]

Elaine, thanks for the great info. For those who haven't heard it , here's my childhood cancer schpiel... (from a former job):

In the 1950's almost every type of childhood cancer was virtually fatal. By now, over 75% of kids with cancer survive. The difference? More kids (infants, children, teens & young adults) than not are treated on clinical trials. Because of the high percentage of patients on these trials, research has made that much progress.

By contrast, the last I heard, about 2% of all adults with cancer are on clinical trials. I know that it's not appropriate or desireable for all (or even most) adults to be on clinical trials, and there are lots of factors that come into play in that decision. But it's great that insurance costs don't always have to be one of those factors!

Back to kids for a minute: The most common childhood cancer, by far, is acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) -- and that's also the cancer that is most often survived now -- over 85% for some specific diagnoses. Why? Primarily because so many kids with ALL have been in clinical trials over the last few decades. Sadly, kids with the more rare types of childhood cancer, and especially brain tumors, have a much lower survival rate. (I only say this because it (understandably) irritates those parents no end to see this "77% survival rate" thrown out there, when they know THEIR child's prognosis is much different, and the overall rate is skewed by ALL.)

Anyway, it strikes me that there are probably thousands of times the number of people with lung cancer as childhood cancers (all put together), and the potential for progress from clinical trials should be huge.

Anyway, great links, Elaine! I'm proud of my state.

BeckyCW