I was reading a disturbing article online at Slate.com, which explains how the amount of medical intervention aid given to a needy country is calculated. Apparently a bunch of economists got together and invented something called a QALY, which stands for "quality-adjusted life year". 1 QALY equals 1 year of perfect health, 2 years of half perfect health, 4 years of 1/4 perfect health etc. The example given compares a pill that costs $200 and will give a diabetic 2 years of half normal health to a pancreas transplant that costs $5000 and gives a person 10 years of 1/5 normal health. The pills which are $200 per QALY win out over the transplant that is $5000 per QALY. Of course this is all economic mumbo-jumbo but it is a way to explain why it is more cost effective to spend say, $2,300 on condoms and AIDS prevention education for 1000 people than to spend the same amount on 1 year of HIV drugs for 1 person. Which makes sense in theory but it also means a lot of people with AIDS will be S.O.L because it just isn't cost effective to help them. Luckily there are non-profit groups out there that are fund-raising and doing awesome collective bargining with drug companies for generic drugs at as low as 96% reduction of the original drug's price!
I just feel it's truly sad that whenever money and politics gets too deeply involved in healthcare and try to make it into a
one-size-fits all formula, people always lose out. Healthcare policy can't be ruled by financial considerations alone there is also the humanistic factor of helping your fellow man in need to remember. I'll get off my soapbox now, thanks