The EACH/PIC Coalition submitted a letter to the Illinois House Health Care Availability and Accessibility Committee urging opposition or further amendments to the updated version of HB 1443.
The letter stated:
“EACH/PIC advocates against artificial price setting at both the state and federal level as they are the wrong approach to effectively lower OOP drug costs and can ultimately cause more harm by creating added barriers between patients and their medically-needed care. We submitted written comments for the initial March 24th hearing that provided the committee with data supporting our concerns about the adverse impact on patients, including higher OOP costs plans are already imposing on patients in response to artificial price caps under Medicare and also the results of EACH/PIC’s patient survey demonstrating that affordability is dictated by insurance design and barriers and not the list price of a drug.”
“Many of these concerns were recognized by yourself and other committee members during the initial hearing, several of whom stated they were only voting in favor of the bill because the sponsor pledged to make substantive amendments. However, none of the amendments in the substitute bill that the sponsor filed on April 8th address any of our concerns. Thus, we continue to urge your committee to oppose the H.B.1443 substitute in its entirety for the reasons we reiterate below.”