Read the rest of the story :
Federal officials are conducting an unusual review to determine whether the government should pay for an expensive new vaccine for treating prostate cancer, rekindling debate over whether some therapies are too costly.
My father contended that our medical technology (our ability to cure illness or disease or physical disability) would always exceed our ability to pay for it.
When I did not find my way into medicine, he told me that the field was changing and that I probably had not missed anything really important. He did not like those changes much. Third Party Billing was the bane of his later years... and it vexes us today. And he saw a dangerous trend in medicine towards TOO MUCH TECHNOLOGY... so I went off in that direction with that trend towards too much technology.
To me it is real simple. Tax me, then spend that tax money for our common good.
One of my common goods would be reasonable medical care for all our citizens... and let the really wealthy live as long as they can afford. Let insurance companies "pay for cancer treatments" and let you and me pay for that coverage À la carte.
Pro bono publico ( latin for "for the public good" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_bono) like Dad did when the patient really could not pay him for the visit. He would not get paid... "write it off" is sometimes used to rexpress this practice in business... as against our taxes... a lost against income.
À la carte (French language phrase meaning "according to the menu", and used in restaurant terminology as:A reference to a menu of items priced and ordered separately, in contrast to a table d'hôte, at which a menu with limited or no choice is served at a fixed price... as in the phrase "There is no such thing as a free lunch..." Robert A. Heinlein.
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