The child is well-known in the halls in which state bureaucrats oversee health care for millions of Californians – not by name, but by a number: $21 million.
His medications alone cost state taxpayers that much in a single year, not including other health care. The boy, whose identity has not been released, was California’s most expensive Medicaid patient in recent years. His case was singled out in a tweet last year by the state’s top health care official to highlight the public insurance program’s extraordinary obligations as a backstop for low-income patients.
How on earth can a single child’s treatment cost that much? The answer: He has hemophilia and needs large quantities of a pricey drug – known as clotting factor – that makes blood coagulate.
Hemophilia drugs are among the most costly drugs in the nation, and taxpayers are footing the bill for many patients on Medicaid who could never afford them on their own. Officials in California and other states are doing what they can to manage the costs, but it’s a daunting task that highlights the complexity and secrecy of prescription drug pricing.