This article says most Doctors agree new Hepatitis C drugs are worth the price. I agree. I know its really hard to consider profit margins and suffering at the same time but that is the way it works.

I suffered as much as anyone with Hepatitis C issues. I spent a month in the Hospital, 3 surgeries, weaned a baby at 8 weeks (because babies don’t do well in ICU) spent a year in bed on oxygen literally fighting for my life, and to this day have permanent liver scarring and nerve damage on my right side. I suffered and yet I know that the cost of my drugs was a bargain considering the alternative. Being sick and tired while trying to mother is expensive. Cirrhosis is expensive, so is cancer, hospice, and death.

America produces the best, most innovative, effective, clean, medicines year after year. Why? Because there is money in the drug industry and money is an incentive to innovate. I don’t begrudge that. We don’t want India or Africa producing our drugs. How can we monetize the relief of suffering? Because people aren’t generally motivated by kindness and altruism. It’s just a fact. Kindness wont cure cancer. Charity wont propel the kind of Science it takes to cure millions.

We THINK we want cheaper drugs. We THINK we want the Government to step in and mandate Drug Pricing, but the truth is that MONEY is the only sustainable way to propel science towards more cures. Money is the catalyst for innovation in the Laboratories that produce cures and we wouldnt want it any other way.  

It’s really hard to consider anything past our own living rooms but people with diseases next year will be cured because of the profits from this year’s drugs. It’s money that will entice stock holders to invest in pharmaceuticals to come up with more cures in the future. The reason I am healed and cured and will live a long life is because of the profits made on last year’s drug. We really don’t want cheaper drugs. We think we do, because we are short sighted Americans but like it or not money motivates. Period. 

It’s the insurance companies that need to step up to the plate and stop fighting people who are prescribed these drugs. Insurance has somehow slid under the gun on this story, but they are the ones who have made it difficult for people to get cured in a timely manner.