CHLPI Clinical Instructor Quoted in Minnesota’s Star Tribune

A March 30, 2016, article from Minnesota’s Star Tribune features an interview with CHLPI’s Carmel Shachar on high costs for AIDS medications. “Advocates decry insurer charges for AIDS drugs in Minnesota” examines the worrisome trend of health insurance providers categorizing certain medications, such as those for HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C, on the highest,  and most expensive for consumers, cost-sharing tiers.

Excerpt from article:

“In a report provided this month to the Star Tribune, researchers from Harvard Law School and the Minnesota AIDS Project highlight health plan options on the state’s MNsure exchange that feature high degrees of ‘cost-sharing’ for medications used by people with HIV.

The report, which also looked at hepatitis C medications, is one of the latest to examine how health insurers in different states are covering HIV treatments on new government-run insurance exchanges.

‘I think they know the impact that putting high cost-sharing on these medications has to deter people,’ said Carmel Shachar, an attorney at Harvard’s Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation. ‘We do think the pattern of tiering is suggestive of discrimination.’”

Read the full article, “Advocates decry insurer charges for AIDS drugs in Minnesota.”