Medicare announce last week that it would pay for a prostrate cancer drug that costs $93,000 and leads to an average increased life span of four months for end stage cancer patients.

This announcement points out one of the short comings of federal policy. Medicare typically pays for FDA cleared drugs without regard to expense.

Some health care experts argue that our society cannot afford to continue to pay for drugs that extend life a few days, weeks, or months. Others say the denial of expensive treatment is the beginning of “health care rationing”.

I can tell you we have insurance companies that routinely deny a service we provide ...laser therapy for example.... that we bill at $60 ...not $60,000 ...and say that there is no proof that it changes “clincal outcome”. I invite you to go to Google Scholar and type in low level laser. What you will find is hundreds of research papers from all over the world which find that light speeds healing.

I also know that the “clinical outcome” of life is eventual death, with prostrate cancer or without and that paying $93,000 for four months of extra life is nothing more than a transfer of wealth from each and every family in America to the medical complex..... big pharma, hospitals, doctors, etc. Look around in this Great Recession and you will see one area of continued building and that is in the pharmacies and hospitals...built on the wealth transfer of each of our insurance premiums.