No pill for the hole in the pocket

Between rising air pollution, contaminated food, and indoor smoking, cancer in Lebanon is becoming  more common and more expensive. While consolidated numbers do not exist, there are some good signposts that point to the direction we are heading.  MedNet, a leading third-party administrator (TPA) of medical insurance services in Lebanon, offers perhaps the best possible view of the industry. Sarkis el-Zein, vice president of actuarial and reinsurance services at GlobeMed, a unit of MedNet, says that the company serves some 250,000 people in Lebanon, and that its figures cover more than 15 medical insurance providers, including self-insured schemes, mutual societies, and commercial insurance companies.  Adjusted for inflation, the annual cost of cancer treatment per MedNet member has doubled from 1995 to 2010, while cancer now also has a heavy share of overall healthcare costs for MedNet clients. “Out of each five dollars you are paying, one dollar goes to cancer.