Donald Berwick, President Obama's recess appointment to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), is a gushing fan of Britain's government-run health care agency, the National Health Service. Which means he loves its de facto rationing arm, absurdly known as NICE.From London's Telegraph:
Professor Mike Rawlins, the chairman of Nice, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, is admirably frank about his role: "The question is not whether care is rationed," he insists, "but how." He has pointed out that decisions about how to ration health care are going to get more acute in the next six years as three factors collide: Britain’s population increases by at least three million; the number of people over 74 rises by more than 20 per cent; and spending on the NHS is reduced, in real terms, by £20 billion.As for Avastin, patients who want to pay out of their own pocket for it can do so, but they may be shunned by the NHS--they won't get the health care they pay taxes for.
In the future, there are going to be a lot more cases like the one last week, when Nice recommended that the NHS should not pay for Avastin, a drug for those suffering from bowel cancer. Nice accepts that Avastin can lengthen the lives of some patients: it just doesn’t think it’s worth what it costs. If the NHS were to pay for it for every patient who might benefit, it would not be able to afford to buy better, more effective treatments for other patients suffering from other diseases. So, Nice concludes, patients as a whole are better served if the NHS doesn’t buy Avastin.
This could be America in 2020.
As for government-run health care, Obama uttered this bedpan full of nonsense to the American Medical Association last year: "I'll be honest. There are countries where a single-payer system may be working." Funny, he didn't name one. But he appointed an NHS cheerleader to run CMS.
Related posts:
British ObamaCare update: Wife succeeds in getting proper care for husband--after going on hunger strike
British ObamaCare update: Over 300 NHS bosses make more than prime minister
British ObamaCare update: Gov't-run health care not really redistributional
British ObamaCare update: Even more rationing could be coming
British ObamaCare update: First baby born under NHS feels betrayed by system
British ObamaCare update: New PM looking at hospital with 1,200 needless deaths
British Obama Care update: Rationing expanded, kids are the victims
British ObamaCare update: Life-saving drug judged too expensive
British ObamaCare update: Hospital seeking "Hair Removal Specialist - Transgender Services"
British ObamaCare update: Babies' blood used for secret DNA database
British ObamaCare update: Dead bodies dumped on floor of morgue
British ObamaCare update: Health care workers asked to rate Hitler on "coolness"
British ObamaCare update: Bureaucrats getting in the way of saving lives
British ObamaCare update: Fighting waste is not so easy
British ObamaCare update: Hero left to lie in own excrement
British ObamaCare update: Woman barred from surgery after seeing private doctor
British ObamaCare update: Basic surgeries being withheld to save money
2009 British ObamaCare entries
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