PAN joins letter urging federal departments to protect prescription drug coverage and access for all ACA enrollees

The PAN Foundation joined 18 other healthcare advocacy organizations in a letter from the Alternative Funding Task Force to the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and the Treasury, urging them to ensure that the Affordable Care Act (ACA)’s cost-sharing requirements apply to all prescription drugs covered by all non-grandfathered health insurance plans. The letter provided suggestions to ensure that the new rule provides the greatest protections possible to ACA health insurance plan enrollees in large groups and self-insured plans. 

The task force urged the Departments to include provisions that would ensure necessary prescription drug coverage by ACA plans and to increase access to all medically necessary drugs. The letter outlines that patient harm and barriers to access by alternative funding programs can be addressed by clarifying the definition of essential health benefits (EHB), confirming that an EHB exceptions process applies to large group and self-insured plans, and adding a new provision that protects consumers to promptly appeal a coverage determination without unnecessary plan-imposed barriers.  

Read the letter to the Departments