It seems as though Sarah Palin’s fight against Obamacare’s death panels was only just in time for the Yanks (her response to Obama’s healthcare lecture to Congress here). It saved them from even more extreme bureaucrat-driven socialized medicine than they may soon be inflicted with. Today’s tale of terror from the UK courtesy of ITN:
“A drug that significantly extends life expectancy for patients with liver cancer is set to be refused by the government’s health watchdog. Nexavar increases survival rates by 44 per cent and without it, the only option for patients is supportive and palliative care to make their final months less painful.


However, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) is set to refuse to make it available on the NHS. In the UK, there are approximately 2,800 new diagnoses of primary liver cancer made every year and the disease is responsible for causing around 2,800 deaths annually.


In May this year when NICE published their preliminary findings into the drug, they said that the drug “would not be a cost-effective use of NHS resources. The cost of Nexavar per month is £2980.47 and the patient access scheme, run by the drug company, is every 4th pack free.”

And so clinical decisions come down to bald hard number-crunching. It’s bad losing 2,800 taxpayers to fleece, but good for the healthcare system to have 2,800 fewer mouths to feed, and people debilitated by liver cancer produce less tax money anyway. The NICE bureaucrats decided who will die accordingly.