Margaret Wente asks an important question about the health care in her column today. Namely, how do we pay for all new niche cures, especially when they can cost upwards of $30,000?
...An aging population is bad enough. But the real monster in the health-care closet is new drugs. Thanks to genetic engineering, we're entering a new era of specialty pharmaceuticals that are targeted to very small percentages of the population — at a very big cost.
The drug Herceptin is one of these. It is suitable for only one in five breast cancer patients. For them, it cuts the chance of a cancer recurrence in half.
At a cost of $35,000 to $40,000 a year, per patient, it will add another $140-million annually to the province's drug bill. That bill, now $3-billion a year, has tripled over the past decade. That's not all. The decision to administer Herceptin will increase the demand for chemotherapy suites, nursing time, and labs that are able to screen patients for eligibility.
...The idea that we have universal standards for health care across Canada is a fiction, especially for drugs. Each province and territory has its own drug formulary plan to decide which drugs are covered and which are not. Aboriginals and veterans have their own plans. Some provinces will even pay for expensive drugs that aren't approved in Canada yet — but only if you're able to travel to the U.S., and only if you know enough to insist on them.
...The worst-kept secret in the government is that health ministers don't actually direct health policy. What they actually do is fight fires. Don't expect that to change any time soon. And if you've got to get sick, do your best to choose a popular disease.
This problem is only going to get worse in the future. I don't have any answers to this. I am not sure is Ms. Wente does either. What is clear is she is asking the right questions though.
