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Members of the Washington’s Public Employees Benefits Board infected with hepatitis C will be able to receive expensive drugs that can cure the life-threatening disease, a judge ruled Wednesday.
A King County Superior Court judge has ordered the agency that oversees health insurance for Washington’s public employees to pay for expensive drugs to treat hepatitis C in all patients, not just those with the most severe illness.
Judge Suzanne R. Parisien granted a preliminary injunction Wednesday that requires the state Health Care Authority (HCA) to halt a policy that limited access to the drugs based on a patient’s fibrosis score, a measure of liver damage.
The order came in response to a lawsuit filed by two members of the state Public Employees Benefits Board, identified only as N.C. and L.J. But Parisien also granted a request to include about 277,000 PEBB members as a protected class in the matter. That number includes people enrolled in the Uniform Medical Plan, including about 4,000 diagnosed with hepatitis C.
At least 150 PEBB members had been turned down for care in recent years, lawyers said.