An article in Yahoo! News indicates that it costs an average of $215,00 to fly each Ebola patient from Africa to the US.

Moreover, there is currently only *one* airplane that can do this, and that it can only handle one patient.

That is the method for evacuating anyone in the 4,000 person military contingent, as well as CDC personnel all NGO aid groups. If two people get sick, one waits while the other goes.

This aircraft is the same one to transport Ebola patients within the US.

The military is working on a system that can transport as many as 15 patients at a time in a larger cargo airplane. But that can't be ready for a couple of months at least, and there's a question in my mind if one large flight or three smaller is needed:

The turnaround of one large aircraft might mean a minimum of 3 days betweens flights out of Africa, and that might be too slow, especially if the aircraft needs maintenance or is lost.

Can't blame this on the government alone since even the NGO's didn't have evacuation plans in place before sending people. Nonetheless it in a policy problem that the CDC ought to lead on exploring and coordinating.