"It's impossible to put a dollar figure on a human life, especially when you're talking about a drug that has such mild side effects," said Jim Kiefert, a prostate cancer patient and advocate who was part of the Provenge study.

Unfortunately, it is possible to put a dollar figure on a human life. There must be reasonable limits because, if we don't, deficits will continue to escalate beyond control.

One way foreign fiberals keep their government health costs lower is by denying treatments like this.

You would be denied $93,000 drugs in Britain.

Where does this end? Why not a million dollars using the same arguments? The end result is the same, but prolonged 4 months??? Seems silly to me. Perhaps less so if it was years but come on. I'm thinking kick backs to every physician who now prescribes it and these good intentions are ripe for abuse. As usual, we're good at creating systems that we don't monitor or control and it will be exploited at the cost to taxpayers. Medicare fraud is over 60 billion a year. How about we start funding these drugs when we get that number down to one million or so. Then everyone saves/wins!

-G

"Republicans have accused the acting chief of Medicare, Dr. Donald Berwick, of advocating health care rationing"

Republicans already advocate rationing of health care. The only difference is they want to ration it based on how much money you have. Or if you're a kid, based on how much money your parents have.

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Four months for $93,000? This is partly why health costs are so high. If someone wants a drug that extends their life for four months at this price, they should have to front the money and their insurance (or Medicare) will reimburse them if they are alive in a year. I think folks would think twice about spending that much for that amount of time.

Four months for $93,000? This is why our health costs are out of control. If someone wants this medication they should have to front the money. If they are alive in a year, insurance (or Medicare) would reimburse them. I think people would be a lot more careful if they used their own money in this way.