Insurers push back against growing cost of cancer treatments

Some cancer patients and their insurers are seeing their bills for chemotherapy jump sharply, reflecting increased drug prices and hospitals' push to buy oncologists' practices and then bill at higher rates. Patients say, "'I've been treated with Herceptin for breast cancer for several years and it was always $5,000 for the drug and suddenly it's $16,000 -- and I was in the same room with the same doctor same nurse and the same length of time'," said Dr. Donald Fischer, chief medical officer for Highmark, the largest health plan in Pennsylvania.