I wanted to call bullshit on those numbers, but wow. They're accurate. The math is almost exact even. It turns out 3.2 million people in the US have hep c (1%). Although most have no symptoms.

However the per year is bullshit. That's the cost to treat every person is California who has it. But it's expensive and popular because the cure rate is very high. That makes it more of a one time cost, not a per year cost.

It's also much more effective than the competition (i.e., its cure rate is higher). It also doesn't make you feel like you have the flu during the treatment period. The higher % of people who relapse on alternative treatments could end up costing more than just paying for the better drug in the first place. The cost of the medication alone is not enough information.

Well...we would probably need to factor in the long term costs. Hepatitis C is the leading cause of liver transplantation. The pre-transplant work, surgery, and medical follow up costs on the order of $500,000 each. Not including complications. Obviously everyone with Hepatitis C does not reach cirrhosis to the point of tranplant, but it's still a sizeable number.

Calculate the annual cost (which isn't $18-$29 billion, that's the one time cost to cure everyone in CA with it) to cure a portion of the population in CA that has Hep C. Most likely we're talking $3-$5 billion per year.

Calculate the savings that curing those people produces over time (1, 5, 10, 20 years).

I'd be willing to bet the math works out in favor of spending $84,000 one time.

> I'd be willing to bet the math works out in favor of spending $84,000 one time.

I'd love for the state to announce ahead of time how much they would pay for, say, a cure for diabetes. Have them calculate what the NPV is for a lifetime of diabetes treatment. Publish that figure.

Then some drug company can show up with a cure, charge 90% of that figure, and we can see people whine that the drug company is costing the state money.

The funny part is that a common criticism of the pharmaceutical industry is that they don't want to create cures because they make more money with drugs that have to be taken chronically.

So a drug company releases a cure for a disease and everyone complains about the price. Ironic.