Cancer Drug Goes From $134 at Clinic to $13,000 at a US Hospital

Ida Martin’s first chemotherapy treatment at Rush University Medical Center cost her health plan $13,560. When she went down the street to a clinic for her next infusion three weeks later, the price dropped to $134.

“Same drug, different prices,” said Martin, a 62-year-old cook with colon cancer. The clinic was even still within the Rush system. “It’s ridiculous.”

Health spending in the US now tops $5 trillion a year with families and companies facing their steepest insurance premium hikes in years. Politicians often blame pharmaceutical companies, insurers, wasteful procedures and a bloated system too tangled to tame.

But beneath ...