I know that some HMO and private insurers are restricting access to drugs in America, although I agree that this is not always done in the same of cost-effectiveness as profitability is the main concern!

–half of us healthcare is already ” government” healthcare–medicare, the veteran’s administration, military healthcare, and the federal government’s employee plan cover roughly half the population.

for another 30% or so, private plans, mostly provided by employers, provide coverage…and for those folks the sort of controls you compliment are very much in place–although the motivation often seems to be ensuring profitability rather than what works best medically and economically.

excluding coverage for “experimental” drugs and procedures is a common way to accomplish this…and the definition of “experimental” can be quite flexible, depending on corporate needs.

–additionally, i note that you did not address the increasing price of nearly all new drugs.

medicare is famously not permitted to negotiate prices of drugs, the other government providers are.

the trend is for any new drug to be an expensive drug, which suggests the nhs might be vulnrerable to some of the same problems we see in the us with an ever-increasing cost of pharmaceuticals.

us consumers are generally acknowledged to be subsidizing world consumers by bearing the cost of research and testing (this because we do not have imposed drug price controls)…but if the us moves to negotiate the price of drugs for the medicare program (which will likely occur if obama wins)…and large private buyers are doing the same thing…this suggests there will be more upward pressure put on the cost of drugs for world consumers, including the nhs.

If Scotland or the USA or France or Australia or Mongolia or anywhere else wishes to pay for unproven, experimental cancer drugs and pour millions down the toilet in return for little clinical improvement, that is their decision. I have no wish to see the same situation replicated here. This post is not about whether paying for drugs is a good thing – it’s about whether the finite pot of taxpayers funds that the NHS relies on should be thrown at new drugs instead of providing other services like maternity care, care for the elderly, A&E units, GP services, investment in new hospitals etc.

I have no idea what your comment about being a “typical old style Tory” means as you didn’t bother to explain yourself, but I’m sure it was meant to be derogatory.