When you look at the growing burden of individual patients paying for cancer care, we need to come together as payers, providers, the pharmaceutical industry, the government, and ask, “Why are cancer patients having an unfair burden of their copays, compared to other diseases, and what is a fair copay for these treatments?”
If it were an ideal world, in a value‑based system, we might have no copays for things that are highly effective, increase cure, or markedly improve survival and quality of life, and perhaps as we got into further lines of treatment, with less or even questionable benefit, there would be more of a responsibility on the part of the patient.
There are many ideas out there, but we have to come up with a solution, because right now, it’s becoming unaffordable for patients in the United States.
