Which is more valuable - the life of someone who lives in Mountain View, Ark., (population 2,860) or someone who lives just one county over?That's the question from a good NPR piece about how high drug prices hit rural hospitals extra hard, a story beginning with the story of a stroke patient coming in to a small, rural hospital needing an expensive drug:
For example, Langston's 25-bed hospital pays $8,010 for a single dose of Activase — up nearly 200 percent from $2,708 a decade ago. Yet, just 36 miles down the road, a bigger regional hospital gets an 80 percent discount on the same drug. White River Medical Center, a 235-bed facility in Batesville, Ark., buys Activase for about $1,600 per dose.
White River participates in a federal drug discount program Congress approved in the early 1990s. The program offers significant price breaks on thousands of drugs to hospitals that primarily serve low-income patients. One federal report found the average discount ranged from 20 to 50 percent, though as illustrated with Activase, it can be much higher.
