My Mom Would Be Going Blind in England
Several new drugs have reversed my mom's macular degeneration, and are such a wonder that she is even willing to tolerate frequent injections into her eyeball, a concept that gives the rest of our family the willies. Forget about it in England, though, where National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which Obama wants to emulate in the US, does not allow these drugs:
3. In 2007, NICE restricted access to two drugs for macular degeneration, a cause of blindness. The drug Macugen was blocked outright. The other, Lucentis, was limited to a particular category of individuals with the disease, restricting it to about one in five sufferers. Even then, the drug was only approved for use in one eye, meaning those lucky enough to get it would still go blind in the other.
And by the way, is NICE an Orwellian name or what?
Postscript: Fortunately, we are unlikely to have a system that bans Americans from spending their own money on things the plan will not buy (a bit of socialist egalitarianism that is practiced in a number of European countries). Not for lack of trying by many Democrats, however.
