Warren Buffett says health care costs are a bigger problem than corporate taxes

Re:Warren Buffett says health care costs are a bigger proble... by zanny on Tuesday May 09, 2017 @09:57AM (#14300009)

Saving peoples lives isn't a unique practice in the US. Doctors in the developed world are all bound by the Hippocratic Oath, and I'm not aware of any first world country that regularly judges the sick or old to die when doctors still have options available. They still pay a third as much in healthcare.

A lot of those countries have physician assisted suicide though, which greatly improves the humanity of late term care. That is an easy and obvious piece of the solution the US should have been able to get behind a long time ago.

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Re:Warren Buffett says health care costs are a bigger proble... by makomk on Tuesday May 09, 2017 @02:45PM (#14302797)

Here in the UK, when the NHS decides whether a treatment is covered they take the cost and divide it by the estimated quality-adjusted life years it will give the patients who have it. If it costs more than £20,000-£30,000 per QALY they won't offer it. That's simply the value of a year of human life according to the NHS.

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Re:Warren Buffett says health care costs are a bigger proble... by DanBC on Tuesday May 09, 2017 @11:25AM (#14300802)

End of life care i not physician assisted suicide, and it's unhelpful to conflate the two.

Six US states have end of life care that can include doctors prescribing fatal doses of medication.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_suicide

> The United States has authorized medical aid in dying in six states, which refers to a terminally ill person with 6 months or less to live taking a medication prescribed by a doctor

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