R.I. House approves health insurance coverage for off-label use of medicines

May 27--PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly passed legislation to expand health insurance coverage for off-label use of prescription medications for disabling and life-threatening chronic diseases.

The vote was 64 to 1, with nine members not voting. Rep. Patricia L. Morgan, R-West Warwick, cast the sole no vote.

The bill, filed at the request of state Attorney General Peter Kilmartin and sponsored by Rep. K. Joseph Shekarchi, D-Warwick, would prohibit health insurers from refusing to cover medications used to treat a symptom or disease for which the Federal Drug Administration has not specifically approved its use. To qualify for coverage, however, the drug must be recognized for treatment of the specific ailment in medical reference books or other medical literature.

The bill expands the type of comprehensive coverage previously available only for cancer treatment.

"With one in five prescriptions involving off-label drug use for those suffering debilitating or life-threatening diseases, this measure in Rhode Island was long overdue," Kilmartin said in a statement. "Patients should not have to worry that insurance companies will refuse to cover the medications they need, and their doctors prescribed, to live comfortably and pain-free. Now they won't have to."

In Rhode Island, the use of off-label medication to treat cancer has been required of insurance companies since 1994.

The Senate passed a companion bill, introduced by Sen. William A. Walaska, D-Warwick, on May 12.

Both bills must be approved by each chamber before the measure can be sent to the governor for her signature.

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