Does anybody still believe their won’t be death panels?
Question by jdman13: Does anybody still believe their won’t be death panels?
“You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $ 54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?”
“If you can afford it, you probably would pay that much, or more, to live longer, even if your quality of life wasn’t going to be good. But suppose it’s not you with the cancer but a stranger covered by your health-insurance fund. If the insurer provides this man — and everyone else like him — with Sutent, your premiums will increase. Do you still think the drug is a good value? Suppose the treatment cost a million dollars. Would it be worth it then? Ten million? Is there any limit to how much you would want your insurer to pay for a drug that adds six months to someone’s life? If there is any point at which you say, “No, an extra six months isn’t worth that much,” then you think that health care should be rationed.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19healthcare-t.html?_r=1
This is a very true statement, what is your cutoff price? As I said before there has to be rationing with any form of insurance or the company/government would go broke because the more ‘life saving’ a treatment is, usually, the more expensive it is. You can call it whatever you want but the people on a panel who make these decisions could be called a ‘death’ panel. Sure the insurance companies have some form of this now but how can you say the government won’t have it. Will they fork out ten million dollars to keep someone alive an extra six months? Would you if you were in charge of the money? You have to ration it somewhere.
easy24….., I asked the same question and was told that pills like these are not mass produced, they are hand make by scientists in lab coats one at a time, your also talking about health care reform, the president is talking about health insurance reform, two different things. How can changing anything about the insurance company change the drug companies?
The point to this post is that EVERY centralized health care insurance, private or government, has death panels. They may not call it that but they have them. Name one insurance company that would fork out a million dollars to keep you alive an extra week. You can’t because the business would fail, UHC would run just like a business but my point is not which is better, IT’S THAT THEY WOULD HAVE DEATH PANELS. So stop lying to your fellow americans just to try and push your agenda.
Deb M,,,,, agian, how would making the insurance companies competitive with the public option or any other kind of insurance reform, make Sutant or any other expensive drug cheaper? How does that fix the “greed” of drug companies.
Best answer:
Answer by uncle billy 7
that is why big pharma has to go down too.
What do you think? Answer below!