How Much Is Your Health Worth?

One of the many earmarks in the stimulus package that isn't getting much play outside the healthcare industry is $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness research. What the government is saying this money will be used for is to compare various medical treatments to determine which ones are the most effective for most people with a specific ailment. To get the medical community onboard, several senators have promised that this will ignore cost. But will it? Can it?

The UK uses a comparative-effectiveness approach that basically comes down to cost effectiveness. Essentially, this means the UK-sponsored health system will cover whichever drug, biologic or medical device or procedure has been "proven" to be the most effective for a particular problem. There is a catch. It's known as "QALY." The British system has determined that the Quality Adjusted Life Year is $55,000. In plain English, the British healthcare system is basically saying a year of life is worth $55,000. If your healthcare costs more than your QALY, you're out of luck.

This one-size-fits-all approach doesn't mesh with the advances being made in medical research that show what works for one person may kill or seriously injure another person. But, if we are to have equal access to healthcare, which seems to be the goal of most reformers, we will have to do away with personalized medicine and accept government-imposed caps on the value of our life.

Is this really what we want?