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Two Washington state insurers — Group Health Cooperative and BridgeSpan — are targeted in class-action lawsuits that claim the companies are unfairly rationing new drugs that can cure hepatitis C based on high cost, not medical need.
David Morton figures he contracted hepatitis C back in the late 1980s, when the Ph.D. chemist was doing a dirty job: analyzing raw-sewage samples for toxins in Texas.
“We were looking for priority pollutants on the Environmental Protection Agency watch list,” the 61-year-old Redmond man said. “I thought I was benefiting society. I sort of clenched my teeth and did it.”
Back then, no one knew what hep C was, let alone that it could be transmitted by dirty needles or other exposure. It took nearly a decade before Morton was diagnosed.
Today, however, doctors not only know what causes the liver-damaging virus that affects 3.5 million Americans, they know how to cure it.
But when Morton got a prescription last fall for Harvoni, one of the new, highly effective drugs to halt the hep C virus (HCV), he couldn’t fill it. Group Health Cooperative, his insurance provider, wouldn’t pay for it.