Thursday, October 15, 2009

A Real-Life Example of The Horrors of Socialized Medicine

My mother-in-law lives in Israel where they have a nationalized healthcare system. Her neighbors are a family with two kids and their 15-year old son has cancer (the nightmare of all parents). They found it in his spine, removed it and he officially went into remission. But then they found that it has spread into his brain. His doctor said he should get Avastin, which is effective against tumors in the brain. But because Avastin isn't part of the national basket of free drugs, this family now has to pay for 100% of the cost with their own money. This amounts to 25,000 shekels (about $6,700) per month. And remember that in Israel people make less money than they do in the United States so this is really a humongous amount of money. And obviously there are no appeals to this decision. If it's not in the national basket, it isn't in the basket. Do we really want it to be like this here?

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