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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

In the UK we deal with the issue of special interest campaigning (and health care triage) by a quango called NICE. NICE calculates quality of life year gains from all available treatments and only funds those that exceed a set threshold. That threshold can go up or down but applies to all treatments (there may be some exceptions but I think they are rare).

Despite all the negative press in the US (and to some extent in the UK) the NHS offers, in my opinion, much greater value for money for the most important medicine (that which has a greater impact on life expectancy and quality of life) than the US health care system. The US spends a lot more money than the UK (both on a per capita and a GDP basis) but does worse in some areas. Like any state institution the NHS gets a lot of flack from the press but this is not really representative of the actual quality of the system.

There is a problem with the a ban on preexisting claims disqualification. And the solution is less than ideal, but leaving 1 in 6 Americans with essentially no health care coverage is clearly much worse.

And another point: Patients aren't necessarily knowledgable or rational in their choice of health care coverage. And furthermore their decisions in the US create a health care system that maximises treatments that rich people desire rather than treatments that benefit the population as a whole.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Maybe the BMJ ratings aren't right, but it seems dishonest to: a) cite the source, b) say you don't trust the source, and c) not say why you don't trust the source, all in the same post.

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