Even insured patients abandon care because medical bills are too high
Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comCancer costs put treatments out of reach for many
Seeded on Mon Jun 6, 2011 12:23 PM EDT (msnbc.com)
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The insurance industry and the pharmaceutical companies don't give a damn if you live or die or what disease you have. They want your money. Period. End of story.
My grandson was just diagnosed with cancer and has started aggressive treatment. The hospital social service that deals with the financials said that the insurance company will deny many of the charges. This is a common tactic. We were advised not to take no for an answer.
If only Insurance Companies did not own Party of No politicians (and some Democrats).
This is Health Terrorism, the newest of Right-wing Class, Race, Gender, and Age Wars that they are waging against the American People.
How Christian!
What company on the planet doesn't want your money?
You are what you eat... and what most of us eat isn't food!
Just watch the You Tube video here;
http://www.foodmatters.tv/
I'm sure you'll want to see more!
Am I getting this right? You are suggesting that food is at the root of cancer? Are you saying that you won't get cancer with a healthy diet?
Beer
That's why capitalism does not work.
Non-toxic food would almost certainly reduce the incidence of cancer. That's not going to happen, of course, because it's not as profitable and money is all that matters to America.
Based on my own personal life expereince and what I have learned Xanthiana,
YES! The crap most people eat is killing them, and there is a startleling difference between people on a good diet vs those that continue to be oblivious. Our bodies have an amazing ability to heal themselves when given the right amounts of ingredients, vitamine suppliments and lots of good water.
Try a week of raw, living food that is not damaged by lack of freshness, cooking it until you change the moleculare structure and destroy the nutrients and alter the natural enzimes!
I think what might amaze you the most is not so much any physical change to your body or the way you feel in general, but subtle changes in your sleep and mental capabilities. If your brain starts to work better, isn't it obvious that the rest of your body will begin to work better given the time and care it needs to repair it's self after being feed crap for decades to survive on.
Seeing is believing, but doing will be confirmation.
Good luck, it isn't easy to change when you've basically been brain washed at your own expense for the profit of someone else.
Aho
While I agree that a healthy diet can work wonders in terms of well-being, it certainly is not a prevention for hereditary cancer or cancers caused by other illnesses. Sorry, there is a difference between living healthy and preventing cancer. Cancer is simply uncontrolled cell growth, how would any diet prevent that?
Did you go to the link I provided in 1.5 and watch the little You Tube video? If you ever get a chance to watch the whole movie you'll realize that just about every part of our current food and medical system is infected with things that cause cancer. In other parts of the world that have natural based food systems in place still there are no cancers... there's your sign.
Where in the world does cancer not exist at all?!
Skip it, Warrior. People who live to eat will never believe the obvious, or even bother to educate themselves on the subject. Fact is, they would rather die of cancer than give up their Big Macs.
Unfortunately, they don't just die of cancer. They torture animals, destroy the ecosystem, and spread horrifying new antibiotic-resistant diseases.
Greed and gluttony: the American way.
Sad but true... At age 55, I have been to 2 funerals of friends that died of cancer already this year. At one of the ceremonies a parent of the deceased came up to me and asked if I had been an employee! I said no, I went to college with this person. They wanted to know why I was so well preserved and in such great shape was how the next question came out. I responded that I never gave up the diet I had back in the 70's to avoid red meat with hormones, antibiotics and steroids, other foods that were treated with artificial colors, additives and preservatives, I hadn't eaten any trans-fats or crap in 35 years and only ate food from known local organic sources that were still raw and alive and took vitamins...
They got pissed off at me and said I wasn't a very good friend because I hadn't shared my wisdom with their loved one! In my own stupid way I compounded their dislike of me by saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink".
It was the first time I didn't cry at a funeral...
Animals taste yummy... gimme a steak... make that 2!!! Hell Warrior should like me.. I eat my steaks raw. /lick
How can this be so? Republicans swear to their christian god that American healthcare is the best, more afforadable and most universally loved system in the world. We don't need no socialism ... With the poor and middle class having all that expendable income with those exploding salaries and huge bonuses, medicine and surgery should be chump change. Don't tell me those ultra-rightwing religious zealots in the Republican Party would actually commit the sin of lying.
Won't this all be solved with vouchers???
I can't wait till I can get my voucher from the Republicans when they end Medicare and Medicaid. I'm sure every insurance company will be out there begging for my business...
You mean the voucher system that will require the average person to pay 2/3 of the cost of their care. The voucher system should put the hospitals and doctors out of business, because who will be able to afford them. Most of us will have to just go straight to hospice.
Health economists are starting to look at the correlations between the seriousness of the disease and the price of medications. If there was no relationship, the mixture of costs should be the same as for "treatable" diseases such as injuries or "manageable" diseases such as diabetes.
What they are finding is that the more likely the patient is to be terminal, the higher the cost. The less the likelihood of a cure or significant prolongation of life, the greater the cost. Even quality of life improvements do not seem to enter into pricing considerations.
It has long been well-established that the cost of "discovery" or production of a given drug has NO relation to its cost to the patient. In fact, only 1 of the top 100 selling prescription drugs was even developed by a major pharmaceutical company. Big Pharma sinks small labs and buys their new drugs at bargain prices through various forms of intimidation and coercion. They have long claimed that the average drug costs over a billion dollars to develop and bring to market. The CBO took a look and the most expensive one on record is $74 million --- and that was Vioxx!
Drug companies price their drugs based on the desperation of the patient and their family. Their specialty is those drugs which marginally prolong terminal lives --- usually with an actual decline in quality of life. They use false hope, shame and fear against patients and their families to get them to sign up for useless and expensive "therapies." This enriches physicians, hospitals, drug companies, and the for-profit medical industry in general.
Unless the concept of milking the last assets from the most seriously ill stops, the moral imperative of the medical profession will be so far lost that it may never be recovered. Already over a third of Americans self-medicate with worthless remedies and snake oil treatments because they simply do not trust the medical establishment. As it worsens, physicians will become pariahs and hospitals more like the "pest houses" of the 1800's.
I would also add that the drug companies aren't interested in actual cures. To find cures would put them out of business. They are only developing drugs to treat symptoms, not to cure the actual underlying problems.
I believe you are correct. Members of my family have passed away not from the initial illness but the system failure due to all the medications. My mother and father both passed away from organ failure due to medications that treat the side effects.
I'd like to see this publication. I work for a small biotech. We are in Phase 2 testing and we've already spent over 50million. If you add in the costs of Phase 3, plus BLA submission burn, we will be well over your 74 million. So, I'd definitely like to know where that number comes from and what it constitutes in development costs. I've seen studies on the pharma side run over 50 million for 1 study, so I find this very very very hard to believe.
I'm not sure if this is completely accurate either. The most expensive medications are cancer agents. They are also the most difficult and costly to manufacture. If you die from diabetes, for example, your medications are cheap in comparison. Heart disease, nitro is pennies a day.
Only in America, Richest country on earth do we allow our own people to knowingly die for lack of health care.. What the hell happened to my country I grew up in???
In the U.K. Sorafenib, the only chemotherapy approved for liver cancer, is not reimbursed by NHS. In the US, on the other hand, it's reimbursed by every major insurance carrier and Medicare/Medicaid. When you look at cancer survival rates, the U.S. is consistently on top, if not the best in the world. So, explain to me again how our system is so @!$%#ty?
Had throat cancer 2 years ago. Insurance paid $575,000.00. Out of pocket was over 25K.
so your complaint is that you are still alive 2 years later and paid only 4% of the cost? Considering the rest of the people on your insurance paid the remaining 96% for you to keep on living, I'd say you got a good deal.
Wow Beer, your assuming he/she never paid any premiums and if they did, they didn't pay much. And I didn't read anything into his/her post other than statement of fact...pray it never happens to you or your loved ones...then you won't be so unforgiving....
And people complain about insurance premiums. Go figure.
On a serious note:
Someone has to ask once and a while whether it is moral or right to try to make as much profit as possible from the suffering of others?
This applies just as readily to the military (for example where we sell arms to both sides in a conflict) as to the for-profit medical industry.
Is there no virtue left in this country? Has religion become just a form of politics instead of a steady moral compass? Have people decided that profits are an ends that justify any means? Is there no sense of right and wrong?
Thank you. We should limit the pay of doctors and hospital administrators (and other medical personnel as needed) by limiting their out of pocket education costs and malpractice insurance. I think we should, of course, allow the best and brightest into medical school (And I do want to see a cross section of the population, because I have dealt with racist, homophobic doctors. That's probably why minorities of worst health outcomes.) So potential medical students should also be interviewed by a panel. Then we should foot the bill for their educations and for their malpractice insurance, as long as they have not been found liable for gross negligence or have not been sued more than once.
Racist, homophobic doctors - how dramatic! Exaggerate much?
Dedicate your life to helping others, do nothing but study for 11, 12, 13+ years, assume hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, don't even dare expect any freedom or personal time, then have your pay dictated by a pencil-necked panel of paper pushers. Yeah, that's a great plan!?!
Many plumbers out there make just as much as M.D.s., for a miniscule fraction of the investment and sacrifice. It's about time we set up a pencil-necked panel of paper pushers to cut plumbers' corrupt union wages.
@ Chris,
If you think about it, religion and greedy business's go hand and hand. Religions have prophets and business's are only concerned with making profits. There isn't enough room next to the decimal point to include morality in the equation.
Brenda, interesting thought. A few years ago my brother was at Mayo Clinic for brain surgery - at the same time my son was in a car accident, nicked his spleen and had to spend a night in intensive care - not hooked up to anything but an I.V. and he had to have blood drawn every hour. The cost for my son's intensive care room, in a local hospital, was more than the cost of my brother's intensive care room, at Mayo Clinic after having brain surgery and being hooked up to numerous tubes, etc. Why? Because Mayo Clinic paid their doctors a flat fee - it wasn't based on how many insurance companies you could bill, or how much the doctor wanted to earn in his/her practice.
Oh, and nmbg - your crazy up the wing-nut if you think plumbers make any where near as much as doctors - keep dreaming. And don't give me the bull about 'dedicating your life to others' - it's about the greenback, sweetie, at least in most cases.
mnbg, I have three master's degrees, a PhD, and two technical certifications. I have as much debt as MDs, and I don't make as much as they do as a professor. (Between us. I started at $40,000 per year!) And yes, the medical field is teeming with racist, homophobic doctors. Potential doctors should be interviewed to gauge their attitudes. Further, study after study shows that they are not saving the lives of minorities. Many minorities won't even go to them for the reasons I've cited. Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath, and there was a time when many were paid with livestock and a sack of potatoes. If we don't watch it, the medical profession will hold this society hostage.
The article omits one of the most salient facts....The Bush prescription law prohibits Medicare from negotiating drug prices with the Drug Companies. My cancer medication costs $225,000 per year in the USA via Medicare. The EXACT SAME medication costs the British and Canadian government health care system about 60% of this amount because they negotiate with the Phama Company......The same medicine costs the Brazilian medical system about $400 per year as the medicine is used to treat leprosy in Brazil........Same drug company (Celgene) same medication (Revlimid).... The US is no longer wealthy enough to pay for all the Pharma R&D, the costs need to be spread to the patients worldwide..
Yes, but that would be socialism and we can have anything close to that here. The insurance and drug companies must be able to make as much money as possible. Your health be damned!! Profits Before Death!!
America, what a great country, isn't it ??
Well, poor me european will get free treatement if I get cancer because all my bills for serious diseases are financially paid by my government. Yeah socialism is so bad, isn't it ? It won't let its people die in pain !
American fools !
CO president Dr. Michael Link, a pediatric oncologist, said access to healthcare should be a national priority.
Vote all republicans out !!! and ask for universal health care !!!!
Nobody ever mentions how much money the health insurance industry makes off the hard working American people?????!!!!!! Ya, you need another choice you dolt its called public health!!! so sad that so many hardworking Americans are fooled into thinking that a public health option is akin to ripping apart the fabric of the nation....or being a communist... here is a notice to you !!! I am a Canadian with many family and friends in the US!! some of whom have gone through financial ruin cause they got sick!! not just over the last few years but over the last 30yrs !!! I do not know a single person in Canada who has had this problem, And just for a few of you...ya we vote and we have guns and drink budwiser and drives huge SUV'...so sad the insurance lobby is so strong , i cant wait for the day that you guys have a leader strong enough to abolish the current health care industry, what a shame. WAKE UP AMERICA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't you just love these healthcare stories? They always bring out all kinds of "Canadians" with US horror stories. Nice try, left wing radicals. There's nothing like the cover of anonymity, is there?
re nmbg...Buddy, I am anything but a left wing "Radical" we have a very conservative government in Canada, you probably do not see that on your fox news do ya? Did ya really read my post ??? re sadigie, cause they are 12 th generation penn dutch they built America...open your eyes, do the both of you really not know anybody who has lost there livelihood to insurance companies??? so sad. FYI its not just Canada that has public health but most of the developed world... On another note I love America and Americans I do not want to see this downward spiral continue..face it your country has become corrupt ...Health care is not about politics, its not about left or right , its about not getting ripped off by corporations...
yeah
Yes, but you drive them so very slowly... grrr!!! ;p.
I have Stage IV cancer and have been pondering exactly what this article is about. The financial impact on my family will be my top priority in deciding how long to treat the disease. The stress of knowing what prolonged treatment will do to my family's quality of life has a direct, negative impact on my own quality of life. And it is sad that in most other industrialized countries I would not be faced with this dilemma.
This is an issue that is very close to me. I've had brain cancer since 2002 - maybe even longer because my doctors have told me that with the particular type of tumor I had it could have been growing for decades. As I look back in time I recall certain indicators but nothing stands out as a definitive symptom. When this all began I had very, very good insurance. Now I have only Medicare, and that is because I'm on SS disability due to the risk of seizures. Getting the disability and subsequent Medicare took forever. I was denied the first time I applied - so I hired a lawyer to help me. He told me that virtually all claims are rejected at least once, and many of them twice. It took years before the SS was approved. When it was approved the date was set to the present day, which meant that I would have to wait an additional year for Medicare benefits. Finally, I went before a judge who had the good sense to set the disability date for when I truly became disabled - and I had "instant" Medicare. While all of this was going on (4+ years) we were losing everything we had worked all of our lives for. I have accumulated $25K in medical debt. Our credit score is so low that we can't even get a loan for a cheap used car. The oral chemotherapy was $6000.00 a month and I was on it for 12 months. The only way I was able to get this drug was the drug company provided it to me at no cost! I am so grateful. My prognosis is excellent, and I hope to be around to see my grandchildren grow up.
Are you saying that the money grubbing, greedy, willing to let Americans die for profit pharmaceutical company provided free medication for those in need? No! Say it Ain't So!!
Glad to hear you're on the path to recovery. It sounds like the disability system needs to be reformed.
Sorry Apples but "it ain't so".
As I've been through the same problems with cancer and the disability system for myself and my daughter, the problems with Medicare that Debra experienced are not due to government healthcare, rather they are due to the underfunding of the disability system. The 29 month restriction is due to financial constraints as is the first time rejection of claims. I'm surprised she experienced a delay as their is a "fast track" system for fatal diseases that worked very well for me without any delay.
The "free drugs" from the Pharma companies are usually subsidized by The American Cancer Society or as in my case, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
What? You mean the emergency room republicans always point to as proof that anyone in America can get medical care doesn't do chemotherapy and long term cancer treatment? It's almost like they were deliberately ignoring facts.
Shocking.
Cancer is generally a disease of the very young or the very old. The young (under 21) can receive insurance through the government. The old receive Medicare. Both obtain coverage. So, for the most part, the vast majority of Americans with cancer actually receive their medication via their insurance...Perhaps you should use a different example?
Someday, someone will have to grow the hair to take on the Doctors, who graduate from medical school and feel entitled to be wealthy; the insurance companies that make obscene profits to pay their execs milliions while their policy holders are denied coverage; and the drug companies that take all their huge profits from America and sell the same drugs for much less in other countries.... The Medical System needs a complete overhaul !!?? you bet it does.
The only reason the pharma companies sell drugs for less in other countries is those countries negotiate bulk rates. The U.S. government, in it's vast wisdom, choose to outlaw such negotiations. I'd blame the government for that, not the insurance company.
I think anyone who goes to additional school for 12+ years and incurs hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt is entitled to make a really good living. I don't have my MD and I make 6-figures. Why then shouldn't a physician who spent more time and money on their education make more than me?
In this country, the only way that middle-class & working poor can afford to have cancer is to commit a crime so that you can be covered through the government. The insurance companies ration a patient's care, the government turns its back and even the cancer research conglomerates fail to provide any relief at all for patients (through no fault of their own) must suffer and die because this country lacks adequate medical treatment for its citizens.
Everyone seems to be making a lot of money off of cancer, from research companies to pharmaceutical companies and health insurance companies but fail to provide citizens with treatments that may save their lives and ensure a basic quality of life that only the wealthy can afford. Cancer means to most Americans losing everything and then some only to run out of money before succeeding in their battles; thereby losing their lives.
Who in government cares, Mitt Romney? No, he drastically cut medical care for the poor. Our legislature? No, they are dragging their feet on implementing funding for provisions in the Affordable Health Care act that could potentially save lives. State governments? No, they have had abysmal records on providing for their sick citizens.
--Families and patients with and without insurance suffer so much in this country compared to other countries. This is a cruel, cruel country and our government officials are at their worst in providing for the basic human right of decent health care.
Why? Why? Why?
Those representing us in congress should be ashamed of their personal lack of compassion and responsibility. We elected them to represent us in Congress NOT Wall Street or Dick Armey or the Koch brothers.
Even though many of us are diagnosed with cancer and lose everything because of this diagnosis, we must continue to pay for government that does not represent our interests.
Most cancer sufferers are Medicare recipients or very young on government/state funded health care. So explain to me where you obtained the numbers that:
No wonder healthcare is so expensive. Imagine using a service knowing that in the end you will not be paying them.
Not disputing. I'm disputing:
Cancer is generally, for a vast majority, a disease of the very old or the very young. There are tons of chronic diseases that affect the middle aged, working adults. Those diseases cause disability and loss of jobs which in tern cause a loss of medical insurance and eventual bankruptcy. Most health plans have yearly maximum out-of-pockets, so that if you can keep your job, the insurance will pay the majority of costs.
My wife has had Leukemia for 3 years. Even with really good insurance, we pay an average of $1,000 per month in co-pays, doctor visits, non-covered medications, etc. If we didn't have insurance, the hospitals would have billed us a total of $1.7 MILLION so far. The insurance company negotiated that down to a few hundred thousand. In order to get all the claims paid we have to spend 10-20 hours a month refiling paperwork, arguing with hospital and insurance company billing offices, etc. I have no idea how people without insurance would deal with this. We have great health care in America if you are wealthy and/or working but I'm terrified for those who aren't.
Rainbow Warrior--Eating "right" is no guarantee one might not get cancer or some other horrible disease. We need a system that will provide adequate medical care for EVERYONE, not just for a few lucky ones like that congressman who is trying his best to get rid of whatever lousy care many of us currently have. Americans need to wake up and look at "the best countries to live in" in the world. There is good reason America is not in the top 10. By the way, how much is that congressman paying for his and his family's health insurance and out of pocket medical care?
Yes...quite right! How could this have happened? Obama said he would "CHANGE" this. How could the 'Left' have not fixed this already?
I don't blame Obama. I blame the media,the religious pulpit, and the propaganda that it would make the USA a socialist nation and all the poor and middle class don't deserve medical care since this class getting sick is all their fault. I'm still shocked that so many Americans went along with this logic and voted the 'tea party' into office based on Healthcare Reform. I guess us middle class are just 'second class' citizens.
Cancer is very expensive. My Dad's two year battle with lymphoma? $1million. PFFFT! On my salary, it doesn't make sense to extend my life for two years at that cost! And please NO quality of life arguement, Dad was always sick, lost weight, treatment burned his skin and veins so bad he got blisters, his appetite, etc. etc. Thank goodness he didn't lose his sense of humor.
This a major issue. The last year of life medical expenses are extremely high. This is a major dilemna. Knowing death is certain within a short period of time do you go all out to keep it going? My father faced with certain death in a week chose treatment that would extend his life for an undetermined time. The treatment was very high risk, heart attack, but no treatment meant death within a week. When he thought death was certain he embraced it but when he found out there was an alternative that may give him time he chose that. A very expensive choice.
My wife has stage 3b breast cancer. Even with insurance we struggle with the co-pays. When the cancer center charges $18400.00 for a Nuelasta injection given the day after Chemo, you have to wonder what the heck is going on. A genetic test runs about $4000. and the many blood tests also run into the Thousands of dollars. You either pay for these drugs and tests and hospital stays or you die a nasty death.
It's sad so many make money off of anothers misery. Watching a loved one fight for her life is devastating. Add the additional stress of trying to pay for treatment, its a wonder anyone beats this disease.
Republicans Kill Poor People. You think that's hyperbole? Republicans (and, yes, some Democrats) block government-funded free health care for all because they represent the interests of the health industry profiteers it would harm. We get a compromise bill which does virtually nothing (the Foxwashed call it Obamacare and think it's going to result in death camps). People who can't afford life-saving medical care, who would receive care under a national heath plan, funded easily by marginally increasing taxes on the wealthy and corporations, die.
There is no such thing. There is universal health care, often funded through individual and business contributions. And there is single-payer health care, funded through individual and business contributions. And there is private health care, funded through businesses (for employees) with employee contributions... see a theme here? There is no such thing as Free health care... sorry..
The political parties have forgotten the people they represent, advocating and passing laws that skim money from all Americans. What ever happened to fair profit margins. The cost of these medicines seems to be the real death tax here in America. How can our corporations compete here when they do not pay for health or retirement benefits in the rest of the developed world, yet they act as if a single payer system would be socialist. We are being conned out of our money regardless of which side we think we are on. There is always money for a new weapon system, why not take care of our citizens , American citizens. How can we be proud of being Americans when only the wealthy are the "real Americans". We have lost our way some how.
We are spending 2 billion per week in Afghanistan alone. We are the most powerful nation on the planet. Why so much "defense" spending. Seems we are spending this money to prove how afraid we are here in America. I am tired of being afraid. Where does it end. By attacking each other we are dividing the country, steadily weakening the influence of America both Globally and in terms of having any sort of moral high ground. We need to start a war on hate here at home and give us all some peace and hope, that would get the economy moving.
I read all the comments and was shocked at how much it costs a patient with cancer. I've always have thought that we as a country we don't help the sick. I know most Republicans are christians but I'm not sure how GOD will judge them for their greed.
Many Americans feel they have a God given right to all the gasoline they want to consume and at prices they feel are reasonable. Why its almost as if it was written in the Constitution. Yet, when it comes to affordable health care, they can't get past ideology. We need a single payer system. Sooner or later, this idea will be widely embraced by many more people as all of us, insurance or not, struggle to pay for care.
We need universal health care, not a single-payer system. There is a distinct difference. The best systems in the world (France, Germany, etc) have universal health care, not single-payer. Some of the worst (UK, Canada) have single-payer. Canada is marginally better ranked than the US. Why would we overhaul our entire system for 300+million people to be ranked 2-3 countries higher, when we could be at the top?