MY LIFE IS WORTH IT, an online patient-focused initiative, says
treatment decisions should be based on benefit to the patient, not
price. MY LIFE IS WORTH IT challenges claims that the current
system is “unsustainable.” To the contrary, for every dollar spent on
cancer therapy, the economy saves seven dollars according to a paper by
Frank Lichtenberg of the Columbia University Graduate School of Business1.
MY LIFE IS WORTH IT was created on the premise that there is no
average patient, that patients’ lives are measured in family milestones,
not in median survival statistics. Members of the initiative will take
part in several events coinciding with the annual meeting of the
American Society of Hematology, a global conference bringing together
more than 20-thousand blood disease experts in San Francisco, December 5th
through the 9th.
Robert Goldberg, Ph.D., healthcare economist and co-founder of MY
LIFE IS WORTH IT, notes: “I saw papers in 1980 that said healthcare
would be 100% of GDP (gross domestic product) by 2010, and that costs
are unsustainable. Of course that did not happen then and will not
happen now. Why? Because medical innovation actually promotes savings.”
Dr. Goldberg says a discussion of the cost of advanced therapeutics
should take into account the following facts:
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The total cost of cancer care has remained more or less at five
percent of total healthcare spending in the United States and Europe.
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New cancer therapies are less than one percent of healthcare spending
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Between 1990 and 2010, the death rate from cancer fell by 20 percent
and the number of life years lost to cancer fell by 30 percent.
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New cancer medicines are responsible for 75 percent of the 50 million
additional life years people with cancer have gained since 1990. The
economic value of those life years is estimated to be about $5
trillion. The human value is immeasurable.
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Between 1990 and 2010, the average time spent in the hospital by
cancer patients declined by 70 percent. If there had been no decline,
hospital costs would have been about $250 billion more over the same
time period.2
Cancer patient and MY LIFE IS WORTH IT co-founder Bob Tufts says,
“Despite these facts, we read about complaints that the cost of cancer
therapies has gone up and may present a financial hardship. However,
let’s understand that an out-of-pocket co-pay, the money paid directly
by patients, is a function of insurance policies not the price of
medicine. We need to tell insurers, governments and physicians that our
lives are worth it.”
Since 2009 Tufts, a former Major League Baseball Player, has been on a
novel, oral cancer medication that he takes at home. It maintains his
health and leaves him free to continue working, teaching college-level
business courses.
Dr. Goldberg adds, “If we want to reduce costs, let’s cut in half the
time it takes to approve a new medication, double the number of
medications that are approved each year, and approve therapies for an
entire disease not just stages or subsets of patients. We can reduce
costs and improve patient access to life changing therapeutics, when we
work together to deliver value.”
MY LIFE IS WORTH IT will have an information booth in the
conference exhibit hall. The initiative will also take part in a panel
discussion of “value,” Sunday afternoon (12/7), hosted by VITAL OPTIONS
with a second panel on innovations moderated by Mr. Tufts. MY LIFE IS
WORTH IT also joins Scientific American and the Center for
Medicine in the Public Interest Monday evening (12/8) to launch a
program to recognize top innovators who have created the new
therapeutics changing the lives of cancer patients today.
Information about these events can be found at www.mylifeisworthit.org
1. http://www.nber.org/papers/w8996.pdf
2. Value of Medical Innovation, http://www.valueofinnovation.org
Copyright Business Wire 2014