4 ms·
That depends on the treatment and politicians’ willingness to pay for it. Take cystic fibrosis in England: Until this year, modern, highly effective (and, yes,
by twoodfin 7y ago
That depends on the treatment and politicians’ willingness to pay for it. Take cystic fibrosis in England: Until this year, modern, highly effective (and, yes, expensive) treatments available for years in the US—covered at low out-of-pocket cost by insurers there—were unavailable through the NHS.
- 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y agoThe exception or the rule?
- makomk 7y agoThe same was true of hepatitis C in England - even though NICE, the body responsible for assessing what drugs should be available on the NHS, found that the new treatments were cost effective at the price they were being sold for, the NHS balked due to the total cost of curing everyone and refused to offer it to anyone except a handful of patients who already had severe liver damage.
- refurb 7y agoThis is true. The new HCV drugs, even at the outrage inducing price of $90k, easily met the NICE cost effectiveness threshold. The issue was really volume. There wasn’t enough money to treat everyone.