Wis. Bill Requires Insurers to Cover Cancer Clinical Trials

Insurance companies will be required to cover cancer patients who take part in clinical trials under a bill signed into law by Gov. Jim Doyle on Friday.

Doyle said insurance companies will no longer be able to force cancer patients to pay for clinical trials out of their own pockets, a fact that has forced thousands of patients to pass up cutting-edge treatments.

“It is unconscionable that a cancer patient should have to pass up therapies that could significantly prolong or even save their life because their insurance company won’t pay,” Doyle said in a statement.

The law will require insurance companies to give cancer patients the same insurance coverage for a service, item or drug offered as part of clinical trials that they would get if they chose standard treatment. The trials will have to be sanctioned by federal regulators.

Routine treatments such as chemotherapy are often offered as part of clinical trials, which are studies of human volunteers to test experimental treatments or therapies, Doyle said.

More than 26,000 people in Wisconsin were diagnosed with cancer last year but less than five percent of cancer patients use clinical trials. Doyle said the bill will encourage more people to participate in important cancer research.

Another bill Doyle signed during an appearance at UW Hospitals and Clinics will allow both brand and generic names of a prescription drug to be on a bottle’s label.