Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comFairer access to medicines, balancing value of a few extra months of life versus expensive treatments needed, experts say
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Can someone explain to me WHY treatment costs so much?
I understand there are R&D costs for new treatments, but when I hear about the massive profits drug companies make every year, and how much less expensive it is to get some treatments in other countries, I can't help but wonder what in the heck is wrong with us.
Medicine is done for the sake of wall street. Everybody gets a cut. There are so many fingers in the pie, most or nearly all who have nothing to do with care. It is a broken system, run by common criminals, and protected by exceptional criminals.
I don't know the breakdown of what drugs are the big earners. I'm going to guess it is the widely used drugs, things like depression, cholesterol, and heart burn for example.
As a supporter of free markets and private ownership of the means of production, I must also say that those principles are not perfect, just the best long term fit for the with the many aspects of human psychology.
However there is no "free market" if the consumer faces loss of health, quality of life, or loss of life itself. There is a veritable "mine field" of issues when decisions about these issues are made. And unfortunately voters don't want the truth, they want to elect people who claim that there is money enough for everyone to receive the most advanced possible treatments available. This will eventually lead to increasing roll of government in health care, but will bring costs down as purported. Unless private citizens and institutions get together and make a hard push to change consumer expectations, there is no happy ending on the horizon. It will end with nationalized not health care for most people and "exporting" of health care to other countries for wealthy people.
I've had my own health issues, and am definitely nervous about the future of care, especially when employment looks shaky, and there will be no employment after retirement.
Everyone is talking abou the treatment costs, but why the rapid increase in cancer cases? Shouldn't we focus on finding the reasons and preventing them? Seems to me that would be a lot cheaper than these expesive treatments that extend life a few months.
My guess, Dave, is to just read the above sentence while replacing the word cost with "profits."
Dave, many of reasons behind the rapid rise in cancer ARE known. They include water and air pollution, the unregulated use of toxic chemicals in consumer goods, cigarette smoking, and diet.
Any attempts to address these sources is adamantly opposed by some in Congress - mostly under the guise of "job-killing regulation" or "government intrusion in our personal lives."
One has to wonder why.
Dave
Many people died of other ailments in the past at younger ages that modern medicine have drastically reduced. We no longer live in a world where only the strongest survive.
The Primary cause in the increase in Cancer is Aging. As we live longer, the probability of genetic mutation increases. Basically Cancer is your own cells having mutated. Different mutations, different types of Cancer. Over a 150 types.
Mutations can also be caused by our environment. Chemicals in your deodorants, food, water, air fresheners, burning candles, etc... Smoking has declined, but lung cancer has increased. This may be from homes being more air tight. This allows Radon gas to build up. How bad depends on where you live. Radon is a product of natural earth decay. Some people are predisposed to these mutations & certain chemicals or exposures may cause these mutations to happen sooner rather then later.
The bottom line is if you live long enough, you will succumb to Cancer regardless of what your exposed to.
Many like to blame Air quality & may partly be to blame, However Air quality in the U.S. has drastically improved in the last 70 years. This improvement has actually caused asthma problems to increase. Was a time when everyone had wood, coal, or oil burners for heating their homes & asthma problems were much less prevalent even thou the air was much dirtier. Researches speculate that early exposure in those days actually built a tolerance to these things. Kind of like being vaccinated. The more sterile we make our environment, the less tolerance we build up. The weaker our species becomes while bacteria & so-forth becomes stronger from our sterilizing assaults. Nature at work...
Can someone explain to me WHY treatment costs so much?
Because we have medical insurance, Medicaid, and Medicare. The cost of health care is inappropriately spread across broad pools. So stupid decisions are made because they are buried in the insurance pool. Who whould spend $100,000 for a prostate treatment that adds a couple of months to your life. No one who is not a billionaire is the answer. But because of health care insurance these rediculous costs are destroying health care for everyone.
Was treated for tonsil cancer 2 years ago. Insurance was charged $525,000.00 and I had over 20K in expenses not covered by insurance. Cancer treatment is not cheap even for conventional treatments like chemo, radiation and surgery.
If you are in the Tea Party you say let them all die. :) So much for being a compassionate and caring country. We are turning narcissistic as a country.
I hate this argument. You don't seem to have any problem forcing our children and grandchildren into poverty with enormous deficits but you seem to have no problem spending 80% of all health care costs to keep people alive in their final year of life. I say the compassionate thing to do is make them comfortable and let them die rather than bankrupting our country and trowing our decedents into poverty.
I believe it was a liberal-supported assisted-suicide law passed in Oregon that actually offered a cancer patient suicide drugs as opposed to expensive cancer treatments. The law was opposed by Republicans.
Found the reference:
Back your statement.
The only reason that any medical treatments are "unsustainable" is purely by allowing said treatments to cost what they do. This is classic price gouging, but only a wholely evil scale.
People will do ANYTHING (generally) to keep their lives. Pay any price. But that does not mean that those treatments are actually worth that amount, nor should they be charged that by any one deigning to be a "healthcare provider." Making profits off medical treatments is the highest form of evil and morally reprehensible.
There are a number of ways we could tackle this:
and the number of those dead will increase.
This is a prelogue to death panels. ( not your statement but the intent of the article,at least as I see it.)After seeing the changes in our own country the last 30-40 years,this idea of panels is not that extreme.
What happened to community not-for-profit medical facilities? (example: county hospitals) Perhaps we need to get these started again.
Bright young medical students that wouldn't have a prayer of getting through medical school because of no funds could man these hospitals for x amount of years. For doing this, student loans could be paid off. AMA dr rationing be damned.
JJ, you're absolutely right that if the gov. has anything to do with the research and development of a drug, it should not have anywhere close to the same price tag as that developed only by a drug co. Our public universities along with students getting federal aide are putting a lot of work into these drugs, and we're not getting our money's worth.
Also, lets face it, we're mortal folks. I guess I'm not big on 80 year olds getting $100,000 treatments. Maybe I'm strange, but i think it would be rather crazy if everything I have ever worked and saved for in my life, goes to a hospital or nursing home (instead of my kids and grandkids) just so I can live another few days, months, years.
I often hear similar quotes when talking about health care costs. This is an invalid question. The alternative to having the difficult debates and making hard choices is not a hope that it turns out fine. It will not turn out fine. The trajectory is set, we need to make the difficult choices to promote fare and effective use of our health care dollars or we will see the collapse of the health care industry. We cannot provide free unlimited health care coverage for every American whether we implement ObamaCare or not. We have to make fair and reasonable decisions about who should get which treatments. If you don't quality for a treatment then you either pay for it yourself or you don't get it. It is logical, necessary, and fair.
And Dr. Kevorkian should be allowed to continue his work. If I choose not to go through the horrible treatments for cancer and the pain meds have stopped working. I should also have the choice to end it all in my own way as peacefully as possible.
Dr Kevoirkian passed away this year.
What is the point of spending $100,000 just to live another few months?
Forget it. Your family and your community need that money in order to have a sustainable community.
Make yourself a living will and in it tell everyone that you do not want things like resuscitation, feeding tubes, etc. The medical industry will gladly spend your money, your childrens money, your grandchildrens money trying to keep you alive. DON'T LET THEM !!
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Kate, Well, it's tough to say for sure, but one of the most prominent studies of its kind showed that the average cost to discover, design, and bring a new drug to market was around 802 MILLION dollars per drug, although that was way back in 2003 ( K. Health Econ 2003;22[2]:151-85). That doesn't count ongoing cost of production each year. If a drug cost is set at a ridiculous $100,000 and even if 50% of that cost is pure profit, that's still like over 16,000 drug courses required just to make back the initial investment. Many of these cancers don't occur all that often, and cancer drugs are usually tailored to help only a small subset of each cancer type, making it potentially take years even in the best situation to make back even the initial investment - assuming nothing better comes along, in which case your entire investment could just be lost. Like it or not, drug development is a numbers game...
Josephus, I understand that it cost a lot to develop a new drug. The problem, I think, is that the drug companies themselves often have not paid all of that cost. In many cases, your tax dollars and donations have been used to conduct research at universities, only to turn the patent over to whatever drug company is involved when it is approved.
This problem would be solved very quickly if the FDA approved new cancer medicines on safety data alone, then let the specialists determine what works best. That would cut 99% of the development cost, and the market would quickly see a lot of affordable medicines. It would also allow specialists to try combinations of things currently unavailable, where a good scientific argument exists for why the combination should work. Currently, this is completely impossible even in a clinical trial.
that is not feasible Krakondack there would be no protection from the myriad of lawsuits that would surely follow in this sue-happy nation
In a real economy everything has to be budgeted. For the USA to spend 17% of GDP on healthcare doesn't help our global competitiveness against countries spending half that rate. Astronomical expenditures for endless foreign interventions in remote Islamist civil wars is also completely noncompetitive. Someone with a brain needs to sit down and work out a budget for the USA that makes at least some sense, or we will all be living in mud huts eventually.
Why don't they find a cure and offer it for sale instead of blowing the research money and grants on overhead and administrative fees.
Because that would mean they would make less money.
"Overhead and admin. fees" At the end of each year, with employer sponsored health programs, employers are provided with a statement reflecting the premiums paid, claims paid and other costs. In general, the overhead and admin. costs are close to or exceed claims paid. These overhead and admin. costs are what the insurance company payer itself-either to an internal cost center or a subsidiary corporation-to act, simply stated, as file clerks for themselves. It is high profit and not related to claims. Some might say it is a job creating endeavor but is it a job creating endeavor that has a healthy economic result?
Tobacco use is the most preventable cause of cancer...along with all of the disease, loss of productivity, and death caused by cancer. Put money into preventing tobacco use - there are many tried and true strategies -- and the rate of cancer in the population will decrease.
I'm a cancer survivor now for five years. But in the future you can look to ObamaCare and we see what? The rationing that was predicted. It has to be. It exists in Canada and the UK. What about the US is so different that rationing or the badly-named "Death Panels" will not exist?
Explain it to me. I'm a lawyer who has been in the insurance industry for 40 years. Explain how ObamaCare suspended the law of supply and demand and other economic laws as well.
If you are wealthy--you soon will be able to live "forever". If you ain't rich? So sorry, charlie...
They really say it: "There should be fair prices and real value from new technologies."
"Fair" prices with "real value" : TRANSLATION => we want the same innovation but we aren't willing to pay market prices for it => EFFECT => more migration of scientists to financial and other industries.
There is this disconnect between life at any cost yet no one wants to pay for it. We want to ban abortions but sure as hell don't want to pay for the unwanted children. We oppose a person's right to die in terminal cases due to morality, yet we don't want to pay for their care. We are expecting hospitals to prolong life at high costs even if it's for weeks and even if the patient is suffering or is a vegetable.
My mother summed it up perfectly: Many of these debts are absorbed by the hospitals. How many families would be harassing the doctor to keep their terminally ill grandma alive for a few more weeks if they had to pay even $ 100.00 a day to do so. ($100.00 wouldn't even be a drop in the water for the real costs to keeping them alive longer.)
Reality is the vast amount of health care costs come from geriatrics, who will always have more medical issues, but less money to deal with them. They also make up a huge voter base.
It's a mess, and likely will always be a mess, unless something drastic changes.
Coming to an ObamaCare death panel near you.
Bring back the Death Panels now!!
If you search around, you'll discover that there are alternative doctors getting better results with cancer patients than they get using chemo and other expensive drugs. Why doesn't the cancer industry investigate these options? BECAUSE THERE'S NOT ENOUGH PROFIT. Instead, they try to drive the alternatives out of business, by any means possible.
One reason for the rise in cancer cases is that people are living longer. As you get older, your risk of cancer increases.
This actually makes sense. :)
And who decides when to start or stop treatment?
Patients and families ultimately decided whether or not to even start treatment. And they decide when to stop treatment. You'd be surprised how many times doctors have advised to stop treatment, even though they are accused of trying to drag things out to make more money.
My wife was a B.S.N. RN. She had very few cancer symptoms before she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. She had yearly mammograms and regular physicals. She was Diagnosed in April, 2000 and died in January, 2002. She opted for treatment only because I insisted. It was a completely emotional decision. She knew that she was terminal after the surgery. But I could not accept it. "The only resolution I can accept is a cure." is what I told her.
I regret that moment. The treatment was horrible. The medications battered her body and ravaged her. Had she gone without treatment, she would have lived fairly normally but with pain. The doctors assured us that they would manage her pain. The life she had with treatment may have been longer but it was a horror. If I could do it all over, knowing what I now know, we would have opted out of treatment in favor of supportive care.
Too many medical decisions are made by our emotions, rather than logic, reason, and foresight. I would advocate that cancer treatment be withheld when the chances of cure are zero. The only choice we had was to die in 6 months or die in 24 months.
Thank you for your excellent and very thoughtful post.
Oh come on people, we all know the reason for this don't we? Why is it that since the dawn of time doctors have always been wealthy. That's right. Because people will pay any price to stay alive. The medical profession has enriched itself beyond measure by exploiting this fear throughout the ages and they still do. So please, get used to the idea that they will screw you to the wall for every last cent they can scare out of you.
But why is it when a doctor recommends against treatment/halting treatment, people opt to continue? Please, talk to any ICU/ER nurse if you don't believe this.
I am a right lung cancer survivor now 5 yrs out. My last CT scan showed something on my left lung and I now need a PET/CT scan. I have been through the whole process of surgery, Chemo, and radiation treatments. Why is so much money given to the various cancer labs from government funds/grants and private donations to find a cure, only to be charged outrages prices for cancer care. It's like all the money the government got from the tobacco industry to help cancer victims. Where is that money going/gone? There should never be a person die from cancer simply because they have no money. The whole thought of that is criminal.
Cancer is big business. There are ways to avoid ever getting cancer. Our diet is a big part of the problem. Look at all the hormones in our food supply; poultry, cattle and pesticides are all sources.
Medical care is profit oriented not cure oriented, that's part of the problem.
Time for "single payer" medical coverage. We are the only industrialized nation without it. In the long term it would save money, not cost money(increased productivity, reduced bankrupcies, longer working lives).
So much thinking these days is of a short term nature. Too many people on their collective a$$es, watching DWTS and eating Twinkies. Get informed, write your congressperson, get involved!
This is inaccurate. The "hormones" in our food supply are present, whether we increase them or not. All multicellular organisms produce hormones. Bovine rBGH is FDA-approved. The quantity of these hormones ingested through food consumption is vanishingly small in comparison to what is naturally in your body.