It’s been really great getting to know the new voice of the Dartmouth school, Shannon Brownlee. She’s interviewed in her local paper about the concept that the American health care system delivers More money, but less health. Hopefully we’ll have her writing more on THCB soon!
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Commentary on A global comparison regarding patient access to cancer drugs(Ann Oncol 2007; 18 Suppl 3: pp 1–75)
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/annonc/press_releases/freepdf/mdm363.pdf
Thanks for posting the story in the Baltimore Sun, Matthew. And OK, I can take a hint. As soon as I finish this magazine piece that’s overdue I am swearing off long feature stories so I can blog with abandon.
Gregory, If you have the referece to that Karolinska study I’d like to see it. It isn’t just drugs that we’re good at developing and delivering, it’s all manner of medical technology. We all pay for it, too, regardless of whether or not it actually improves outcomes.
For those who missed it, I recommend the New York Times piece by Reed Abelson that appeared yesterday, “Financial Ties Are Cited as Issue in Spine Study.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/business/30spine.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=abelson+reed+back+surgery&st=nyt&oref=slogin
A Karolinska Institute in Sweden study showed that U.S. health care system is good at delivering expensive drugs, but that our health care system is not so good at simple medicine like preventive care. Our pharmaceutical-based health care system is very good at creating new health care products that will make a lot of money, but it it’s something that has no chance of profit, forget it.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the United States does a good job of developing and delivering new and expensive drugs to cancer patients, because that is the only thing we’re good at. But it’ll take a rocket scientist to figure out how this makes for a better health care system.