You Can’t Make This Stuff Up, Part One

From an Investor’s Business Daily editorial arguing against the current U.S. health care reform proposals:

The U.K.’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) basically figures out who deserves treatment by using a cost-utility analysis based on the “quality adjusted life year.” One year in perfect health gets you one point. Deductions are taken for blindness, for being in a wheelchair and so on. The more points you have, the more your life is considered worth saving, and the likelier you are to get care.

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

Stephen Hawking was born and has lived his entire life in the U.K.

(Via Josh Marshall.)

★ Monday, 10 August 2009