Re: Told ya so.
- From: Elmo <ElmoHateSpam@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:55:13 -0500
JC wrote:
Cancer Patients Lose Shot at Longer Life in U.K. Cuts (Update1)
By David Altaner and Bruce Rule
from Bloomberg.com
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.
About 800 of 3,000 cancer patients lose their appeals for regulator-
approved drugs each year because of cost, Canterbury- based charity
Rarer Cancers Forum said. The U.K. is considering whether to make
permanent a preliminary ruling that four medicines, including Sutent,
are too expensive to be part of the government-funded treatment of
advanced kidney cancer.
Same thing happens over here. The only difference is that it is
a private insurance company who decides that they won't pay for
the treatment. And here the insurance company just says "that
isn't covered" instead of "it costs too much".
In both places you have the option to pay for it yourself. In the UK
you can go outside of the National Health Service -- they just won't
pay for it. Here you can have whatever treatment you want -- but
the insurance company doesn't have to pay for it. A woman who ran
for state leg last month paid for her own bone marrow transplant after
her insurance company said it wasn't covered.
--
Optimism, cheerfulness, an embrace of magical thinking
and the avoidance of the painful truth is the formula
for victory at the polls.
.
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