Hospitals are price gouging cancer patients for life-saving medicines, and we are all paying the price.   

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For example, according to a breast cancer survivor I spoke with, she needs a monthly injection of a drug. She said her hospital charged her private insurance $13,000 for it and that her portion was $1,300. Unable to afford this, she said she spent 100 hours on the phone and now gets this drug for $10 and injects it herself. 

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Her story is similar to a Bloomberg News article about a woman undergoing colon cancer treatment. She was treated with oxaliplatin, a generic chemotherapy drug. According to the article, it costs hospitals $2 to $44 to buy, Medicare would reimburse them $35 for it, and her hospital billed her private union health insurance $13,560. Here, her insurer caught this. Due to hospitals' price gouging of cancer drugs more broadly, the insurer raised premiums on a plan by almost $10 per month. 

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In doing some research, it seems there is no law capping how much nonprofit hospitals can charge private insurers for medicine that they administer.  

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The first step to change is raising awareness. If your hospital gouged you for cancer medication and you would like to be part of an article about this, please contact me.