And so dies pragmatism, on the altar of principle.
The NYT reports on the case of a woman in England who is being denied cancer treatment in the public NHS if she pays privately for a part of her treatment. It sounds as misguided as Canada's Principle of Universality.
Health care is expensive and there are multiple potential levels of effectiveness, including one of cost-effectiveness. The NHS and Canada's Medicare should function as a subsidy for those interventions that are well-documented and cost-effective and consistent with the values of each country. Anything more is not sustainable in the long-run. It should be clear that a public health system is not as good as a private one; fewer items are covered and convenience suffers, but not items that are important to the public health.
To repeat what I state in my previous post: I don't believe that anyone anywhere has a right to everything at all times. But there is no reason that a subsidy should be voided for paying into the parallel private system.
Sounds like old labor is back. I grieve for the lap dog's absence, now I see the shaggy mongrel growling in the shadows.
Friday, February 22, 2008
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3 comments:
When the ship sinks there will be little satisfaction in the fact that everyone was deprived of a life jacket.
So, subsidization shouldn't go away if someone wants to pay into a parallel private system to access care that may not have the same level of evidence behind it.
What happens if that privately-acquired care should happen to lead to an adverse outcome or a complication?
Does the parallel private system foot the bill in this case, or (more likely) does the public system take care of it (at the expense of taxpayers)?
Not so black-and-white to me.
You haven't posted in a while... you ok? :)
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