Another cancer drug too dear for Britain: Bowel cancer victims denied life-prolonging care.

By Jenny Hope, Daily Mail U.K., Mail Online, updated at 9:13 AM on 24th November 2009

Bowel cancer sufferers are to be denied a life-prolonging drug on the NHS which is available to patients across Europe and beyond.

Trials show Avastin can extend life by almost two years.

But the Government's rationing body, Nice, says it is not cost-effective. (link)

Comment

Is this the kind of health care we want in America? As explained in this article, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence follows a complex formula that evaluates quality of life and cost effectiveness to determine what medical treatments and procedures will be paid for by the government. This treatment was deemed too expensive. About 35,000 Britons develop bowel cancer each year, of which 4,000-5,000 with advanced cancer could benefit from this drug. This life-saving drug is too expensive for the British health care system. The UK has not raised the cost cap on individual care in ten years despite lifesaving advances in medicine and new but more costly treatment options.

It is true that the US spends more of our GNP on health care than most other advanced countries. If health care becomes a government service then we can hold down the cost. The cost will be held down by rationing, as is the case in the UK. Proponents of radically transforming our health care system deny that care will be rationed but every government service is rationed from police protection to education. Health care will consume less of the GNP under a nationalized health care system because the government will determine the amount spend on health care. Health care will be a budget item in competition with the Defence Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Agriculture Department and every other department of government.

I know that there are many Americans ready to accept having health care decision dictated by a government bureaucracy. There are many Americans who don't care if treatment is denied, as long as it is denied to everyone equally. If a particular drug was never approved by the government in the first place then they won't mind if they don't get it. They look at government decisions much the way a child looks at decisions handed down by a parent; the government is wise and knows best. They want someone else making decisions for them. Freedom is messy and stressful. They want someone to take care of them. They long to be subjects at the mercy of government dictates. They are also more concerned with everyone being treated the same and never think about what it takes to advance the human condition. They look around them and see the current deficiencies in the current system and never think of advances in health care that will not occur under a government bureaucracy. I am not one of them.

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