Britain Weighs the Social Cost of High-Priced Drugs
By Joanne Silberner
NPR
July 3, 2008
Funding ‘Wonder’ Drugs
The government agency that decides what drugs the NHS will provide is the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). Sir Michael Rawlins, chairman of NICE, says he knows his agency’s rulings can cause much disappointment.
Paying huge amounts of money for every new drug with the faintest hope of extending life by even a small amount would make it impossible for the NHS to provide universal care.
And Rawlins is sure that someday Americans will have to deal more directly with these same thorny questions of rationing and hope.
The United States will one day have to take cost effectiveness into account, he says. “There is no doubt about it all. You cannot keep on increasing your health care costs at the rate you are for so poor return. You are 29th in the world in life expectancy. You pay twice as much for health care as anyone else on God’s Earth.”
Social Solidarity
And then of course, he points to the millions of Americans with no access to health care because they can’t afford it.
“We have in Britain, as in most of Europe actually, a health care system based on social solidarity,” he says. “We look after each other when we’re sick. And that’s very precious to us in Britain. And I think that’s what we find so difficult about your health care system; you don’t have that.”
Cancer patient Donald Sutherland is happy with the British system, even with its limits.
“I think we’re quite patient people, albeit if we want something, we’ll make sure that we get it,” he says. “In my experience, I can only say that whenever I’ve needed the National Health Service, it’s always been there, and I’ve always had first-class treatment.”
Sutherland’s big interest is in more funding for the search for an effective treatment for lung cancer. And he doesn’t expect his fellow taxpayers to pay for a drug until there’s solid proof that there’s a benefit.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91996282
And…
Weighing the Costs of a CT Scan’s Look Inside the Heart
By Alex Berenson and Reed Abelson
The New York Times
June 29, 2008
(CT angiograms) were given to more than 150,000 people in this country last year at a cost exceeding $100 million. Their use is expected to soar through the next decade. But there is scant evidence that the scans benefit most patients.
And they expose patients to large doses of radiation, equivalent to at least several hundred X-rays, creating a small but real cancer risk.
Mr. (Robert) Franks has a family history of cardiac disease, and his father and two uncles died of heart attacks. But Mr. Franks… is in excellent shape.
(Mr. Franks) decided to have a nuclear stress test. When that test showed no problem, the cardiologist who conducted it said he did not need more testing.
After doing research on the Internet, (Mr. Franks) found Dr. (Harvey) Hecht, who recommended a CT angiogram. Dr. Hecht acknowledged that Mr. Franks probably did not have severe heart disease. But he said the scan would be valuable anyway because it might reassure him. And his insurance would cover the cost.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/business/29scan.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
One of the more important reasons that the U.S. health care system is so much more expensive than those of other nations is our well documented excess use of expensive high-tech services and products. As much as 30 percent of spending is for services of little or no benefit, and often leads to adverse consequences as a direct result of the intervention or indirectly due to other interventions that this overuse may lead to.
$100,000 drugs that have a 100 percent incidence of poisoning, but have only a negligible impact on the malignancy targeted, are not the breakthrough technology that those profiting from them imply. An expensive imaging procedure that has not been demonstrated to be of benefit, but has radiation doses known to cause cancer, is another breakthrough that favorably impacts profits to the detriment of patients.
We can learn much from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), an independent organization that provides Britain’s National Health Service with “national guidance on promoting good health and preventing and treating ill health.” Sadly, much of the publicity in the U.S. on NICE has come from the opponents of a government role in health care, claiming that NICE is depriving British citizens of life-saving cures. In fact, NICE is reducing the waste of taxpayer funds by providing better guidance on how those funds should be spent.
Compare that to the United States. Mr. Franks (NY Times article above) received an expensive test that was not medically indicated, but that perhaps could provide him with reassurance, and it would add to Dr. Hecht’s income, possibly at the cost of giving Mr. Franks cancer. But it was okay because his insurance would pay for it. What?
Whether health care is paid for by a public program or a private insurance plan, we all pay for it. Excess public spending wastes our taxes, but excess private insurer spending wastes our premium dollars and further adds a surcharge in outrageous administrative costs that are tacked on to our health care bill.
A NICE-like program combined with public financing in the United States would dramatically increase the value received for health care spending for all of us, and isn’t that what social solidarity is all about?
You should go to the NICE website to familiarize yourself with this program. Not only will you be able to answer the ideologues who try to demonize this program, but, much more importantly, you will be in a position to advocate with greater confidence for an even better health care system that is more affordable for all of us.
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE):
http://www.nice.org.uk/
