Call to Action, CC BY-SA 2.0

Dear Ones,

Here are rough notes on the need to lower the cash price of HIV medicines in California. I note that the links from which I got the below figures may be updating their figures from time to time; the figures may look different on the date you read the blog …

• Average salary in America is $35,000/year … https://www.quora.com/How-much-money-does-the-average-American-make-in-their-lifetime ..
• Average American household savings as of 2019 were $17,930 … https://www.magnifymoney.com/blog/news/average-american-savings/ ..
• In Australia (these are the only figures I could find) the average person works 13 years 2 months in their lifetime. I expect this has to do with men working and women keeping house. I will use this estimate as if it applied to people in the United States … https://www.payscale.com/career-news/2018/10/heres-how-many-years-youll-spend-work-in-your-lifetime ..
• That is about $461,000 lifetime income per person (which is to say, 13.167 years times $35,000/year)
• Life treatment cost of HIV in 2009 dollars is $367,134 … https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/programresources/guidance/costeffectiveness/index.html ..
• Converting to 2019 dollars, life treatment cost of HIV is $438,334 … http://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/2009?amount=367134 ..

As the lifetime treatment of HIV is about $367,000, and as I estimate the lifetime wage of the average American to be about $461,000, it is clear that the HIV bloom nationwide will make it difficult for families that test positive for HIV to meet their medical expenses.

In addition, there may come a time when Obamacare is compromised with regard to providing HIV and AIDS medicines to Americans. In advance of such a possibility, I suggest looking into lowering the cost of AIDS medicines so that they may be affordable to HIV-compromised patients, as cash outlay, and even without the relief of having medical insurance.

The question is, how may drug companies be prevailed upon to lower their costs so that they are affordable? Maybe our California legislature will come up with an answer for us? My prayer is that they may.

In love, light and joy
This is Alice B. Clagett.
I Am of the Stars … and so are you!

Written and published on 6 December 2019

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0). Attribution: By Alice B. Clagett.
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healthcare, HIV pandemic, community health, health, United States, California, Western medicine,