Jaymie Knox didn’t even know what a biomarker test was until it was performed as part of a biopsy of her lungs.
But after it helped pinpoint the type of cancer she has — ALK-positive stage four lung cancer — and the exact treatment she needs to keep it at bay, she wants anyone affected by this diagnostic test would benefit, can get him.
“I didn’t know it was a thing,” Knox said in an interview. “When you hear ‘cancer’, you automatically think of chemotherapy and radiation. They don’t know that there are all these different and new and innovative treatments and ways to work with that that didn’t exist before.”
“It was just finished,” she said of the biomarker tests. “And I was really, really grateful for that.”
The 36-year-old Savannah resident remains active. She works out every day – and has completed 300 high-intensity cardio classes at a local gym – and works as a service manager in the building industry while running her own media company, WJMS media.
Knox was living in New York when she was first diagnosed with lung cancer in 2018 and received the biomarker test at a local academic medical center.
Now it’s part of a push to require health insurers to cover comprehensive biomarker testing for Georgians, who may not have access to it today. She recently traveled to Atlanta to campaign for it an invoice sponsored by Republican Rep. Sharon Cooper, Marietta, who chairs the House Public Health Committee.
Four other states – Arizona, Illinois, Louisiana and Rhode Island – have passed similar measures. Georgia is one of 17 states expected to pass legislation expanding access to biomarker testing later this year, according to the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network.
“If I hadn’t put myself through biomarker testing, I wouldn’t be here today,” Knox said. She said her advocacy is about “making sure people have the same chances I have to survive and get cancer and say no, that’s not going to be the end of my story.”
Marietta, Republican Rep. Sharon Cooper, chairs the House Public Health Committee. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
Cooper’s bill was approved by the House Insurance Committee in this year’s slow legislature and has the support of a coalition that includes nearly four dozen organizations. It has until March 6 to vacate the full chamber for the best chance of becoming law this year.
The longtime lawmaker argues that her bill would ease patient suffering and save valuable time and money by avoiding ineffective or unnecessary treatments. The test is also used to diagnose autoimmune diseases.
Advocates say access to biomarker testing is patchy in Georgia.
“A lot of the places in the state do,” Cooper recently told a House panel. “Our Medicaid system already does that. But the airlines in Georgia – about 54% of them – took advantage of this. All Georgians have – no right – but they should be given this new and innovative approach to get the right medicine to the right person.”
Cooper hit out at amendments proposed by a lobbyist representing the state’s commercial health insurers that would have limited the bill to cancer diagnoses and to situations where testing was deemed “medically necessary.”
“Our concern is, does this broadly written bill open the door to things not supported by medical or clinical evidence to be performed on a patient?” said Jesse Weathington, president and CEO of the Georgia Association of Health Plans. “We want the right person to get the right care at the right time. We probably don’t agree on how accurate that needs to be.”
The bill states that the tests should be covered when they are supported by medical and scientific evidence such as nationally accepted clinical practice guidelines.
Cooper argues that doctors won’t use the tests “indiscriminately,” and said biomarker testing could soon prove useful to treat other conditions like Alzheimer’s.
She said the decision shouldn’t be left to insurers to decide whether the tests should be covered.
“I know how insurance companies work, and I think putting the word ‘necessity’ in there gives them more leeway to make denials,” Cooper said.
Proponents say the requirement for robust biomarker testing coverage could increase monthly premiums by as little as 8 cents, or as much as 51 cents per person, according to analysis commissioned by the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network.
The projected increase doesn’t account for potential savings from more effective care, said Julie Vojtech, director of government relations for the Georgia nonprofit.
“It’s such a small increase. Who wouldn’t pay an extra 50 cents a month on your premiums when it could bring the loved one back?” she said. “If I could get my dad, my best friend, back for just 50 cents a month, who wouldn’t?”
