Scott,

My mother went through that exact same list nearly 20 years ago. I hope that your wife started getting treatments early. My mother's condition was pretty far along before they discovered it.

In reply to:

Why should any lifesaving drug cost more than $5,000 per dose?

It shouldn't, that was precisely the point that I was trying to make. However, just like the live Polio vaccine that the Doc spoke about, 1 patient out of 1 million MAY be harmed by the use of the vaccine. When that 1 person comes along, they and their lawyer will be awarded with a lawsuit in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Guess who really pays these gigantic lawsuits? You and I do the next time we purchase the product or service. After the lawsuit, the insurance company will raise the rate, and guess what? The next dose will cost you $5500. The pharmaceutical certainly isn't going to take it out of their pockets. If they did, their PE ratio would go down, the stock price would fall, and the company would go out of business. Then you wouldn't get any dose at any price.

The court system is a snowball rolling down a mountain. Every year, the lawsuits get bigger and bigger and the cost of products and services goes up. This is NOT unique to the field of medicine. It cuts across all industries, and we all pay more than we need to for everything.

You also mentioned that the medical folks need to get approval for procedures. I think that is 100% Barbara Streisand as well. When is someone going to sue an insurance company (and their lawyers) for practicing medicine without a license?

M- M60s/VP150/QS8s/SVS PC-Ultra/HK630 Sit down. Shut up. Listen.