More on health policy: Spinal fusions serve as case study for debate over when certain surgeries are necessary. "More than 465,000 spinal fusions were performed in the United States in 2011, according to government data, and some experts think that a portion of them -- perhaps as many as half -- were performed without good reason. The rate of spinal fusion surgery has risen sixfold in the United States over the past 20 years, according to federal figures, and the expensive procedure, which involves the joining of two or more vertebrae, has become even more common than hip replacement." Peter Whoriskey and Dan Keating in The Washington Post
The cost of living. "In August 3, 2012, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new cancer drug called Zaltrap as a safe and effective treatment for patients with advanced colon cancer. The approval was based on a large-scale clinical trial that showed that Zaltrap, given in combination with three previously approved drugs to patients who had failed initial therapy, extended median overall survival by 42 days...If you extended the 42 days survival to a year, "what is the cost of Avastin for one year of human life saved?" The answer was astounding, even to doctors who have grown inured to the zero-gravity economics of cancer pharmaceuticals. As Saltz worked his way through slide 73 of 78, he arrived at the bottom line: $303,000." Stephen S. Hall in New York Magazine
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