Big 3, UAW fight dialysis costs bill
Big 3, UAW fight dialysis costs bill
Senators urged to reject extending firms’ coverage of kidney treatments.
David Shepardson / Detroit News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Major companies and unions, including Detroit’s Big Three automakers and the United Auto Workers, sent a letter to U.S. senators urging them to drop a tax provision that could hike medical costs for patients undergoing long-term kidney dialysis.
The House passed a bill last month that would extend the period that private insurers must cover people with end-stage renal disease and who require dialysis treatments three times a week.
Under current law, private insurers pay for the coverage for the first 30 months and then Medicare pays the bills, regardless of a person’s age.
The bill would extend the period that private companies and insurers must pay the costs to 42 months — or one more year. That would save the government $1.2 billion over 10 years.
But companies — even large insurers like General Motors Corp. — must pay up to three times what Medicare pays for the treatments, meaning the cost to businesses and patients could be as much as $3.6 billion over the next decade.
GM — which insures 1 million employees, retirees and their dependants — said its health care costs could rise by tens of millions of dollars.
GM has hundreds of patients with the condition. Companies typically pay between $125,000 and $180,000 for the private sector to pay for the dialysis treatments yearly.
"This is simply a cost shift from Medicare to private employers at time when employers are struggling to keep insurance," said Annette Guarisco, GM’s director of federal affairs. "It’s not saving money, but increasing the costs for the exact same service."
Since patients with end-stage renal disease typically have a five-year life expectancy, the move would mean the government would be paying a small percentage of the costs.
The Detroit auto companies and the UAW, along with the AFL-CIO, Dow Chemical, DTE Energy and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, sent a letter to senators this month urging them to reject the House bill.
"Costs are shifted — not really saved," the companies and the unions wrote, saying it will result in higher costs not only for kidney patients, but "all workers and their families in the form of higher premiums and cost-sharing and more restrictive coverage."
The companies have taken ads out in Capitol Hill publications urging Congress to vote down the proposal.
Congress created the benefit in 1972 and in 1997 extended the period private insurers must pay the costs from 12 months to 30 months.
U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, is working to get the provision removed.
"While businesses across the country are struggling to compete in the global marketplace and dealing with skyrocketing health care costs, it doesn’t make sense to simply shift more health costs to our employers and employees," said Brad Carroll, a spokesman for Stabenow.
