dsrtwriter

Genentech: Britain's National Health Won't Pay for Avastin

A two tier system is inevitable, and as Vassar above notes, the greatest proponents of single payer government care intend it only for the "little people". Limousine Barack will never accept the care he would mandate for all the "po folks".

Having said that, it is a very slippery slope to allow health care economists to impose cost benefit analysis to new drugs. In cases where studies clearly show no benefit to a drug, there is no debate.
But when a drug with a strong theoretical underpinning is having some success, it gets more complicated.

Doctors get blamed for using new treatments because they are not "cost effective".

Well frankly, most seniors and poor people could be regarded as not "cost effective" to give much treatment to!!

So where does it end? Do we only spend money on working,productive people? Do we adopt the attitude of Canada, Britain, and worst of all, the Netherlands, where, when someone other than ourselves gets a major problem, it is "nature taking its course".

ie. Is it OK when your neighbor has to wait 9 months for a cardiac stent, nursed along on medication, and if he/she drops dead in the meantime, it is just "unfortunate"?

For the United States, the key to a health system which can afford to encourage new innovative treatments lies in:

1. Developing and maintaining a first world economy which creates highly productive jobs,so that we can fund our health system,both for the productive and the retired.

2. Controlling our current unbridled illegal immigration, which places such a burden on our health system.Maybe if those fleeing South American resource rich countries were forced to stay in their countries, they would finally revolt and throw out the corrupt governments profiting from the wealth. There is no reason Mexico should be a poor country.

3. Holding other countries more responsible for financing the defense of their nation.Maybe Canada should spend more on its own defense,rather than hitching a free ride off the American taxpayer.

In summary, improvement in the health system is not an easy fix, but I fear that the Obamaniacs will succumb to the Marxist view of everyone being equal, but as in Animal Farm, some are more equal than others.