Seeing Clearly: The Cost of a Miracle Cure

Seeing Clearly: The Cost of a Miracle Cure

Preparing to pay for a new era of effective gene therapy

Could you imagine seeing stars in the night sky for the first time or even the site of your own parents’ faces after ten or even twenty years of significant visual impairment? The Food and Drug Advisory Committee heard personal testaments like these from patients explaining their miraculous results as part of two experimental gene therapy trials.

More than 25 years in the making, the FDA approved Luxturna® (voretigene neparvovec-rzyl), the first gene therapy for an inherited disorder involving a progressive form of blindness, typically starting in early childhood. Currently, no pharmaceutical alternative is available for these patients. (more…)

Spending Resolution Affects ACA Taxes

Spending Resolution Affects ACA Taxes

On Jan. 22, 2018, President Donald Trump signed into law a short-term continuing spending resolution to end the government shutdown and continue funding through Feb. 8, 2018. The continuing resolution impacts three taxes and fees under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Specifically, the continuing resolution:

  • Delays implementation of the Cadillac tax on high-cost group health coverage until 2022;
  • Provides an additional one-year moratorium on the health insurance providers fee for 2019 (although the fee continues to apply for 2018); and
  • Extends the moratorium on the medical device excise tax for an additional two years, through 2019.

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