Who profits from illness?

The other day I was travelling with an Indian guy settled in US.He is a retired person aged about 60 years.He has been in US for last 35 years. He had come to India for attending a marriage of one his nephews.After the customary lamentations about the 'dismal' situation in India our chat turned to the subject of health care in USA.
He said recently he had to do an emergency surgery for Piles in USA and it cost him about 20000 US dollars. I first thought I heard him wrongly.In India for 20000$ a person can replace both his knees and do a coronary bypass surgery.I asked him again and he said Yes the bill was for twenty thousand dollars.He also added that his Insurance Company payed only 6000$.He is paying the rest from his pocket in instalments.
Then I said the doctors in US must be having handsome earnings as the patients have to pay so much. He said only a few docs have good savings. He revealed that his son is a Doctor and is still paying off his debts incurred while studying even though he passed out 5 years ago.
So who profits from the illness among common people? May be Insurance companies,Drug Companies,Corporate Hospitals etc. Is there any way out so that quality health care is easily affordable to all?

'Positive' Grand mother

When we think of HIV positive people, we imagine some one in their 20s or 30s, but there are a few 'positive' women (and men) who are in their 50s and having grand children. HIV testing may be delayed because of the age as the treating doctor may not consider this possibility.

She came with her husband 7 years ago. He was very sick having all the features of defective immunity. His test proved he is 'positive'. She was also found to be positive but with a near normal immunity. She had 3 children all in their 20s. They were all tested and found negative.
At that time, there was no free Government supply of medicines [ART] for HIV/AIDS. I prescribed medicines to prevent opportunistic infections. ART was too costly and he could not afford to take it continuously. He died within 2 years.

Last month she came to me again. She is 52 now and is living with her son. She is the proud grandmother of 3 kids. She came with recurrent fever and weight loss. She had fungal infection in her mouth, and I could make out that her immunity is low. Lab tests confirmed it, and I referred her to Govt ART Centre where she will get free anti HIV medicines. If everything goes well, she will be able to live a near normal life for a long time.

She is grateful for this opportunity to live well because of free ART, but laments the fact that her husband did not get such a chance.

When I started practising Medicine, I had helplessly seen scores of patients with advanced HIV/AIDS dying in my hospital. ART was unavailable or unaffordable. Now the availability of free ART has dramatically changed the situation.
A scientific discovery in health, whether it is a new technology or a drug , should be made available to whole mankind as soon as possible, otherwise such discovery only adds to the pain of the poor.

Unaffordable Health Care

Rapid advances in Medical Science is now giving more and more treatment options to the patient. Whether it is Leukemia, Cancers, Parkinsonism, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Diabetes or many of the other chronic diseases, newer and newer drugs brings hope to the suffering millions, but will their hope of a better life be fulfilled?
The astronomically high costs of newer drugs make sure that only the fortunate few will be able to get the benefit. For the rest it will be pure agony of suffering with the knowledge that treatment is available but is unaffordable. Maybe, they would have been better off if there was no treatment. Then they could have suffered and died peacefully.
Why newer drugs are so costly? Why we cannot share the fruits of scientific research evenly among all human beings of the World? Why a handful of pharmaceutical Giants reap the profit of our scientific advances?