I think its a bit of a stretch to call not recommending a particular drug, an action of and sign of a "death panel", even if it does make the drug more difficult to get (mainly because insurance companies are relatively unlikely to pay for it if it isn't "recommended".) A "death panel" to me is a panel that says "you die" and then it orders you killed or kills you itself. This panel doesn't even forbid the particular drug, or forbid paying for it, it just removes it from the recommended list. That may be a bad thing, but "death panel"??
Oh, I like the term. It is, of course, a rather gross exaggeration, but it makes the point -- that is, government people will be making the decisions that determine whether particular treatments are available in a given set of circumstances.
The idea of a bureaucracy handing out these decisions is disconcerting to me. Call it a death panel or socialized medicine or just bureaucratic expansionism. It is still putting the decision process in the hands of those who are least competent to make them.
Avastin has great potential -- yet, it has basically been slandered throughout this process by representations that the mean result is somehow representative of the entire picture. I think it is fair to say there are few chemotherapy agents that work for everyone. The key is in determining which persons Avastin will (and will not) work for, then acting accordingly.
The idea that Avastin may be shut out, across the board, is indicative of what government does best -- one size fits all approaches to running people's lives. |
