New England Journal of Medicine Pushes NICE-Style QALY Health Care Rationing

Thursday, October 14, 2010
Wesley J. Smith

Excerpt:
...Here’s a rough overview of how it works against the elderly, people with disabilities, the non productive, and the very ill. Let’s say I have a serious illness and that Medicine A will give me two years of life at my current quality of life as an able bodied man. That would be worth, roughly 2 QALYs (less if I am elderly, but let’s not get too complicated here.) My friend Mark has MS and is a triplegic. Let’s say he has the same illness and Medicine A would also give him two years of life at his current level as a man with a serious disability. Because he only has the use of one arm, his two years might only be deemed a .5 QALY.

Then, the cost/benefit is measured, determining whether the cost of Medicine A is worth the number of QALYs it would provide. Thus, I would be more likely to receive the treatment over Mark because it would give me 2 QALYs, versus his .5 QALYs. Pure health care discrimination.

Obamacare opens the door to such (and/or other kinds of) rationing... the rest