A Cancer Drug Shows Promise, at a Price That Many Can't Pay

J-B
You could write a check for $60,000 and have it buried with you

Not to belabor a point, but check out below the average cost of a wedding today. For any of the gentlemen posting here who have daughters, yes, these are real figures....I know, it's culture shock.

2 years ago, we paid for 1/2 of my stepdaughters wedding, our half was $5,000. Believe me, a $10,000 wedding was VERY small. Did I feel this was ridiculous? Yes.

Relating this to the topic? Just showing how fast the money goes anyway. Future fathers of the brides....watch out, your little girl might be one of those who wants what they want.

Put on a Memorable Wedding without
Spending a Small Fortune:

(ARA) - A wedding is perhaps the most expensive endeavor many people will ever face. Some couples get lucky and the bride's parents agree to pick up all the expenses, but more often, the bride and groom are footing at least a portion of the bill themselves.

Once you start adding up the cost of invitations, the reception location, flowers, entertainment, food, the cake and mementos for your guests, the numbers can become astronomical. According to Bride's Magazine, the average cost of a wedding today can easily exceed $19,000.


The Average Cost For Wedding:

Invitations, Announcements, Thank You Notes, etc., $327

Bouquets and Other Flowers, $1,500.00

Videography, $1,311 and up based on demand, experience, features, etc.

Photography, $1,500 and up based on demand, experience, features, etc.

Music, $750.00 (based on 5 hours)

Clergy, $250.00 and up.

Limousine, $393.00 and up.

Attendants' Gifts, $308.

Wedding Rings (Bride and Groom), $1,016 and up.

Engagement Ring, $3,044 and up.

Bride's Wedding Dress, $823 and up depending on quality and designer.

Bride's Headpiece/Veil, $166

Bridal Attendants' Apparel (5 attendants), $790

Mother of the Bride's Apparel, $231

Groom's Formalwear (Rented), $95 and up.

Men's Formalwear (Ushers, Best Man), $449

Wedding Reception, $7,635 and up.

Grand Total $20,548 (amount will vary by state, and metro areas.)

Perhaps we need a thread re the high cost of weddings. It sounds like a topic well worth exploring.

This one, I thought, is about the high cost of a cancer drug...

Or I could donate it to any number of worthy causes including cancer research that might help find cures.

D'art - with all due respect....stop being so condecending to me.

I'm well aware of what this thread is about. Money and the cost of treatment.

If you have a problem with my style of communication, which is tying one subject to another by showing the similarities, then don't read my posts.

If you want to see why the connection was made, reread the posts. I hardly think someone as intelligent as you would need me to re-explain YET again why I am relating the two......I suppose I could start a thread on SUV's and pixie sticks too....if I was not relating it to the cost of a particular cancer treatment.

My wedding cost $500. My car is a 6 year old used Subaru. I don't smoke, drink or do anything that would put me in the high death risk category. I paid off my mortgage in 8 years with hardwork and simple living. Here's my crime - my husband and I own a small business and our household income is about $25,000 per year. My husband and I cannot afford health insurance. We make too much to qualify for state sponsored insurance and if we had catastrophic it would still be over $700 a month for the two of us.

Should we go back to school and become a lawyer, accountant or banker instead of running a environmental landscaping service? We have thought about it. We go to small business conferences. One of the main reasons many small businesses close is because of the health insurance issue. If you have children you have to have insurance. Not all people who need cancer cures are elderly.

The other insurance related problem is keeping employees. I have lost three good employees in a short period of time because I cannot offer health insurance. I pay too much for them to qualify for medicaid (unlike Walmart), so they usually go and work for places like Target or Lowes who pay a smaller wage than I do but offer benefits.

Health insurance is quickly becoming a luxury for the rich. I have no problem with drug companies making a profit, but it has gotten to the point that America's lack a of solid, fair health care policy is dragging us down economically and socially in the world.

Yes, the rich will always have it easier, but I think basic health care should not be a luxury item. We need to invest in this country and get rid of the attitude of "hey, I've got mine and the heck with everyone else".

Last winter my husband came down with bacterial pneumonia, his medicines and care cost $600. We have a savings put aside for such problems as this and we just paid the bill. I mentioned this to one of my literacy students who works as a truck driver - he mentioned he would have had to go into debt to pay a bill like that. That's our American health care system - the rich will be fine, the middle class will drown in debt and poor will just have to die. It doesn't have to be that way, it's a choice made by the people in power and the people who put them there.

I'm not saying there should be a free lunch, but if we all chipped in based on what we earn there would be enough for everyone to get some form of decent treatment.

Just imagine if instead of spending all our money in Iraq we had invested it in health care and other programs that actually help people...just imagine.

My apologies. I don't think I've been condescending to you before, but perhaps I was this time. I just get testy when our health care "system" is defended, I guess...

I understand where you're coming from GW (BTW at the risk of incurring D'art wrath, my wedding consisted of a private ceremony and breakfast at Dennys)

I am extremely fortunate I have good insurance benefits at work....one of the reasons I stay with this job.

I don't have an answer....you, as an individual are a smart woman and have done the right things to get where you are. But not everyone is as smart and accountable for yourself as you are.

What bother me (and what Phoenix mentioned) is this feeling of entitlement so many people have.

You, if you became ill, would do everything you could to pay as much as you can, and would deserve by your documented efforts to receive aid.

Others, who do not make a documented effort to carry as much weight as they can, can try to find help from their families, friends etc.
Personally, I don't feel the need for those who do nothing to help themselves to receive my tax dollars.

I hate it that someone who makes the same amount as you, but drinks, smokes, wastes money on garbage, should be given the same entitlement as you.

I hate all this PC bulldookey.



I'm very hard nosed about this.....If you honestly cannot physically or mentally make enough to contribute, you should get all the help you need.

The elderly who worked hard are entitled to a decent life.

I hate it the the elderly who were capable of doing more and instead sucked off entitlements get the same level as someone who busted their ass. And before anyone jumps my ass about the elderly, they are the people I've dealt with for probably half my career. Yes, I do know what it's like.

Who gets to determine who is entitled you might say? I don't have an immediate answer. I won't pretend to.

But I'm sure there are those who are qualified to do so.

Thank you D'art, I appreciate it.

I'm sorry too. I am a rambling woman.

I'm not trying to defend our health system so much as I'm irritated at the way whenever some new wonderful drug or technology or discovery comes out, there are those that want it, but with an unfair cost to them.

Yes, the rich have more. They either earned it someway or inherited.
If they inherited it, it's more likely it's because someone in their past was forward thinking enough to provide for their future generations. It's not something to feel guilty about.

I understand some simply don't have the ability to do well. It's the ones who refuse to try that get me.

I agree that there is no easy answer here.

I can't resist another example of the problem: A couple of years ago I went for the usual annual female exam which always involves a few lab tests. I asked the doctor's office manager how much the tests would be and she said about $275 for everything. I told her it was OK and to get the lab work done. A couple of weeks later I get a bill for over $800. I call the doctor's office and ask if there was a mistake. The doctor's office calls the lab and the lab calls me. According to the woman at the lab I was charged the "no insurance rate". She said since insurance companies do volume business with the lab they get a lower rate, and I, as an individual, pay top dollar. With a system like this no one except the insurance company wins.

On the other hand while traveling in Germany I noticed many people smoking and eating to the point that they are almost as fat as Americans. When I mentioned this to a friend who lives and works there she said there is little incentive to stay healthy because everything in the way of health care is guaranteed by the government.

Surely there must be some way to take the best of all known systems and turn these positives into a national health care program. Can't we learn from our own mistakes and those of others and come up with something that works better than nothing? And yes, everyone must pay something and perhaps an added tax for those who smoke or become obese. Tax rates could also go down if you quit or lose weight.

Last note: the main reason Americans stay in jobs they loath? - good health benefits.

Resistance is futile

on last note: I feel fortunate I enjoy my job. I can well see how people would stay even if they hated it.

BTW - your quote from the Target sales person? What's that about? Funny, but I'm sure funnier after you tell the story.

I was on-line at Target a couple of weeks before Xmas and in front of me was a woman with a little girl about 8 years old. The little girl was chanting off a list of things she expected for Xmas. Her mother turned to her and said "Jesus is the reason for the season- and you would have nothing if it wasn't for him" and for some reason she turned to the cashier to get that validated by saying "isn't that right?". The cashier, a woman of about 50, looked surprised she was being consulted and said "Well, I'm not very religious, but I do know that Jesus was the best thing to ever happen to capitalism." I thought it was a very wise observation.

(we have officially derailed this thread to the place of no return)

Oh, I just hate conversations that stay on topic anyway.

It'll come back to cancer if it's meant to be.

bm

I guess I have trouble with the concept that a person who is rich has more right to excellent health care than someone who isn't.

How do you feel about a person who could have had enough money for excellent health care, but instead had priorities that didn't lead to this goal?

Someone who relied on the fact that someone else would foot the bill for them?

I'm not addressing the people who are making as much as they can, and being accountable for themselves and their families, and still come up short.

What are your thoughts on the former?

Caveat: "Everyone has their own priorities" is not an option for an answer here.

Since when is access to excellent health care a "right"?
Who "owes" a person the right to excellent care?

Exactly. We're getting back to this whole entitlement business.

Not to stray again, but this feeling of "I'm entitled, I have the right" is so pervasive it's lost it's meaning. This "everyone is entitled to everything" idea.

I see it everyday.....Watch a commercial for something to take for a headache..... The script always reads something like this.....

"You DESERVE pain relief"

I don't think many people consciously hear the deserve part, but it sinks in.

My question when I see those types of things is "Why do you DERVE pain relief?"

Maybe you have pain because you drank to much and have a hangover. Maybe you were beating your wife and she finally had enough of your BS and whalloped you with a fry pain.

Even if you were just sitting there, minding your own business, and you got a little headache out of the blue, what makes you DESERVE pain relief.

Again, find out who is deserving.

Of course we can argue forever as to the quality of one's attempts to deserve something....but I feel in actuality, in most cases it would be fairly clear if a person where making their best attempts, given whatever their particular circumstances are.

Example:

It's apparantly the "right" of someone to sit around, smoke, eat fatty, salty food, drink and rot their mind watching daytime TV. They clog up their hearts and colon and lungs.

Then, it's their "right" to have the ailments resulting from all this treated, despite the fact they are not rich?

I don't think so.

The street runs both ways cuppycakes.

having just read all the responses I missed since last I checked this thread. I find that no one has commented on the following statement in the article. The one that I highlighted and which triggered this post.




In the past as stated the Pharmas excuse for the high cost of drugs was to cover the cost of research, past and present. The cost which I might add was and is being bourne by the American consumer. In this instance the drug Co. told it like it is. We will charge whatever the traffic will allow. In no other nation could they get away with that. Note based on that statement "citing the inherent value of life-sustaining therapies." They could charge $100 a pill for high blood pressure medicine. Since for anyone taking them they are life-sustaining therapies.

Sometimes it's what the market will bear.

In theory
If blood pressure pills cost $100.00 per pop, many people either would (a) die or (b) continue to have high blood pressure and develope other complications, such as heart and kidney disease.

Neither one would be advantageous to the drug company since they would either loose their customers through (a) death or (b) other drugs, heart surgeries, dialysis, transplants, etc.

Supply and demand.

Apparantly at this point there are not enough patients that need or want this particular drug in order to live an average of 5 extra months. Thus it's expensive.

If they can get production ramped up to the point where supply and demand are more equal, the cost would come down.

Drugs, TV's, Ferraris, healthy food, pork rinds.

supply and demand.