What's Your Life Worth: Health Care Rationing... Who Lives? Who Dies? and Who Decides

What's Your Life Worth: Health Care Rationing... Who Lives? Who Dies? and Who Decides

Healthcare rationing is coming -- with a vengeance. What's Your Life Worth? previews tomorrow's healthcare system, showing what it'll feel like to be at the mercy of a system that might choose not to cure you. Right now, experts are calculating which diseases are worth curing, which treatments are worth paying for, and which aren't. This book tells you who they are, what they're up to, what they think you're worth -- and what to do about it. Calculate the value of your own life in tomorrow's - health care system - Which diseases are worth curing? Which medicines - are worth paying for? - The best ways to ration health care--and the worst Health care costs keep soaring. Insurers, employers, andgovernments won't tolerate it anymore. They're beginning toaggressively ration health care--through huge co-payments,limits on new technologies, and long waiting lists. The debate of the decade won't be whether to ration, but how.This book introduces "rational rationing," which focusesresources on the medical interventions that provide thebiggest bang for the buck. Ration the right way, says DavidDranove, and rationing can save thousands of lives andbillions of dollars. Do it wrong, and it'll cause unnecessarypain, suffering, and death. Right now, experts are calculating which diseases are worthcuring, which treatments are worth paying for, and whicharen't. They're putting a price on your life. This book tellsyou who they are, what they're up to, what they think yourlife's worth--and what to do about it. Health care rationing has arrived--with a vengeance. Ifyou value your health, you'd better understand it--and beready. In this book, one of the world's leading health careeconomists offers a hard-nosed analysis of today's soaringhealth care costs--and shows how it will feel to be at themercy of a system that might choose not to cure you. David Dranove previews the transition from today's adhoc rationing to an era of "rational rationing," in whicheconomic analysis of the value of human lives and specifictreatments is both explicit and routine. He assesses themixed results of rational rationing in Great Britain,Australia, and Oregon, where government decision makersstruggle with balancing science and politics in the face ofbudgets that place an alarmingly low value on life. You'll discover that health services researchers have learnedto numerically score different diseases to determine whichare most worth curing; even how to calculate the value ofyour own life. They use this information to assess whichnew technologies are worth the steep price. What they findis at odds with the prevailing view of employers, insurers,and, especially, government regulators who want to stophealth spending in its tracks. Most new technologies areworth every dollar, and then some. Calculate the value of your own life Do the math! One up your friends! Why payers are so eager to ration health care Are we better off increasing health care spending? Will rationing save lives--or destroy them? Will we choose "rational" rationing--or cross our fingers? Where will we draw the line? When life's at stake, which services are really too expensive? QWBs and QALYs Refocusing health care research on cost-effectiveness What lies ahead The coming of rationing to HMOs and Medicare David Dranove is one of the world's most respectedhealth care economists. He is the Walter McNerneyDistinguished Professor of Health Industry Managementat Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School ofManagement, as well as Director of the Center for HealthIndustry Market Economics there. His research and teaching focus on problems in industrialorganization and business strategy with an emphasison the health care industry. He has published over 70research papers, monographs, and book chapters on healtheconomics and pharmacoeconomics, and is co-author ofthe popular textbook The Economics of Strategy and the tradebooks How Hospitals Survived and The Economic Evolution ofAmerican Health Care: From Marcus Welby to Managed Care . His many awards have included the Association ofUniversity Programs in Health Administration'sJohn D. Thompson Prize in Health Services Research andnumerous "research article of the year" prizes. ProfessorDranove holds a Ph.D. in Business Economics from Stanford University. Introduction You may not know it, but the people who pay for yourhealth care have decided that enough is enough. They haveplaced a limit on how much they are willing to spend to saveyour life. In the United States, the keepers of the Medicare andMedicaid programs have capped spending growth, forcing providersto cut back on care. At the same time, U.S. employersare getting fed up with rising health insurance costs, and theyare giving managed care organizations the go-ahead to cutback on prescription drug benefits and other services. Suchrestrictions are old news in the rest of the world, where governmentpayers have been limiting access to costly medicaltechnologies for over thre