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ACLU threatens lawsuit over coverage policy
A state board recommended Tuesday night that more needy Coloradans receive potentially curative treatments for hepatitis C.
But the board stopped short of recommending that the treatments — new drugs that have been shown to have a 90 percent cure rate — be extended to all Coloradans on Medicaid. And that means the American Civil Liberties Union may file a federal lawsuit against the state to force it to provide treatment to everyone.
“It’s not just the right thing to do,” Mark Silverstein, the legal director for the ACLU in Colorado said at Tuesday’s meeting. “It’s also what’s legally required.”
The recommendation came after more than two hours of debate by Colorado’s Medicaid Drug Utilization Review Board, which provides guidance for how the state should provide medication to needy patients. A final decision on the hepatitis C treatments ultimately will come next month from the state Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.