I have written here, here, and here about the British government’s cruel policy of refusing to pay for up-to-date cancer drugs because they are “too expensive.”
And what does the government of Perfidious Albion consider worthy of funding? MailOnline provides a chart showing expenses for which Brit taxpayers must reimburse members of Parliament:
My personal favorite is the last item: “Rent on one additional home in London or constituency.” That’s right. The British government refuses to pay for cancer drugs for dying patients, but it pays for the second homes of MPs.
This is what happens when government officials decide how to allocate health care resources. They always put political or personal considerations ahead of the patients. Always.
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MPs are elected representatives - not government officials. Most come from ordinary walks of life and would be unable to attend parliament without an allowance for a London residence. Parliament in the UK sits for a lot longer than the US congress and MPs salaries are not great. So in fact this is about stimulating democracy and not - as in the US - requiring wealth to be a politician (and in any case don’t congresspeople get $1 million a year to run offices?). As for the cancer drugs, I suggest you read Maggie Mahar’s excellent post on a study about balancing drugs with end of life care.
http://takingnote.tcf.org/2008/06/do-we-need-to-r.html
Posted 06 Jul 2008 at 4:42 pm ¶Marc, that has got to be the most unconvincing argument I have ever read for snout-in-the-trough MPs.
As to Maggie Mahar, I’ve read the post to which you refer. She’s a cocktail party progressive and the post is hopelessly trite.
Posted 07 Jul 2008 at 8:48 am ¶David, you talk as though no American politicians are caught with over-active snouts - in fact the UK political system is probably the most uncorrupt in the world.
And it is about time you engaged properly in the drug debate. To dismiss out of hand the arguments put forward by some of your own doctors about over-treatment and often horrendous side-effects, while possibly bankrupting families with hugely expensive drugs for no survival benefit, does you no favours. As Harrington and Smith say in their paper on the role of chemotherapy: ‘Through honest and respectful communication about the last stages of cancer, physicians can give patients a genuine choice about how to spend their last phase of life.’
Posted 07 Jul 2008 at 10:23 am ¶“You talk as though no American politicians are caught with over-active snouts.”
Thank you for making my point. This is precisely why I don’t want them running our health care system.
Posted 07 Jul 2008 at 11:27 am ¶Post a Comment