With U.S. law prohibiting the Oregon Health Authority from negotiating directly with drug makers to lower prices, the state is taking a complex multi-front approach, the authority’s chief medical officer told the Oregon Health Policy Board.
Successful lobbying from the Oregon Medical Association blocked Rep. Greenlick and Attorney General Rosenblum from passing legislation that would have held physicians criminally responsible for open-ended use of narcotics for pain amid a prescription opioid epidemic that kills 33,000 Americans a year. OMA later responded to the article.
A separate bill from Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer would require CCOs and insurers to cover a behavioral health assessment in a crisis as well as its treatment recommendations.
Many older drugs to treat AIDS and HIV contribute to a condition called lipodystrophy -- abnormal atrophy and deposits of fatty tissue. The condition is often demoralizing as well as disfiguring, but some insurers don’t cover the liposuction and implants needed to correct the problem.
If a large employer has full-time employees that make such low wages that they qualify for the Oregon Health Plan, SB 997 would force the employers to pay a penalty to the state to offset its cost of providing medical assistance.
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