Blood Fees

I think it is scandalous that Medicare won’t pay for autologous pre-donated blood. We have to use this now in compliance with the Gann Blood Act which is now the law in California. However, Medicare does not pay for autologous blood.

The question is, does Medicare pay for the vast expenses of treating AIDS? There is a problem here. We now have to give these Medicare patients autologous blood and unless they have a supplemental insurance program, they have got to come up with $500 a unit, meaning in many cases, perhaps, as much as $3,000 out of their pockets to pay for this blood which requires extra processing and extra attention.

In comparison with the expenditure necessitated by treating one AIDS patient, however remote the cost, I am certain that it is a poor trade-off to play this kind of roulette with Medicare patients’ lives. It is not right to force elderly patients to take a chance on pool donor blood just to save a few bucks.

W.R. HALE, M.D.

Pomona