Bake Sales and Death
I recall a number of years ago seeing a bumper sticker that read "Why are there no bake sales for the Defense Department to buy weapons?"
One obvious reason is that a Tomahawk missile will cost 6.02 X 10/23 chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles. Two times that without the sprinkles.
I thought of this while I saw a recent sign-up locally for a fundraiser for a nurse and her family. She is getting financially decimated by the treatments for her leukemia.
The first thing I wondered was the following: The nurse has medical insurance. Why is it that she is having any bills related to her medical care?
Here is what I learned: Specifically in the area of cancer treatment, the insurance companies and the Darth Vaders who run them have found an interesting loophole. They like to categorize a lot of cancer treatments as "experimental." Speaking to my colleagues who are oncologists I discovered the reason for this. Cancer treatment - an ever evolving field - always needs to have various trials and experimentations of combinations of acceptable cancer drugs. This is why we are always seeing great advances in cancer. The problem is that the insurance companies call any treatment that is in a study or combining approved drugs in new ways- "experimental" and they do not pay for experimental treatments. Now if this does not make you mad as hell then what does?
If you go to the Mayo Clinic, MD Anderson, or Sloan-Kettering - three top cancer centers in the country and get the latest treatments from the greatest cancer research minds in the country some pinhead bean counter like the CEOs of major health insurance carriers will send down an edict that this is not to be paid.
Enough of this already. We need the following law:
"The Any Available Treatment Law"
"If a physician offers a treatment of any FDA approved drug, whether this is approved as a publicly available drug or approved for a study, this is to be defined as acceptable treatment and must be paid within the same policy parameters of ANY standard treatment that the insurance company pays for."
As an example- if they pay for Naprosyn (prescription Alleve) with a ten dollar co-pay then they must pay for Avastin with 7 other new cancer cocktails with the same ten dollar co-pay. If there is an available treatment with methods that have been approved for any type of use by the FDA or Internal Review Boards then it is called treatment and NOT experimental treatment.
Just as a kicker, any insurance company that does not follow the law should undergo the mandatory punishment: a public flogging following by a public stoning of all the insurance executives and Board of Directors of the guilty company. I chose this form of punishment because there is a law in this country forbidding cruel and unusual punishment. Since these idiots are so consumed by the almighty dollar - a financial fine of say 500 Billion dollars (the minimum worth of a single life give or a take a few dollars) could be perceived as cruel and unusual, but flogging and stoning are well described in the history of mankind and seem appropriate for the crime at hand.
Bake sales should be for after-school activities and not to maintain the life of a human being.
Dr. K.
Related Topics: Make Your Health Benefits Work for You, Experimental Treatments? Unapproved But Not Always Unavailable
One obvious reason is that a Tomahawk missile will cost 6.02 X 10/23 chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles. Two times that without the sprinkles.
I thought of this while I saw a recent sign-up locally for a fundraiser for a nurse and her family. She is getting financially decimated by the treatments for her leukemia.
The first thing I wondered was the following: The nurse has medical insurance. Why is it that she is having any bills related to her medical care?
Here is what I learned: Specifically in the area of cancer treatment, the insurance companies and the Darth Vaders who run them have found an interesting loophole. They like to categorize a lot of cancer treatments as "experimental." Speaking to my colleagues who are oncologists I discovered the reason for this. Cancer treatment - an ever evolving field - always needs to have various trials and experimentations of combinations of acceptable cancer drugs. This is why we are always seeing great advances in cancer. The problem is that the insurance companies call any treatment that is in a study or combining approved drugs in new ways- "experimental" and they do not pay for experimental treatments. Now if this does not make you mad as hell then what does?
If you go to the Mayo Clinic, MD Anderson, or Sloan-Kettering - three top cancer centers in the country and get the latest treatments from the greatest cancer research minds in the country some pinhead bean counter like the CEOs of major health insurance carriers will send down an edict that this is not to be paid.
Enough of this already. We need the following law:
"The Any Available Treatment Law"
"If a physician offers a treatment of any FDA approved drug, whether this is approved as a publicly available drug or approved for a study, this is to be defined as acceptable treatment and must be paid within the same policy parameters of ANY standard treatment that the insurance company pays for."
As an example- if they pay for Naprosyn (prescription Alleve) with a ten dollar co-pay then they must pay for Avastin with 7 other new cancer cocktails with the same ten dollar co-pay. If there is an available treatment with methods that have been approved for any type of use by the FDA or Internal Review Boards then it is called treatment and NOT experimental treatment.
Just as a kicker, any insurance company that does not follow the law should undergo the mandatory punishment: a public flogging following by a public stoning of all the insurance executives and Board of Directors of the guilty company. I chose this form of punishment because there is a law in this country forbidding cruel and unusual punishment. Since these idiots are so consumed by the almighty dollar - a financial fine of say 500 Billion dollars (the minimum worth of a single life give or a take a few dollars) could be perceived as cruel and unusual, but flogging and stoning are well described in the history of mankind and seem appropriate for the crime at hand.
Bake sales should be for after-school activities and not to maintain the life of a human being.
Dr. K.
Related Topics: Make Your Health Benefits Work for You, Experimental Treatments? Unapproved But Not Always Unavailable
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