A costly cure

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

I have the perfect solution. When you calculate our per-capita income, exclude the top 1%!

(NEWSER) – The FDA only approved Sovaldi in December, but the hepatitis C treatment is already setting records, with as much as $10 billion in sales expected in the first year alone. And why not? It has few side effects, cures 90% of patients, and, oh yeah, costs $1,000 a day. That price tag is causing turmoil throughout the health care system, CBS reports. Doctors can’t resist prescribing it, but several insurers might see a more than 10% drop in earnings because of it, one analyst tells the Wall Street Journal. There are an estimated 3.2 million hepatitis C sufferers in the US, and if all those eligible for Sovaldi took it, the price could be as much as $27 billion, one investment bank calculated, according to Forbes.

A lot of that burden would fall on taxpayers, because hepatitis C patients are often veterans, prisoners, uninsured, or on Medicaid. Several Democratic Congressmen recently sent a letter demanding that Sovaldi’s maker, Gilead, explain the price tag—especially given that it costs 99% less in hepatitis-ridden Egypt; Congress has no power to alter the price, however. Gilead says its prices ($84,000 for a full course of treatment in the US) key off a country’s per-capita income, and argues that it’s still a good deal long-term, because it cures patients in 12 weeks. UPI points out that some hepatitis C sufferers ultimately require a liver transplant, which costs upward of $175,000.

H/t Price Benowitz LLP.

High hopes

~ susie

I watched this HBO documentary tonight, and was reminded once again that Bruce Springsteen is a real artist. To be honest, I only like maybe 25% of his tunes, but there’s no doubt of his talent and mastery. Interesting to see how the inclusion of Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello (who I think might be the best guitar player since Hendrix) kicked off a creative cascade in Bruce’s musical choices.

I also realized how much better I like his songs when I can read the lyrics. Because, you know, words.

http://youtu.be/KZq1Ney-p2Y

The torture will happen again and again

~ susie

Senators Wyden and Merkley discuss oil train safety

I like Ron Wyden, but what he says here is bullshit. Nothing will stop this from happening again if no one goes to prison over it — and I’d say the odds are really small:

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden explained today why he voted to declassify the Senate Intelligence Committee’s apparently scathing 6,200-page report on the CIA’s detention and brutal interrogation of overseas terrorism suspects.

“I believe the American people will be profoundly disturbed by the contents of this report,” the senior senator from Oregon wrote in a news release. “Though I can’t provide any details until that declassification process is finished, I can say that the American people will see that much of what CIA officials have said about the effectiveness of coercive interrogations was simply untrue.”

[…]”I have spoken about the intelligence leadership’s culture of misinformation before and it continues to be a problem to this day,” Wyden said in his news statement. “I have also been asking questions publicly for years about the role that outside contractors played in the interrogation program and I hope the American people will soon get some answers to those questions.”

[…]”It is going to make many people uncomfortable,” he wrote, “but getting the facts about torture out to the American people will keep these mistakes from being repeated and make our national intelligence agencies stronger and more effective in the long run.