Eliminate Cost-Sharing for Medicaid Preventive Services, Partnership Urges House...

Eliminate Cost-Sharing for Medicaid Preventive Services, Partnership Urges
House Committee

WASHINGTON July 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Partnership for Prevention today
urged the House Energy and Commerce Committee to prohibit cost-sharing to
Medicaid patients for recommended clinical preventive services.

Partnership President Robert J. Gould praised an amendment offered by Rep.
Lois C. Capps, D-Calif., to a historic health reform bill being crafted by the
Committee. Her amendment would eliminate cost-sharing requirements for
Medicaid clinical preventive services that have been recommended by the U.S.
Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF).

"This amendment delivers one of the eight consumer protections that President
Obama recently outlined for health reform legislation," said Gould.

"Charging co-pays and deductibles for preventive services to low-income,
underserved populations makes no sense," Gould added. "The purpose of
cost-sharing is to discourage over-use of a service. But preventive services
are under-utilized in the United States, and this is partially responsible for
rising health care costs."

"Chronic diseases are causing health care costs to spiral upward, and Medicaid
patients are already among the most underserved and at-risk populations for
these conditions," Gould said. "At the same time, they are among those who can
least afford high out-of-pocket costs. We should be encouraging - not
discouraging - the use of preventive services as a way to help keep this
vulnerable population healthy. Waiting for people to get sick and need
expensive treatment isn't real health reform. Real health reform starts with
prevention."

The USPSTF reviews scientific evidence on clinical preventive services and
rates them according to their effectiveness. A Partnership for Prevention
study of USPSTF recommendations found 17 clinical preventive services that
either save money or are cost-effective (cost less than $50,000 per
quality-adjusted life year, or QALY). Of those 17, it found 10 that cost less
than $15,000 per QALY.

Partnership for Prevention is a non-profit organization of business,
government and health leaders working to make disease prevention and health
promotion a national priority.

SOURCE Partnership for Prevention

Damon Thompson, +1-202-833-0009, dthompson@prevent.org