['lizbeth]

I am bothered by this, ouch. It puts cutting edge treatment beyond the reach of many patients. I feel that family's pain and distress.

What kind of society are we - if the cost of health care is so exorbitant? If the attitude is: well go elsewhere. Is the best treatment just for the wealthiest? The entitled? The lucky?

Personally I'm in the lucky category. My care has been stellar. I have amazing doctors and they've been indulgent about treatments, tests, etc. I got upset over an invoice and the hospital stopped sending them, just covered everything. But I remember receiving a $20,000 statement and the insurance rep told me I was going to be responsible for the entire amount. I sobbed for days. I felt responsible for the financial ruin of my family because I had cancer. It was devastating.

My sister-in-laws chemo was $600,000 and they had to pay 25%. Refinanced the house, then almost lost it. These stories are repeated over and over in millions of families in the US.

Ann, I'm disagreeing with you and I hope you can take a second look. I don't agree with the go elsewhere. It meant a lot to the wife to be at MD Anderson. Those costs of treatment are just exorbitant, and the way the payment was handled makes me cringe. The cost of care is spiraling upward, out of control. To me it is indicative of the entire medical system. When do the providers step back and say we need to scale back on the costs, that we have been affected by greed, and grandiosity? That we have lost sight of our purpose - which is to keep people healthy and well. Should the average family be financially devastated?

Ann, I hope you don't feel I'm picking on you. But I've managed too many companies and in this case profit seems to be affecting values. When a person's life is at stake - and they are truly vulnerable, we, society needs to protect the weak. Extracting healthy profits from the desperate, the dying. How does this speak of us?

I'm not saying to give the care away. But in the US we should be able to have a more compassionate, affordable system that gives equal opportunity to each patient for care.