By Karen Ignagni
updated 9:09 AM EDT, Mon July 7, 2014
Editor's note: Karen Ignagni is president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, a trade group for the health insurance industry. She directed the AFL-CIO's Department of Employee Benefits and was a professional staff member on the U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee and worked at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- Health care experts recently gathered at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to discuss the public health crisis of hepatitis C, which is ravaging communities across America, and the budding hope that we may soon be able to eliminate it with a prescription medicine called Sovaldi.
Hepatitis C, a chronic, potentially fatal liver disease, afflicts more than 3 million Americans. Solving the hepatitis C epidemic is a goal we should all embrace, which is why health plans are hard at work identifying at-risk patients so they can be screened and receive necessary treatment.
A recent analysis found that senior citizens on Medicare Part D could see premiums as much as 8% higher next year because of the price of this one drug. And it's been projected that California's Medicaid spending on Sovaldi and the accompanying drugs could potentially outpace what the state spends in a year on K-12 and secondary education combined.
"At $1,000 per pill, Sovaldi costs $84,000 for a single course of treatment, and well over $100,000 when combined with other medications."
High-priced drugs are not a new phenomenon. Drug makers have long used monopolies to inflate prices. But the trend with so-called specialty drugs is a game changer. Startling as the price of Sovaldi is, it's just the canary in the coal mine...
Read the complete article here....
Related: Reducing the cost of new hepatitis C drugs
Check out our index of articles discussing the high price of Solvadi.
Check out our index of articles discussing the high price of Solvadi.
More insurance propaganda.
ReplyDeleteHepatitis C is as serious as a heart attack or stroke and should be treated as such. HCV related infections are the leading cause of liver transplantations and a number of other issues including death. Insurance companies all want to trivialize the seriousness of HCV, despite the fact that they have known that the blood supply was infected for years even before it was tested, people were being infected for years before guidelines were even issued and for years, more research and treatment spending was made on HIV/AIDS related conditions compared to HCV despite the fact that HCV infects ten times the numbers of people than HIV/AIDS. Its time to have a serious discussion on how to prioritize the treatment of HCV infected patients. Perhaps less should be spent on Stroke or Heart Attack treatments in lieu of HCV related treatments?
ReplyDeleteThank you both for taking the time to comment. I just learned today that a dear lady who has treated the virus three times, achieved SVR!!! I met her online some fifteen years ago, for her this disease is life threating, she has cirrhosis. What a miracle! I think because HCV progresses slowly, it is considered a benign disease, not true. However, with improved awareness, that too over time may continue to change.
ReplyDeleteAlways Tina