Why should a person have to be concerned about the cost of their health care?
As most of you know I had surgery for cancer in November and if you saw me today you would not know that I had cancer removed and will be taking a special treatment for the rest of my life. I look very healthy and am very healthy now. They got all the cancer and to prevent new cancer from growing I have to take a special injection every 3 weeks for the rest of my life. The drug is a sandostatin drug and it is called Octreotide.
Do you know what this injection costs? Are you ready? $7,723.80 each injection every 3 weeks! I am in shock. My insurance has a $5,000.00 deductible that I have to meet first. None of this is a typo.
I am thankful there is such a drug but does it have to be so expensive? How can the pharmaceutical companies sleep at night knowing that most people cannot afford this and don't have insurance?
I am trying to find some kind of assistance to help me with the $5,000.00 deductible. Does anybody know where a person might go? I do think our Health Care programs need an overhaul, what do you think?
You are so right, this is crazy! I do agree with you, as I have taken some of those pricey drugs for thyroid cancer treatment. Scary, it's really, really scary. Do you go to the cancer center in Mason for your shot? You could ask them where a person might go for $$ help- that's outrageous, isn't it? Somebody is making a lot of money~ Just think of the people that don't get the treatment that you have received? Many don't get it because they have no insurance and deductible to meet.
ReplyDeleteThat is a really incredible price, probably one of the highest I've ever seen. It figures that you'd have to be on that versus, say, aspirin, right? :)
ReplyDeleteMy current job is at a pharmaceutical plant and it's given me great insights into the process of making drugs. New, cutting-edge, and experimental drugs I can completely understand why they are so expensive -- the process is very lengthy, 5-7 years from design till they can sell it to the public, and that's only if you get it right the first time (which doesn't always happen); the equipment to make it is very expensive (one "pot" to make drugs in costs ~$2 million or so); and the ingredients can be unbelievable (several drugs we make take ingredients that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a kilogram). So, I get the costs involved. Yes, some of it goes to corporate profits and marketing and all that jazz, but it's not a cheap business to be in by any means.
But I DO agree with healthcare reform, mostly to make sure that those folks that get sick not of their own volition get the assistence they need -- you certainly didn't ASK to get cancer -- no matter what the treatment might be. As so many have said, there's no reason anyone should go broke because they got sick. That is the overriding principle to follow.
Good luck! I don't have any inspiration on finding funding sources, but hopefully one will crop up somewhere.