Stephen Hawking defends the NHS..

[r0beph]

I did not read the article originally since a source was not provided. But I have found the article and read it now. It does not talk about preborns but it is about the elderly.

The author was saying that the system in the UK that assigns a point value to a person's life is bad. These are his exact words:


This is a relevant part of the article:

"The controlling of medical costs in countries such as Britain through rationing, and the health consequences thereof are legendary. The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror movie script.

The U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) basically figures out who deserves treatment by using a cost-utility analysis based on the "quality adjusted life year."

One year in perfect health gets you one point. Deductions are taken for blindness, for being in a wheelchair and so on.

The more points you have, the more your life is considered worth saving, and the likelier you are to get care."
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=333933006516877

somewhere in there the author also said:

“People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless,”

As it turns out the authors attempt at a comparison failed because while he was trying to say that if Hawking were born in the UK his life would be worth less. Why did it fail? Because Hawking does live in the UK. And apparently the NHS did provide him with treatment. I guess he had enough points. If it were you instead of him and you were not a brilliant cosmologists would you have enough points sitting in a wheelchair?

The author missed a pretty big detail and honorably retracted it as you can see if you link to the link. But he was dead on right that the system in the UK does assign a point value to your life.

And did you know that a "quality adjusted life year" as they use in England is already written into law here in the stimulus bill? So if you hear someone say that it is not in the health care bill they will be right. If they say it is not being advanced here they will be wrong.

Except if you go check the various UK forums, people (The citizens) are quite angry at the spin put on their beloved healthcare that they actually love. The whole country thinks the right has stepped over its bounds with this argument, I tend to agree. Nutters are as they are. Perhaps they'll right in a nice psychiatric care subsection in the bill somewhere.

 

[Andy]

Except if you go check the various UK forums, people (The citizens) are quite angry at the spin put on their beloved healthcare that they actually love. The whole country thinks the right has stepped over its bounds with this argument, I tend to agree. Nutters are as they are. Perhaps they'll right in a nice psychiatric care subsection in the bill somewhere.

I'm less interested in opinions than facts. But since you bring up opinions, what do you think about the postal code lottery? Since the government doesn't have money to pay for everyone, is simply having a lottery based on what postal code you live in, a valid way for determining who gets treatment, or not?

Postcode lottery

The NHS funding process of early stage treatment has been criticised as a "postcode lottery" with some health authorities opting to pay for all eligible applicants, while others will only fund in "exceptional cases".

Oh sorry, you are from the wrong area to get this drug.
Too bad.

 

[r0beph]

I'm less interested in opinions than facts. But since you bring up opinions, what do you think about the postal code lottery? Since the government doesn't have money to pay for everyone, is simply having a lottery based on what postal code you live in, a valid way for determining who gets treatment, or not?



Oh sorry, you are from the wrong area to get this drug.
Too bad.

Lovely spin. What you want however are the facts. This isn't some sort of cost-restriction, this is more a case of the drug not yet being completely approved for early treatment (it was approved for late term treatment) , some localities have chosen to provide the still experimental primary treatment usage and others have decided to deny it. This is not a case of health care rationing, but rather a case of independent local offices deciding whether to pay for a not yet approved treatment of a disease.

"Manufacturers Roche have claimed that its research shows the "wonder drug" halves the risk of the aggressive HER-2 form of breast cancer returning.

Herceptin was licensed to treat secondary or late-stage breast cancer in March 2002 but recent evidence suggesting that it may also benefit in the early stages prompted the application to the European Medicines Agency."

This is FROM the article you linked. There is no one denying its use in the already approved method of use, but on the early stage usage. What you also fail to recognize is that once the drug is approved as an early stage treatment option there will be no denial of it.

There is NO lottery, that's just a buzz word. There is no pool of post codes that people draw from to decide who lives and who dies. Simply independent offices that determine whether or not experimental usage of drugs are to be approved or denied. By the way, I bet if you compare the number of people who received experimental treatments here in the US that their insurers pay for versus the number who received treatments in the UK that was paid for by NIH you'd find that britain has that topped.

Next time, bring something that makes sense to the table, not some spun out dribble. The article itself isn't even the problem, it is the context you try to place it in that doesn't even exist!

 

[PLC1]

Here's one Brit's take on our health care reform "debate":