JACKSON, Miss.- If you have Hepatitis C, you might be struggling to pay for the treatment and if you don’t have it, it could end up costing you a lot of money to pay for other people that do.
A $1,000-per-pill drug from Sovaldi has become a popular prescription for the blood-borne virus that can cause deadly liver damage.Hepatitis C affects more than 3 million Americans. Most people get exposed to Hepatitis C through the sharing of needles.
Mississippi could potentially pay $775 million by 2016 to treat patients on Medicaid and those in prison with the new drug regimen for Hepatitis C, according to a recently released national study by Express Scripts.
Mississippi has roughly 3,000 people with Hepatitis C who receive Medicaid or are in prison. The study says the treatment could cost every Mississippian $259, putting the state in the top five nationally and that’s because the cost of the 12-week treatment is going to cost $84,000 per patient. While Sovaldi is a breakthrough therapy for Hepatitis C, it’s also going to break the bank and your states budget.
