Last year, a former high school softball player from LaGrange, Lucy Wynne, donated a kidney to save her coach’s life. More recently, Athens resident Michael McLean received a kidney donation from one of his daughters that has allowed him to thrive after several previous donations failed. In another case, a Moultrie woman donated her kidney to a complete stranger because she didn’t want his kids to lose their father.
Nearly 30,000 Georgians are living with kidney failure, a 43 percent increase since 2010. And while these stories about life-saving support from friends and family are often heart-warming, there is a little-known crisis facing Georgians with kidney failure that needs more attention from our state’s representatives in Congress.
The main treatment for kidney failure besides a transplant is dialysis, which entails hooking patients up to a machine that cleans waste products out of their blood because their kidneys no longer can. Dialysis extends the life expectancy of people with kidney failure by 5-10 years on average, buying them time to receive a transplant, and even helping people live for decades longer in many cases.
However, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in 2022 that allows group health insurance plans, like employer-provided insurance, to discriminate against dialysis patients by reducing their benefits. That means that at the same time many Georgians who receive their kidney failure diagnosis discover that their employer-provided insurance may be inadequate and the life-saving dialysis treatment they need may not be fully covered. Despite this injustice, many new dialysis patients are more concerned about keeping their jobs and continuing to work.
As a result of insurance companies reducing benefits and coverage for dialysis patients, many people with kidney failure are forced to quickly transition onto Medicare, even though Medicare only covers 80% of the costs of their treatment. Dialysis patients on Medicare then have to figure out how to pay the rest of the costs. Supplemental insurance plans, known as Medigap, are largely unaffordable for Georgians under age 65, with premiums costing up to $3,800 per month. No matter what, Georgians who just received a kidney failure diagnosis may have to confront serious financial challenges as a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
That’s why we need Georgia’s representatives in Congress to stand up for people with kidney failure and ensure they have the coverage they deserve. There’s a bill in the House of Representatives called the Restore Protections for Dialysis Patients Act (H.R. 6860) to make sure that people with kidney failure can keep the private insurance they need for the first 30 months after their diagnosis. Before the Supreme Court’s ruling, federal law had protected that 30-month coverage window for dialysis patients, but now we need Congress to restore it.
Grovetown resident Kristi Flynn, a former dialysis patient herself, recently underscored why this bill is so important for people like her: “Private insurance helped me immensely… If I was stripped of private coverage when just beginning treatment, I do not know where I would be today.”
Congressman Drew Ferguson (R-GA) sits on the House Committee on Ways and Means, and Congressman Rick Allen (R-GA) and Congressman Buddy Carter (R-GA) serve on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce – two very powerful committees that could advance the Restore Protections for Dialysis Patients Act. Fortunately, Rep. Ferguson has cosponsored the bill, and I hope Rep. Allen and Rep. Carter will, too. Together, they can give dialysis patients in Georgia the protections they deserve.
Countless Georgians like Lucy and Michael have made incredible sacrifices and donated their kidneys to those in need. Now we need Congress to do its part and protect the 30,000 Georgians living with kidney failure by passing the Restore Protections for Dialysis Patients Act.