Cost of cancer–Your Money or Your Life

October 10, 2014

The cost of cancer is killing people; worse yet patients are not given choices that could make a difference in their outcomes as well save them money. Insurance companies are forced by law to pay for ONLY treatments the government has told them they can pay for. There is a freedom of choice act that says patients have a right to seek options, but doctors cannot advise on any treatment other than what the FDA approves. Approvals come by way of the drug companies lobbying and producing fees for approval; costing millions, something no small company could afford. Patients are literally paying to lobby and keep other cheaper, perhaps better, treatments from the public's use. People are conditioned to that because of the cost of research and development of drugs the cost is justified but is it? Many chemo drugs are modified slightly, renamed, and re-patented; there is little spent to do this but they charge a higher price claiming it is a new drug. Who is being fooled?

What choices does one have? Many are taking to choosing treatments beyond the borders of the United States. Many doctors have decided to set up outside the U.S. in order to be able to offer treatments that are affordable and effective, not giving months more to live but years. The word cure is prohibited in the U.S. yet in other countries the survival rates are higher and the word cure is still used. The United States, for instance, is #2 in the world for breast cancer yet for all the money thrown into it; we are way behind in raising survival rates, we are at a dismal #61 out of 192 countries. Better choices of early detection of sonograms and thermography that find abnormalities sooner and better than mammograms. Still, treatment choices widely used elsewhere with little to no side effects should be made available; and insurance companies should be allowed to pay for them if the patient makes that choice.

I have seen families rally together and spend all their savings to pay for treatments that end up killing the patient through the side effects and weakened immune system. We have personally gone through this, what family has not been personally touched by cancer?  2 million in three years; and the side effects finally caught up; but not before we had had it with the high cost of ineffective drugs and traveled outside the U.S. to gain treatment costing less than a few chemo treatments and working.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent, mostly paid for by insurance or state aid, but few live past the 5-year mark and as the years pass the statistics are sadly not showing any success in all the millions and billions spent on this 'war against cancer'; seems like someone is not trying to win this war with all the profits being made fighting it.  The causalities are building each year, thousands die because the war is not being fought to win but make money at the expense of the cancer patients.

Although the cost to access treatments with far more hope than the small percentage gotten in conventional treatments of chemo, radiation and surgery, the fact remains insurance does not pay for it and out-of-pocket costs can range from nearly 20 to 60+ thousand and in some cases over 100,000.  From our experience, treatments that take months to see if there is improvement are not the most prudent method to fight your cancer, others are for a few weeks but if no improvement is seen hope dwindles fast as the bank account balances dwindle too. Improvement should be seen in a short time, the improvements should remain steady and full remission should be expected; we believe if a clinic, doctor or facility should be confident in their work and give patients the opportunity to return if there is a relapse. Spending over 20 thousand the patient should expect is not a guarantee as life has none however courtesy retreatment is not too much to expect. As patient advocates who have been in this position, hard-earned money needs safeguarding; we love our family and will give anything to keep our loved ones alive, yet our savings dwindles and disappears going to out-of-pocket facilities.  A little compassion on the facility's part and a bit of confidence in their success to retreat goes a long way in deciding.

To learn how to lower the cost of cancer treatments and find affordable treatments given a good curative outcome, please contact Jesicha’s Hope – info@jesichashope.org  or go directly to our site: www.jesichashope.org  visit our page on Facebook: www.facebook.com/jesichashope or join our group on Facebook and discuss alternative cancer treatments: www.facebook.com/groups/alternativecancertreatments

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-cost-of-cancer-drugs/

http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/breast-cancer/by-country/