This quote is from an opinion piece in today’s WSJ by Martin Feldstein. His thesis is that Obamacare is designed to achieve cost savings through rationing of health care.

In the British national health service, a government agency approves only those expensive treatments that add at least one Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) per £30,000 (about $49,685) of additional health-care spending. If a treatment costs more per QALY, the health service will not pay for it. The existence of such a program in the United States would not only deny lifesaving care but would also cast a pall over medical researchers who would fear that government experts might reject their discoveries as “too expensive.”

The variables in the equation are how many years a procedure will add to a person’s life, a ‘quality quotient’ for those extra years, and a cost limit. I would love to see the equation that these variables are plugged into, to say nothing of how the data are collected.

The Aleuts, I am led to believe, had a much simpler solution that involved an ice flow, a peanut butter sandwich, and a wave goodby. Didn’t require a 25-year-old policy wonk at a far away Washington desk to administer it, either.

Dave, feeling especially grumpy this morning.