As a cancer patient, I totally agree with this.

[dixiegrrrrl]

Now that I have seen the prices for the "treatment" for cancer...the expensive tests, out of sight outrageous prices of medicines,.and the laws which have been passed so that we cannot have legal access to inexpensive drugs from plants or from other countries.

[Fast Walker 52]

1. sadly true, and sorry to hear about your cancer

[madamesilverspurs]

2. Right there with you.

Dammit.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

3. I'm sorry.

I think this country should try to copy countries with more reasonable costs and universal coverage.

The last I heard, Germany still has doctors that make house calls! Recalling an NPR report from years ago, and without looking it up again, I also think their health insurance costs were a percentage of everyone's income. Around 8% maybe?

That means wealthy people in Germany pay more than they'll likely get in return... but they're wealthy anyway, for crying out loud! It's not like a percentage takes away all incentive to earn more! The same applies in this country, but our government is obviously more controlled by wealthy interests.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. In Japan, doctors HAVE to be non-profit.

Health is considered a right of the people...


As an aside, my dog's vet made a housecall, cause he knew I could not wrangle the beast into the car for a trip to his office.
I was impressed.
Fact is he passes my house on the way to his house,,,

[Buckeye_Democrat]

10. What a nice vet!

Yeah, this country doesn't need to reinvent the wheel. Since you mentioned Japan, that's a country that didn't mind being copycats of others in the past... picking the ideas and technologies that seemed to work best.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. *hugs*

[jehop61]

5. So true

Best of luck and much success in fighting your disease.

[malaise]

6. And this will not be taken seriously and discussed on M$Greedia

who take ads from Big Pharma, Big Hospitals and the lawyers who sue them

[rurallib]

7. regret that I can only rec this once

Sorry to hear about your cancer and wish you the best for a full recovery.
A lot of folks here really appreciate your posts.

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. If we do nothing else, I would love to see, a concentrated move towards REAL health CARE

Maybe take a chunk of that 50 plus % of the Fed. Budget for helping people survive even ordinary illnesses??

the only reason I am doing well at the moment is I found an incredibly cheap way to get my needed meds.
I used skills I have learned in my career and I know not many people know how to find these resources and use them.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028225692


Study after study after study shows Cannoboids are effective cancer fighters
plus quite a few other plant based drugs ( Boswallia....look THAT up)
and until we get the Big pharma pimps out of Congress
there will continue to be millions of families in needless medical debt, or worse.

[Ohioblue22]

9. American Medical mafia. I love it

[tonyt53]

12. That is why "medical tourism" is thriving. Good luck to you. I was lucky and mine was found early.

[Lifelong Protester]

13. Every time I see a drug ad on TV I seethe

that ANYONE is profiting from illness is obscene.

[Warpy]

14. You've got it all wrong. Healthy people are the cash cows

since they faithfully pay their premiums but make little demand on the system. A lot of hospitals either own or are heavily invested in for profit health insurance.

Your other points? Oh, yeah, legal access to drugs from plants (if they work, those are drugs) or medications from other countries (well do laetrile and thalidomide ring any bells?) and I can assure you that they won't be any cheaper and might be a hell of a lot more toxic.

I agree that drug pricing has become a racket and government regulation is desperately needed. Beyond that, I'm afraid there are just no easy fixes. Cancer treatment is horrible and costly. However, trial and error has shown what is most likely to work.

Main line medications are cheaper in other countries because those countries have national health systems that require pharmaceutical companies to submit bids to get their drugs into that country's formulary. That's what keeps those prices so much lower than ours.

[moonscape]

23. Yes, their national health systems, but also

the reality is that the US, through the enormous prices we pay, supplement those prices.

The USA is Big Pharma's cash cow, and if we paid what other did, it would result in overall upwards price pressure globally, which would be far more equitable.

One of my oral cancer meds is 8K for 14-day supply. That's not as high as a couple others I'll be in for at inevitable relapse. The IV ones are also obscene, but covered differently when administered at oncologist office. Thankfully, I have insurance and there are foundations that help with enormous co-pay over time (based only on having no more income than 500% of poverty level - they don't care about assets.) Ironically, Big Pharma is the major funder of these foundations because if they didn't, many peeps couldn't afford the life-saving drugs that insurance pays the lion's share of. For those without insurance, I think the drug companies offer assistance, but one must be nearly indigent to get help since they have then to cover all the expense and demand people bleed themselves to financial death first.

So obscene.

[dixiegrrrrl]

25. Moonscape...please check these out.

I am getting my expensive meds for pennies on the dollar.


goodrx.com DOES work, PLUS after your first prescription, all your refills are plugged into the computer at the same low price.
I got my doc to prescribe a 30 day supply, tried it out at one drug store, paid 20.00 for 244.00 worth of meds.
Then I asked him to give me a 90 day supply, printed off another coupon, took it to the pharmacy listed, and got 90 meds for something
like 30.00.
I just re-filled the 30 day script for 20.00. So for less than 100.00 I have 5 months of my cancer drug.

Even if you have insurance, it is sometimes cheaper to do it this way instead of using deductible and co-pay.


Also...check out needymeds.org which has a list of other ways to get seriously cheap meds.

[moonscape]

27. Thanks. I know about those resources, but unfortunately they

aren't cheaper than what they are through insurance. For example, 14 day supply for the med I mentioned at goodrx.com is 8.5K.

However, I'm fortunate that between insurance and foundations for the huge co-pay, I've been covered.

[Warren DeMontague]

15. and if you grow your own pot plant, you can enjoy being sick--- in prison.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2014/07/09/dying-iowan-facing-prison-after-drug-conviction/12416687/

[Jopin Klobe]

16. Your money ...

... AND your life ...

?182e3e

[Moostache]

18. Entering year 9 post-diagnosis and cancer-free.

I was extremely lucky that my bout with Renal Cell Carcinoma was accidentally discovered in Stage 1 and while the tumor was 100% encapsulated. Surgically removed and cancer-free for nearly a decade. I know how lucky I was because many renal carcinomas are not detected until symptoms appear and that is usually late-stage 4 and terminal as the symptoms are actually problems caused by metastatic spread of the tumors.

I wish you all the best in your treatment and encourage you that no matter what stage or type you have, there is always hope. Best wishes...

For health care the answer can't be found until we stop asking the wrong questions...the wrong questions are "How do we maintain private insurance?" and "How do we protect pharmaceutical profits?" Healthcare is a universal RIGHT and those questions are fundamentally about privilege. Health "insurance" is the biggest rip-off ever imposed on the people of this country and the rest of the civilized world already figured this out decades ago. Churchill was right, we Americans have to try every wrong answer before we can eventually get to the right one...

[DFW]

19. My wife had cancer the first time 15 years ago. She had the whole program

Two operations, chemo, radiation, and a month's rehab at a spa for cancer patients in the Black Forest (considered as a standard part of cancer treatment where we live).

It took the better part of a year. It cost us............nothing. She is a German citizen and was covered by her local insurance. It has its ugly downside, of course, but it has its good points, too.

[dixiegrrrrl]

21. I am SO happy for you and for your lovely wife...

The treatment process is very rough.

Thank god she did not have worries about money to pay for it on top of the stress of treatment.

[DFW]

22. It WAS rough

She was in the hospital for five weeks just for the operations, and the chemo was brutal. They said that women who had little or no body fat had a much worse time of it, and she is very slender (5'10" and weighs about 130). She said it was horrible. Then six weeks of radiation. The month at the spa was great, she said. Aquatic retraining for muscles, guided walks in the forest for air and strength, etc. It took a year of her life away, although it has given her 15 years she might not have had otherwise.

[dixiegrrrrl]

26. Thank you for that info about body fat.

90% of breast cancers are estrogen dependent, and body fat, esp. in breasts, contains estrogen even in post-menopausal women.
So the drug I take is to reduce estrogen in my body, even tho I am post menopausal.

I rejected chemo, and if in future I need to re-visit the idea, it is always good to know what others have learned.

Then there is the whole subject of how the family copes during treatment....do they have support for that where you are?

[DFW]

28. We took no outside counseling

I don't even know if there was any offered. But our family was already very supportive. My younger daughter was torn because she had just been accepted into a high school in the States in a place that was literally halfway around the world from us (on the Big Island of Hawai'i). Twelve time zones--go any farther and you start to come back the other way. My wife had to tell her she should go anyway, as it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and she did, though with some misgivings. My wife also has a very tight circle of friends, and she was never without support even when I was gone. As it is, I reduced my punishing travel schedule as best I could without taking a temporary leave of absence. She was never lonely nor alone, and I'm sure that helped. As it turns out, now, after 15 years cancer-free, they have discovered "something" that doesn't look right, and with her family history of cancer, they are taking no chances, so we are having the "something" removed on Friday. I'm heading back for Germany tomorrow (in Dallas now). We hope we don't have to go through it all again.

[dixiegrrrrl]

30. I got to learn a lot about different genetic tests

but since I have no daughters, that concern was not an issue.
however, there is now a test for the patient to determine if chemo will be more, or less, likely to be effective vs. risk of side effects.

Germany, and France, use herbs for treating certain problems, and I just want to scream about our bass akward system here.

Crossing fingers for you and your lady..........

[DFW]

33. Hoping mightily we don't have to go through it again

We'll know soon, next week at the latest. Thanks for your positive thoughts!

[Iggo]

24. Ain't no money in the cure. It's all about the come-back.

(Thank you, Chris Rock.)

[area51]

29. It's long past time for the US to become civilized,

and recognize health care as a basic human right.

single payer

[Orrex]

31. One supposes that no one anywhere in the industry has any loved ones

None, at least, who've ever suffered illness.

The assertion that the medical industry is deliberately choosing not to cure cancer strikes me as myopic and untenable.

Rather cold-blooded of them to say "Yes, I'd like my child to die of leukemia so that I can make another boat payment." I mean, in this history of modern cancer treatment, has no member of the medical industry ever lost a child and then subsequently broken ranks to go public to blow the lid off of this conspiracy?


Believe me, I sympathize, and I frankly have very similar ideas about dentistry. Also, the criminally astronomical prices inflicted by the pharmaceutical industry are grossly immoral but not, in themselves, proof of an effort to avoid curing illness.

[Solly Mack]

32. I was very fortunate to have 100% coverage for my cancer surgery/treatment.

I saw the final bill and I have a million dollar cure. They sent itemized bills even though I paid nothing. I was shocked and appalled at the price of every little thing.

Now in retirement, I pay a very small co-pay for continued follow-ups and I pay nothing as long as those follow-ups are at a military hospital, to include medicines. I get this coverage for under 600.00 a year - and that price is for an entire family.

I don't know how anyone without insurance (or under-insured) does it and I wish everyone in America had my coverage.

I am so sorry that on top of cancer and all the stress associated with it, you have the added stress of worrying about any bills. That shouldn't be in America - it shouldn't be like that anywhere. People should not have to be wealthy to be well. Healthcare should be a right.

It really is the civilized thing to do.