The cost of cancer treatments are on the rise. Patients need the costs to be lowered in order for them to stand any chance of survival.

The most common cancers can cost around $23 thousand for initial treatment but can soar to $63 thousand by the time of death. With most of these families dealing with the costs of cancer only making $50 thousand a year, there is huge problem here. While a great deal of those families may have aid from their insurance company, it is not uncommon for a family to not be able to afford co-pays. Some individuals may not even have insurance, making the process even more stressful.

In an interview with 60 Minutes, Doctor Leonard Saltz said, “We’re in a situation where cancer diagnosis is one of the leading causes of personal bankruptcy.”

About 1 million people are diagnosed with cancer in the United States each year and a third of the rest will become diagnosed with some type of it in their lifetime.

When patients can not afford treatments that are necessary to kill the cancer or even to prolong their inevitable death, pharmaceutical companies have some explaining to do. Treatments are becoming more effective, but are also becoming more expensive. There is no use for better treatments if the patients they are meant for can not afford them.

As Todd Hakes, widowed husband of Carla Hakes who died of brain and lung cancer said, “If you don’t have good insurance, forget about treatment.”

The cost of cancer could be lowered immediately, but it is not because Cancer treatment is a multi-billion dollar industry. Pharmaceutical companies charge ridiculous prices for new treatments. Those treatments do not work on all patients or all types of cancer, but it worked on somebody and it will work on someone else. A lot of patients are recommended these phenomenal treatments, most of them very expensive and are left with a huge debt and the side effects of a treatment that did not work.

Junior Lauren Bernard’s aunt died of many advanced stages of cancer. “She got enough [treatment], her cancer was just too far into its stages,” Bernard said.

Her aunt received many types of chemotherapy, but it did not work.

Pharmaceutical companies are not the only culprits. Congress seems to be working in their favor and even passed a law saying these companies can charge as much as they want for these treatments. On top of that idiocracy from the government, the pharmaceutical companies pay private practice oncologists commission to diagnose the use of that specific companies treatments. This extra source of money persuades these cancer specialists to prescribe the expensive treatment rather than a less expensive treatment that treats the cancer in the same way.

This is absurd. Nobody seems to care about fellow human beings anymore, just a quick buck. Individuals are being pushed to bankruptcy, while people at these huge companies rake in profits.

It is tough to think that there are people who support these mammoth costs, but there are. These people are the people who benefit off the huge costs, the pharmaceutical companies. The high cost and large number of patients receiving multiple treatments put billions of dollars into the pockets of these companies. The salary of these company’s CEOs show how much they benefit. Who knows what the doctors they paid have made! These companies also control the prices with no regulations and as many can see, they do not seem to lean towards trying to break even.

These companies selling the treatments capitalize on the fear and insecurity of cancer patients to make some money. The companies even have the government aid because the government does not regulate the prices they can charge for treatments. All odds are stacked against patients. The cost needs to be lowered. The government needs to be told that citizens will not stand for the protection of these companies. They need to put some regulations in place. Everyone is human, and humans have the right to live and receive the necessary treatment with it costing an arm and a leg.