Chairman Glenn Grothman chaired a Health Care and Financial Services Subcommittee hearing to examine barriers to affordable cancer treatment.
Key takeaways from the hearing:
- “Medicine has changed, and more cancers [are] being treated with oral medication that patients take at home rather than through IV infusions. For many patients, oral chemo is the safer, easier, and more effective option. But the way these drugs are paid for has not kept pace with the change.” – Chairman Glenn Grothman
- “COA’s 2026 Survey of Community Oncology Practices found that more than 96 percent of respondents had observed patients with cancer struggling as a direct result of insurer-imposed step therapy. The same percentage reported that insurance policies interfere with patients receiving the treatment their physician recommends.” – Ted Okon, Executive Director, Community Oncology Alliance
- “In a study of over 10,000 patients prescribed these drugs, if the out-of-pocket cost was over $500, there were four times more likely to abandon the drug than if it was $100 or less. And in oncology, a prescription that a patient can’t afford is not a treatment. IVs also mean transportation, parking, waiting rooms, hours in infusion centers not for the patient alone, but also for their loved ones.” – Dr. Sheetal Kircher, Northwestern University
