NBC’s Robert Bazell on Sicko’s use of the bone-marrow/kidney cancer case:
Almost any insurance plan would have turned down the request for an experimental treatment, with no proven value, costing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is critical to note that the national health plans in Canada, Great Britain, France and Cuba that are featured in “Sicko” would also have turned down such treatment. No matter where he was getting his care, Tracy Pierce almost certainly would have died at a young age.Even in the wealthiest countries, health resources are limited. Everyone cannot get every treatment they believe might help them.
Related posts:
- The myth of Cuban health care
- Sicko one-sided? It can’t be . . .
- Inevitable: NHS forced to ration care
- Sicko: Bone marrow transplant for kidney cancer?
- The New Yorker on Sicko
- Canadian health care: At the expense of defense?
- Sicko: Real health care in Cuba
KevinMD.com on Facebook
{ 1 comment }
This fact pattern is an outlier with a near-unanimous consensus among informed people (i.e., those who don’t buy into Moore’s nonsense). “Rationing morally” is not difficult here.
But how exactly are we (meaning of course not “us” but “politician and bureaucrats”) supposed to “ration morally” when the questions become “cancer versus AIDS” or “diabetes versus Alzheimers” or “talk therapy versus pharmopsychiatry”?
Comments on this entry are closed.