Sales rep in opioid kickback scheme avoids prison

PROVIDENCE (AP) -- Rhode Island's General Assembly has approved a measure to prohibit life insurance companies from denying or limiting policies for people with a prescription for an opioid overdose-reversal medication.

The bill heads to the governor's desk, after passing the House on Monday and the Senate last month.

Democratic Senate President Dominick Ruggerio and Democratic Rep. Justine Caldwell, of East Greenwich, sponsored the bill.

The issue came to Ruggerio's attention because a nurse who got a naloxone prescription was denied life insurance in Rhode Island.

The bill says no life insurance company in Rhode Island can deny a policy application solely on the basis that the applicant has a prescription to carry or possess naloxone.

Rhode Island has an "open prescription" for naloxone, meaning anyone can obtain it at a pharmacy.

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