Bitter medicine
March 15, 2006
Writing by Tim Harford: Bitter medicine
Here’s a mission impossible answer to the question I raised in my last post:
Ann Marie Rogers is in a tough spot. She has an aggressive form of breast cancer, albeit at an early stage. It may kill her, and so she has been through surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and a legal battle which, so far, she is losing.
Ideally we should have a system that would cocoon Rogers from the cruel unpredictability of illness without removing her autonomy. That’s possible, at least in principle: when Rogers’ condition was diagnosed, the government could simply have written her a cheque for GBP100,000 - or whatever was the likely cost of a standard treatment. She would have discussed with her doctor how best to spend it on the open market for healthcare - guided by advisory books, magazines and websites. Nice could concentrate on the easier (if still hugely difficult) problem of how big the cheque should be.
It should be clear that there are answers to our health care mess that are economically sound and possible in every sense but the political.
Dave, flirting with incurable cynicism.
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