British Expatriate Network

In the Times today it said a firm called Accredo supplied expensive medications to at least 75,000 patients in the USA with certain diseases that costs them each over a $1 million per year.

Most medical insurance policies in the USA have a $500,000 or $One million lifetime cap(check the fine print on your policy).

How do these people pay for this??I suppose that is why the USA has about 15,000 people going bankrupt evey week due to medical costs.

The Republicans do not want a national medical insurance plan so what happens to the average Joe in America???

Some of them qualify for medicaid if they're lucky.

Twofold problem - one, there is no universal health system. And two, the Bush administration is way too cosy with the drug companies. I always remember Bush stumbling over himself to answer the question as to Why people can't import cheaper drugs from Canada? in the debates. From what I see, the Medicare bill was another gift to the drug companies.

Its not just the private individuals, some big corporations that traditionally offerred health insurance to their retirees along with the pension plans are in deep doo doo too - thats before we get to the issue of current employees.

Health care in this country is becoming a serious economic as well as a social issue. Notably the Conservatives have no discernable answer of their own and are ideologically opposed to the obvious answers.

Something has to give.