Patricia Hill

At the Rally Against Greed at City Hall, Patricia Hill speaks about her battles with her healthcare insurance corporation over her stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer and original misdiagnosis. In a publicly financed, universal health care system, medical decisions are left to the patient and doctor, as they should be. In a public system, the people have a say in how its run. Cost containment measures are publicly managed at the state level by elected and appointed agencies that represent the public. WE decide on the benefit package and negotiate doctor fees and hospital budgets. Most current medical research is publicly financed through the National Institutes of Health. Most basic drug research, is funded by the government. Drug companies are invited in for the later stages of product development, the formulation and marketing of new drugs. AZT for HIV patients is one example. The early, expensive research was conducted with government money. After the drug was found to be effective, marketing rights went to the drug company, but WE already paid the cost. Many famous discoveries have been made in other countries with national health care systems. Laparoscopic gallbladder removal was pioneered in Canada. The CT scan was invented in England. The treatment for juvenile diabetes by transplanting pancreatic cells was developed in Canada. Big Pharma’s increasing reliance on contract research organizations (and for-profit ethical-review boards) has coincided with a sharp drop in …
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