From “Achieving Responsible Health Care Reform … and Getting It Right,” a speech by WellPoint chief executive Angela Braly, March 17, 2009, Town Hall Los Angeles.
“In the midst of all the talk about reforming health care, it’s easy to forget that we’re talking about more than just policy.
“We’re talking about people’s lives. We’re talking about people’s families…and it does get emotional at times.
“I remember back in the 1990s, when legislatures in ten states mandated that regulated insurers had to provide autologous bone marrow transplants, or ABMT, as a benefit to our members.
“This was a controversial treatment for some forms of breast cancer, because there was a lack of clinical evidence pointing to its effectiveness.
“Only some women were eligible for this experimental procedure. But it gave people hope that their moms, or sisters, or aunts, or wives might have found a way to beat cancer.
“It was an extremely painful procedure and hundreds of women went through it.
“But in the end, studies showed that it failed to bring about any improvement in their conditions–meaning the pain, the suffering, the cost, the disappointment … was all for naught.
“Stories like this remind us that people will pay anything, do anything, and try anything…if they think it will help them or their loved ones get healthy.
“But it’s not always about not providing a benefit.
“Our research shows that when we provide a very expensive set of specialty drugs to people with MS, they can avoid hospitalization and other devastating consequences of the disease. Their costs are lower too.”
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