Thread by Kaslin.
Medicine: After the recess appointment of a Medicare and Medicaid head, an FDA panel drops its endorsement of a widely used cancer drug. Another FDA-approved cancer therapy may not be paid for. It begins.
It didn't take long for the health care philosophy of Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama's choice to head the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, and an appointee we have labeled a "one-man death panel," to have an effect.
Berwick is an admirer of Britain's National Health Service and its National Institute for Clinical Excellence, with the Orwellian-acronym NICE.
"NICE," Berwick has said, "is extremely effective and a conscientious, valuable and — importantly — knowledge-building system." But NICE is really a system of rationing, through a bureaucratic formula for "cost-effectiveness," that has rushed untold numbers of Britons to an early grave.
Avastin, the marketing name for the drug bevacizumab, is the world's best-selling cancer drug. Used mainly to treat colon cancer, it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2006 after it was found that by cutting the blood flow to tumors, it helped in treating breast cancer.
An estimated 17,500 American women are treated with the drug each year. It is effective, having been shown to extend life by at least 20 months, but it is not cheap.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Thread by me.
ELIZABETH — An appeals court panel has declined to take up an issue that could have had nationwide implications — whether hospitals can refuse to continue life support over the objections of a patient’s family.
In a 26-page decision released today, the three judges said when Ruben Betancourt died in May 2009, the case brought by his daughter, Jacqueline, against Trinitas Regional Medical Center in Elizabeth to keep him alive, died with him.
"Although we recognize the significance of the issues raised by the parties and (their supporters) on appeal, we conclude that both the lack of an adequate factual record as well as the limited, but unique, factual context presented, warrant dismissal of the appeal as moot," the judges wrote.
Todd Drayton, the East Brunswick attorney who represented the Betancourt family, said "we’re happy. The family ultimately got what it wanted. This case isn’t about the broad issues. The fact is it is all about Ruben Betancourt."
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
Again, it was what the people wanted. Every vote for a Democrat in 2006 and 2008 affirmed it. Now, like the dog that chased the car tire, and when he finally catches it, decides he doesn’t want it near as bad as he thought he did. Health Care!,Health Care!, Health Care! The Republicans do not want you to have Health Care, vote Democrat. They did. Now they got it.
The truth of the matter was, the United States had the best medical system it the World. There was nothing fundamently wrong with it.
Now,in just a few short years, the fools that so gladly and gleefully voted for the Democrats are going to see just how good it was. The problem is that they were too stupid to understand what they had and they will be too stupid to understand that they got what what they voted for in 2006 and 2008.
This is one of two reasons that the Democrat Party is pursuing the illegal vote full speed ahead. The first reason is that they aborted their young voting base. The second reason is they are going to eliminate[read kill] their elderly voting base. In the end, as one sows, they also reap.