How to Mend a Sick System

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Don't get me wrong. It's not that I feel guilty about living. But it's unconscionable that we have a health-care system where people are denied the treatment they need because they can't afford it. I've talked to Sens. Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (they're my friends and really concerned about this issue) and anyone else who will listen about how we can fix the problem. It's not an easy thing to do. Senator Kennedy told me that last year he'd invited some pharmaceutical companies to discuss voluntary solutions to the problem of soaring drug costs. Only half showed up. "They're not interested," he told me. "No, it's not that they're not interested," I said, "it's that they're getting away with it." It amazes me that in Italy, you can buy drugs for a fraction of what they cost here. Why? Because Italy and many other countries regulate the price of drugs. Yet here in the United States, consumers and insurers are subsidizing those cheap drugs by paying high prices to the pharmaceutical companies. That's not fair.

Yes, I understand that research is expensive. But most of it is being done, at least for multiple myeloma, by incredible doctors, like Ken Anderson and his team at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who get dribs and drabs in grants out of the $250 million authorized by Congress during those 2001 hearings. I'm glad the drug companies are making a profit. That's the American way. But I do want them to understand that the way they are doing it is killing our health-care system, and lots of Americans are dying prematurely and unnecessarily.

If there's one thing I'd like to be able to do as a result of my having cancer, it's to use it as a springboard to help fix our health-care system. I don't have an answer for how to achieve that goal. But I do know that unless we talk openly about the ailment, we will never find a remedy. If my disease has taught me anything, it's that the price of silence is too high.

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Posted By: bill3610@hotmail.com @ 12/02/2007 12:36:32 PM

I am a teacher in West Virginia and have PEIA insurance, yes having insurance is great and I am lucking that most of my costs have been covered. But after the treatment I received in West Virginia, my wife and I decided that it would be to our benefit to go to West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh. The doctors in Pittsburgh have extensive backgroung dealing with Multple Myelomia and the best treatment options. Well, my insurance company want to charge me $10,000.00 because I am going out of their loop and attempting to get the best treatmenta available. So, eventhough you have insurance coverage you don't always get the opurtunity for the best care. Of cource I'll find a way to be able to pay the extra penalty.
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Posted By: csedgewood @ 11/08/2007 1:47:41 AM

I don't understand why the drug companies would be upset with Universal Health Care. People would be living longer and healthier lives, because more of the population would be using their drugs, and they would realize the profit from longer usage and more usage. It would also be less costly to the populace. It would be an initial outlay up front for a few years, but cost effective after that. The doctors should be happy; they'd be seeing more patients, more often, at a profit for them also.
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Posted By: bikingmary15 @ 11/07/2007 9:45:30 AM

The answer to the health care problem is embedded in Geraldine Ferraro???s article and her statement...."People who have insurance....get the treatment they need". The solutions do not lie in government run health care systems....ask anyone on Medicare or Medicaid if they happy with their coverage. The solutions lie in everyone having medical insurance.
The government needs to regulate insurance companies and mandate that insurance coverage cannot be denied. Insurance companies simply need to spread the high risk individuals across the various companies, and everyone will still make money! Health care insurance should not be tied to employment???..one should be insured because you are a citizen of the United States, period! Government might help purchase insurance coverage for the very poor of our citizens.
Government should also regulate pharmaceutical companies as well as companies that produce health care equipment. Price controls or laws that mandate ethical mark-ups of profit on a product or drug are necessary. A drug or product sold in Canada, Mexico or USA should have similar costs!