Louisiana Health Secretary Rebecca Gee thinks she’s found a way to get hepatitis C drugs to more Medicaid patients and prisoners struggling with one of the nation’s deadliest infectious diseases: by patterning medication purchases off the Netflix subscription model.
Gee wants Louisiana to pay a monthly or yearly fee to a drug manufacturer for unlimited access to its hepatitis C medication. The state would treat as many people as it can during the period, rather than pay a per-patient treatment price.
Gee thinks she’s successfully selling the pharmaceutical industry on the concept to lower the cost of combating the blood-borne viral infection that can cause liver failure and death.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says hepatitis C kills more Americans than any other infectious disease. The CDC says deaths associated with the disease reached an all-time high of 19,659 in 2014. That figure was down to 18,153 in 2016, according to the CDC.
Louisiana has an estimated 35,000 people with the disease on Medicaid or in prison, relying on the state for care. But with the high price for hepatitis C drugs, most go without treatment because the state restricts who receives medication to the most severe cases.
A course of the medication costs about $20,000 to $30,000, Gee says. To treat and effectively cure everyone in the state’s care with hepatitis C would carry a price tag around $760 million, not exactly a reachable expense in the poor state.
Louisiana spends $35 million on hepatitis C treatment annually, Gee said, enough to cover fewer than 3% of Medicaid patients and 1% of prisoners with the disease.
Louisiana needs federal approval for the change in Medicaid prescription drug spending. Gee said leaders of 10 other states want to mirror the subscription concept if Louisiana wins approval.
