Last May, two health advocacy groups filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights at HHS accusing four insurers selling plans in Florida of discriminating against people with HIV/AIDS by putting the drugs for treating the condition on the top tier of their formularies.
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health have followed up that complaint with their own research into what they are calling “adverse tiering.” The researchers, Douglas B. Jacobs and Benjamin D. Sommers, reported their results in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine.
The Harvard researchers looked at silver-level plans listed in the federal health exchange in 12 states, six with insurers mentioned in the complaint (Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, South Carolina, and Utah) and six of the most populous states without any of those insurers (Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia).