Patients infected with Hepatitis C suffer and anticipate an early death. Until recently, no 'cure' was possible. Now, there IS hope. What is stopping the treatment of these patients? What is standing between life and death for sufferers of Hepatitis C? . . . you guessed it. . .
(from http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/05/12/307747798/boomers-need-pricey-hep-c-drugs-but-medicare-wont-always-pay)
". . .These new drugs are curing more than 90 percent of patients – virtually 100 percent in some . Just a few years ago, cure rates were 50 percent or less.But there's a big problem: The cost. Timothy Webb and other advocates protest the cost of HIV drugs manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Gilead outside an AIDS conference in Atlanta in March. Gilead is making a new hepatitis C drug, Sovaldi. . . " which costs $1,000 per pill.
". . . Sovaldi combined with another new drug called (Olysio) is highly effective in patients like (Walter) Bianco. And the new drugs are easy to take. Bianco says the older drugs caused horrible side effects. "Just terrible itching, terrible headaches, nausea," he says.
But Medicare won't pay for the drugs that Vargas says Bianco needs. Medicare officials wouldn't comment on coverage of new hep C drugs. A spokesman says the federal program turns such decisions over to private insurers that administer .
One of those private insurers has twice rejected Vargas's prescription because the Food and Drug Administration hasn't approved use of the two drugs in combination. (Last week Olysio's maker, the FDA for approval of the regimen.). . . "
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