http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124692973435303415.html Obama has his way with his health Plan, you can probably kiss your Parents and Grandparents goodbye. I read an interesting article in the WSJ dated July 7, 2009 titled “Of NICE and Men”. It had some revealing information on “National Health Insurance”. President Obama has been pushing this as his number one item – perhaps even above healing our nation’s economic problems. Anyway, “BO” has frequently used the United Kingdom as a prime example of what we should be doing as their cost per capita is about one-half of ours. When UK went to their system they attempted to cut costs through automating their system and eliminating waste (sound familiar?). It did not work. Then they created the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, acronym of NICE. This board was created in the late 1990’s in an attempt to rein in and control spiraling costs. It is basically a rationing board. It worked. Here are only a few of the reasons why it worked: · Two drugs, Lapatinib and Sutent, that prolong the life of breast and stomach cancer patients were ruled, “not covered” because they were too costly. · Certain drugs, including Sutent, that help terminally ill kidney cancer patients were also ruled, “not covered”. · One drug to treat Macular Degeneration, Macugen, was ruled “not covered” and a second drug, Lucentis, also used to treat MD was ruled to have limited coverage, that is only 1 in 5 can have it and ONLY FOR ONE EYE. Their thinking is apparently patients can still see with only one eye. · A main drug used to treat Alzheimer’s, Aricept, was also ruled to have “limited coverage”. No definition given on this one. · Many surgical procedures are also “restrained’ – for back and other problems. · Steroid injections for back pain was also “restricted”. · Fertility treatments also has “restrictions”. · Young women, under 25, are not allowed to have pap smears – this was followed by a surge in cervical cancer in young women. · A mathematical formula is used to determine many treatments. Translation: it is a cost benefit analysis. If you are old, have a chronic or terminal illness you are probably in trouble. The formula measures how much treatment costs versus how long you might live if treatment is successful. As I see it, if you are old or terminal , it is “Tough Luck Charlie, We Only Take the Best of Tuna”. The current cost cut off points are 6 months and $22,000. Today, there are very few surgeries or treatments of lingering illnesses that will fall within $22,000.
Cancer survival rates in the UK are among the highest in the world. Five year survival rates of cancer patients in the US are significantly higher than in the UK. For example, breast cancer survival rates of US vs. UK are 92% vs. 57%. The UK has been buried with lawsuits as a result of NICE. The article concludes that President Obama and the Democrats claim they can extend medical coverage for tens of millions and cut costs at the same time. It cannot be done. The inevitable result will be some version of NICE that will tell tens of millions of Americans that they are too young, too old or too sick to be worth paying to care for. As a side comment, the Obama medical plan assumes all of our health data will be put on a computer system saving time and cost. Well my GP did this and the last time I went in with a problem she went ballistic because my records were neither current nor correct. I took our car in to the dealer for servicing recently and they could not find my history. Turns out they are on their third computer system in 2 years and cannot get any of them to deliver accurate information. The LA Unified School System purchased a computer system to cover paychecks. It has currently cost nearly three times the original estimate and after three years, they have reduced issuing duplicate checks and checks for erroneous amounts down to “a small percentage”. What is a small percentage of three hundred and thirty five million people? I could actually give other examples but the point is clear. Computers are great – but they do have glitches and all of them are operated by people. People make mistakes. 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