Insurance Coverage for Tick-borne Diseases PASSED!

Committee Hearing Speech from IL State Representative Dan Swanson:

HB 0889: Mandates insurance coverage for long-term antibiotic therapy (over four weeks) for a person with a tick-borne disease. Amends the Health Maintenance Organization Act to apply the mandate to a health maintenance origination and the Public Aid code to mandate Medicaid coverage for long-term antibiotic therapy. The bill also states an experimental drug shall be covered as a long-term antibiotic therapy if it is approved for an indication by the United States Food and Drug Administration.

~

Many unknowns still exist for tick-borne illness due to years of neglected priority of scientific research, however, the last three years, research is gaining great traction. This current research proves that the easy-to-cure and easy-to-treat philosophies are invalid and inaccurate.   

When detected in its early stage, Lyme disease is treatable with an appropriate course of antibiotic therapy. The Lyme bacteria is very slow growing, and its life cycle is approximately 28 days. If undetected and untreated, the bacteria replicate, and the disease progresses into its late stages, becoming persistent and chronic. Treatment for chronic Lyme disease is prolonged and complex. One antibiotic for a short duration may not be enough to kill the bacteria.

An appropriate length of antibiotics in the first 30 days is necessary to give our constituents the absolute best chance at eradicating these diseases. If a physician prescribes the maximum number of days of antibiotics that the insurance allows, the bacteria can live past that treatment, and we are just setting that person up for treatment failure, and the victim is left to pay any further treatment out of pocket. 

Today, we will hear from a few of the many that suffer from tick-borne infection and the struggles and difficulties they have had in getting insurance coverage.  Thank you.