Real Money

Terence Foley is dead.

The 67 year old Pennsylvania man succumbed to kidney cancer in 2007, but, in retrospect, his hospital bill probably would have given him a fatal coronary anyway.

A recent article in business week magazine tells the strange tale of Mr. Foley’s medical bill, and in doing so, illustrates so much of what is wrong with the current health care system in this country.

Read it for yourself:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-04/avastin-dose-costing-6-600-became-27-360-in-hospital-billing.html

Mr. Foley was billed $27,360 for EACH of four treatments of Avastin, a cancer fighting drug from Genentech. Each treatment contained 1200 milligrams of Avastin, which means that this wonder drug cost Mr. Foley a ludicrous $22,800.00 a gram. For the purposes of perspective, let us consider another exotic, chemical, Weapons Grade Plutonium (WGP).


Mind you, unlike Avastin, WGP is a material that can only be manufactured in a billion dollar nuclear breeder reactor. If you could buy it on the open market, (which you cannot, thankfully) it would set you back around $2000.00 a gram, which makes Avastin more then 10 times more expensive then the stuff that they make nuclear warheads out of.

Don’t blame us, cries Genetech. Why, that drug and dose should have only cost Mr. Foley $6,600.00, or a mere $5,500.00 a gram. (What a bargain!)

Don’t blame use either, pleads the hospital. Why, we only collect 25% of what we bill, so we have to mark things up so we can recover our losses from those who do pay.

Both sides of this issue are, in my opinion, equally insane.

Sorry, Genetech - why some material you manufacture should still cost almost 3 times more then WGP (at your Suggested Retail Price) is difficult to fathom, no matter how you may try to explain it.

As far as the hospital is concerned, this is a perfect example of how hospitals are fueling the skyrocket that is taking our health care expenses into the stratosphere.

The more that hospitals charge those who can pay, the more that our health insurance premiums increase, and we are left with even more people who can no longer afford health insurance coverage. Of course, this new smaller group of insured people will now be charged even more for their health care, and the cycle will continue, spiraling upwards, until only a very few Americans will be able to afford health insurance. Along the way, hospitals in areas with lower concentrations of insured patients will feel the pinch, and start failing because they no longer have anyone to pass the buck (and the bill) on to. This is already happening across the country with hospitals in lower income areas. And like a blight, it is spreading to hospitals in neighboring areas which are now forced to service patients, many of them uninsured, from the failed and failing hospitals. There is no end in sight.

Come to think of it, the entire area of hospital economics is starting to resemble a huge Ponzi scheme. Perhaps we should let Bernie Madoff out of prison and appoint him to a new cabinet post where he would be responsible for keeping the entire system afloat. He certainly has shown a greater aptitude for this type of shenanigans than the people who are presently running the system.



Yes, it wouldn’t be a long term solution, but when it comes to solving the health care crisis, our leaders seem to favor quick feel-good fixes instead of real reform.

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