Money Not Important, but...

On today's Laura Ingraham show, the popular conservative talk radio host(-ess?) remarked that her recent breast cancer surgery served to put money in perspective for her -- it's not really that important, she said.

Ingraham, whose show regularly features "but monkey" soundbites (replete with cartoon monkey sound effects) from journalists and politicians who start to say one thing, then insert a BUT big enough to change the meaning of their thought entirely, then added:

'But you do have to have health insurance, that's for sure.'

See also:

New hope against breast cancer Kansas City Star 4/28/05 (Anti-cancer drug Herceptin effective, but typical treatment $120,000, in addition to surgery, chemotherapy and radiation)

New Cancer Drugs Are Driving Up Cost of Care Los Angeles Times 5/14/05 ("[The two drugs that Mary Vaughan takes to specifically target her breast cancer cells (unlike chemotherapy, which also targets healthy cells),] Avastin and Herceptin, would cost her nearly $8,000 a month — more than Vaughan says she can afford, even with her insurance.... The average life expectancy of [colon cancer] patients has doubled to 22 months ... but the cost of treatment has swollen 500 times to $250,000.")

Cost of Cancer On the Rise American Cancer Society 4/19/02 ("'Everybody's talking about cost controls... But the consumer needs to be sensitive to the idea that certain types of cost controls may impact the ability to keep your cancer from growing.'")

Update January 2007: Rich, young, educated women get better breast cancer care than poor, older women, BMJ, 1/27/2007: "Three US studies show that the treatment of breast cancer is influenced by a woman's education, income, and age."