Posted on 01/19/2009 11:17:28 PM PST by FocusNexus
In Britain, a government agency evaluates new medical products for their "cost effectiveness" before citizens can get access to them. The agency has concluded that $45,000 is the most worth paying for products that extend a person's life by one "quality-adjusted" year. (By their calculus, a year combating cancer is worth less than a year in perfect health.)
Here in the U.S., President-elect Barack Obama and House Democrats embrace the creation of a similar "comparative effectiveness" entity that will do research on drugs and medical devices. They claim that they don't want this to morph into a British-style agency that restricts access to medical products based on narrow cost criteria, but provisions tucked into the fiscal stimulus bill betray their real intentions.
Report language accompanying the House stimulus bill says that "more expensive" medical products "will no longer be prescribed." The House bill also suggests that the new research should be used to create "guidelines" to direct doctors' treatment of difficult, high-cost medical problems.
The bill gives incoming Health Secretary Tom Daschle wide discretion to set priorities, and he's long advocated a U.S. approach modeled on the British agency, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). Mr. Daschle argues that the only way to reduce spending is by allocating medical products based on "cost effectiveness." He's also called for a "federal health board" modeled on the Federal Reserve to rate medical products and create central controls on access.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I think you’re confusing your Huxley with your Orwell.
Soylent Green is people!
Given that we already have the FDA, the DEA, and the "War On Drugs" it appears to me that they're just extending the power they already have.
Right, because it wouldn’t be “fair” for some people to be able to afford private insurance when the Dhim base can’t.
That is exactly the most important effect that I see.
Where will the world's socialists find medical advancements once we shut down the incentives for it?
His nomination hasn't even been confirmed yet, was it?
My only consolation is that Morphine is cheap.
When I get one of these diseases, no one will give me treatment, except the black market that I won’t be able to afford. My kids can snow me out, and I’ll go painlessly.
I guess a quick and easy death is all we have to look forward to.
bookmark
Here it comes.
How is the stimulus bill tied to health care? I don’t understand.
Bump, I want to send this to my MIL, 40 years in medicine. She needs to see this info.
Healthcare has just gotten ridiculously expensive. I am losing all sympathy for doctors, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and health insurance providers. Doctors want to give you every kind of test perform every kind of procedure they can get away with just to jack up their fees. Hospitals jack you around so they can get their cut too. They all just want every dime they can soak you for, every penny they can get from your insurance provider and more. Insurance companies keep jacking their rates and providing us less and less coverage. Everybody just wants to get rich, and you pretty much have to be rich to get decent healthcare. My daughter and I had to get rabies shots recently. I only needed a couple of booster shots because I had them before. She needed the full course. We had to go through the hospital because no one else had the vaccine. After our expensive insurance paid all it was going to pay, we still owed well over five grand, for a few shots. Every time we went we had to wait several hours, even when we called in advance and asked them to please have the shots ready when we got there. I only had two shots in two weeks, my daughter had seven or eight over the course of several weeks. My jaw hit the floor when I saw the final bill. Our insurance premiums keep going up at a pace much faster than normal inflation, and coverage keeps getting worse. I don't know what the answer is but something needs to be done about this or the average guy won't be able to afford healthcare and the government will go broke providing what it provides.
The tests aren’t neccessarily to jack up fees, but to
protect the doctor against malpractice.
If there was meaningful tort reform this wouldn’t be the
problem it is.
Well fine let us know how effective the lieyers are in treating physical afflictions.
Not in Round One. But at some point soon, the deadbeats, welfare queens, and every tree-hugging leftest in line for a government handout will complain that private individuals and private insurance have better coverage and that's not fair, and they will demand equality, and the government will then prohibit people from buying better health care than the government allows in the medicaid system.
You know what would bring healthcare costs way down? If we got rid of health insurance and government provided healthcare costs would drop through the floor. Hardly anyone would be able to afford healthcare. Heathcare providers and pharmaceutical companies would have to compete on costs. They don't really have to do that today and haven't for decades. The government and insurance companies have set the minimum prices basically. They've got all the money and the game has been for healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies to figure out how to get as much of that money as possible. They aren't really competing on price like most who supply goods or services. This has driven costs way out of hand over the last few decades. And of course the insurance companies have contributed as well. They've acted as middlemen paying our money to healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies and taking a huge and increasing cut for themselves and requiring patients to pay an increasing share out of their own pockets even though their insurance premiums keep going up at a rate that far out paces normal inflation. Everyone involved, the people who provide the drugs, medical equipment, etc., are trying to get a piece of this massive insurance and government money pie. Everything is becoming incredibly expensive, like the stories we hear about the government paying a thousand bucks for a toilet seat for a submarine or whatever in their defense contracts. The system is a clusterf%&*. It doesn't work like a normal free market system and hasn't for a long time now.
I don't have the answer to the problems we are facing. I'm not recommending we do away with health insurance. It's too late for that now. It's a necessary evil. We've got to do something though to contain costs. Somehow or another basic healthcare needs to be affordable.
In Britain, a government agency evaluates new medical products for their "cost effectiveness" before citizens can get access to them. The agency has concluded that $45,000 is the most worth paying for products that extend a person's life by one "quality-adjusted" year... Here in the U.S., President-elect Barack Obama and House Democrats embrace the creation of a similar "comparative effectiveness" entity that will do research on drugs and medical devices... provisions tucked into the fiscal stimulus bill betray their real intentions... "more expensive" medical products "will no longer be prescribed." The House bill also suggests that the new research should be used to create "guidelines" to direct doctors' treatment of difficult, high-cost medical problems.Health Care Rationing is NOT health care.
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