Ah, yes. Here's an unsurprising development from the insurance industry -- you know, the people who fight tooth and nail to limit their costs or government involvement in health care. Now, as reported in The New York Times, there are new insurance policies coming forth that already are forcing some people with serious medical conditions to pay huge sums of money for their needed medications instead of modest co-pays.

The idea behind the changes is to make people pay a percentage of the actual cost of the drugs instead of that co-pay (a co-pay that also requires payment of insurance premiums, of course). But as those who take medications for cancer and other serious conditions know, the expenses can run into hundreds or even thousands of dollars in monthly bills; having to absorb a significant fraction of those expenses could be financially devastating. Presumably, the insurers will take all they can until the money's gone, and then those people will be left to Medicaid or to nothing.

There is a point where government social policy needs to intervene to protect the safety and security of the citizenry. Oh, that point won't be reached with the Bush administration, which has been more concerned about protecting profit margins enjoyed by its good friends in the insurance and drug industries. But the hope must be that the president who succeeds George W. Bush will recognize the need for some form of national health policy, universal insurance coverage at a minimum, that would hold down what people must pay for drugs.

Many people already make what could be life and death decisions every day, as when they tell their pharmacists to give them half a prescription of their blood-pressure medicine, so they can buy food. This new payment rule will only put more people in that category.