Who Gets Saved? Hepatitis Cure at $84,000 Makes Doctors Choose - Bloomberg

Who Gets Saved? Hepatitis Cure at $84,000 Makes Doctors Choose - Bloomberg: "Early this year, liver specialist Ken Flora and his colleagues sent letters to 1,300 patients announcing exciting news: powerful new drugs to cure the lethal hepatitis C virus were finally available.

Soon after, some patients received a different message: notices that their health plans were refusing to pay for the $84,000 drug. So far only about 50 of the patients have received the medicine, Gilead Sciences Inc.’s Sovaldi.

Not since AIDS drug cocktails were introduced almost two decades ago has a medical breakthrough set up such a rush for a life-saving but expensive therapy. Constrained by limited budgets, health insurers and government programs are forced to make hard choices about which patients will get the cure. Many are opting to treat only the sickest."



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