SC attorney general urges White House to provide Medicare coverage for Alzheimer’s treatment

COLUMBIA, S.C. (FOX Carolina) - The office of Attorney General Alan Wilson is calling on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to provide coverage for a drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that has been proven to delay the progression of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Attorney General Wilson composed a letter on April 26, along with 25 other attorneys general, asking CMS to provide full and unrestricted Medicare coverage for FDA-approved Alzheimer’s treatments, consistent with its decades-long practice of covering FDA-approved prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries.

“This is a bipartisan effort because approving this drug is a win-win,” Attorney General Wilson said in a release. “It helps patients, but it also saves taxpayers money by reducing the costs to Medicare of treating Alzheimer’s.”

According to the office, the treatment is FDA-approved monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) directed against amyloid to help Alzheimer’s patients. Currently, CMS will only cover mAbs when it is administered through clinical trials or other studies.

The letter addressed to CMS states the following: “This decision creates a barrier to care for older Americans, especially individuals living in rural and underserved areas that are unlikely to be served by institutions administering clinical trials.”

The letter includes attorneys general from the following states: Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia.

The full letter can be read here.

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