It seems that Great Britain is in a little bit of a pickle with their health care system as it relates to cancer patients. For all those who want to mimic their system, take notice of this. The government has a certain amount of allotted cash that they put into a cancer fund. With the advent of newer, better and more costly cancer drugs, this fund is quickly running out of money. The battle lines are being drawn as patients are demanding these costly drugs while the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) is trying to keep the system fiscally sound. There really is no easy answer here. Like our system, there is only so much money to go around. If you spend more money on cancer drugs then you have less money to treat other diseases. You can call it rationing and you can make it look terrible to the media by claiming you are neglecting a cancer patient his or her meds but, in the long run, is extending the life of a cancer patient three or four months worth bankrupting the system? Expect these same arguments over and over again in this country in the near future.
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