Monday, November 17, 2008

Another Great Moment in Socialized Medicine

Sphere: Related Content

Yeah, that socialized medicine plan pushed by Obama will be a real Godsend, won't it? I mean, it may be a pipe dream, but if we follow the new president, we can have a health care system on the same par as Great Britain:


Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Jack Rosser's doctor says taking Pfizer Inc.'s Sutent cancer drug may keep him alive long enough to see his 1-year-old daughter, Emma, enter primary school. The U.K.'s National Health Service says that's not worth the expense.

Rosser, 57, was told the cost of Sutent, 3,140 pounds ($4,650) per treatment for his advanced kidney cancer, was too high for the NHS -- the government agency that funds the nation's health care. The resident of the town of Kingswood, in southwest England, has appealed the decision twice, and next month may find out if his second plea is successful.

``It's immoral,'' Rosser's wife, Jenny, said. ``They are sentencing him to die.''

The NHS, which provides health care to all Britons and is funded by tax revenue, is spending about 100 billion pounds this fiscal year, or more than double what it spent a decade ago, as the cost of treatments increase and the population ages. The higher costs are forcing the NHS to choose between buying expensive drugs for terminal patients and providing more services for a wider number of people.
Now this is something to aspire to: we can have a nation where a group of regulators--government employees, actually--who make the ultimate decision who can live and who will die. A liberal wet dream. Sounds great.

I can just see our future; a future where cancer treatment is not covered but abortions and sex changes are. Infanticide? No problemo. Acquire an STD? Great, come on in and get treated, but don't even ask for that newest drug that is used for diabetes treatment as it's much too expensive.

I imagine the numbers on that chart at right will steadily decrease for Britain.

Man, it should be an interesting (hopefully only) four years, folks.

Update: Here's another cancer drug that will probably cost too much as well. It's a vaccine for skin cancer.

1 comment:

tiernan said...

These decisions have been made in the US for quite some time now by the Insurance agencies.