A question for those who have Universal Health Care...

[Guynemer]

...does the government control what medications can be prescribed for certain diseases? For instance--a purely hypothetical example that has nothing whatsoever to do with what I had to deal with first thing in the office yesterday--if a 7 year old girl has bad asthma, and requires a daily preventative steroid inhaler, can your government say, "**** no, you have to do this this and this first," or can the hypothetical doctor get the girl what she needs? (And has, incidentally, been on for a couple years previously to great effect, but now her insurance company refuses to cover.)


Between this and all of these morbidly obese kids who won't even stop playing their PSP long enough for me to examine them, I'm considering joining the circus.

[Dauphin]

IN the UK they are called NICE. They can say, "No do this because that is too expensive even if it works really well".

[snoopy369]

I think often it is a prescribed drugs list, similar to insurance companies. You can find a lot of info on how Canada handles this online, but it's been a while since I looked into that.

[Kontiki]

http://www.sk.lung.ca/drugs/2005.04.04.prescriptions.faq.html

and

http://www.sk.lung.ca/drugs/2005.02.12.pres.drugs.pdf

It's from 2004, but I don't know if there have been any significant changes since then.

[Traianvs]

A doctor can prescribe anything he wants in Belgium. However, some medications get refunded whereas certain others are not. Meds that don't get paid back (or - sometimes - partially) are usually horribly expensive or intended for people with very rare diseases; the government only has a limited budget and it's impossible to cover all of the extremely specialized and expensive medication.

Also it's not an insurance company who covers the costs, but the RIZIV, the governmental health insurance that every citizen funds by paying taxes.

[Mrs. Tuberski]

for your hypothetical inhaler they have all become more expensive to save the ozone. I recently had to switch to the new ones cause the one i got and paid 5 bucks for is no longer made due to the propellents int he cannister so we have to now use 50 dollar ones that are safe for the ozone but dont have a generic name as of yet so all insurance compaines are taking this is covered or not

[Mrs. Tuberski]

as for joining the circus i pretty much figured u did that when u went to medical school and became a doctor

[Lancer]

I have the VA and here in Oregon its great. Been able to get the same meds I had before I used the VA np. The only thing that was impossible to get for the longest time was an on the arm tester for blood sugar, but I got it eventually.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Dauphin
IN the UK they are called NICE. They can say, "No do this because that is too expensive even if it works really well".

Geez, I thought you were kidding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Hideous_Strength

But I guess that book's not exactly common reading anymore, and Wiki's entry on the actual organization says they were formed in '99. Still, what an acronym to pick...

[Asher]

Re: A question for those who have Universal Health Care...

Originally posted by Guynemer
...does the government control what medications can be prescribed for certain diseases? For instance--a purely hypothetical example that has nothing whatsoever to do with what I had to deal with first thing in the office yesterday--if a 7 year old girl has bad asthma, and requires a daily preventative steroid inhaler, can your government say, "**** no, you have to do this this and this first," or can the hypothetical doctor get the girl what she needs? (And has, incidentally, been on for a couple years previously to great effect, but now her insurance company refuses to cover.)

Between this and all of these morbidly obese kids who won't even stop playing their PSP long enough for me to examine them, I'm considering joining the circus.

It's my non-professional experience that as long as a drug is approved for use for treatment of said disease in Canada, it's the doctor's discretion what is prescribed.

[SlowwHand]

The problem becomes, in the USA, the difference in what the doctor prescibes, and what insurance will pay.

[Bosh]

In Korea there's national insurance and you get some money taken our of your paycheck (like social security) to fund it. Its not world class care-wise (five minute doctor appointments are common if you don't have anything serious) and doesn't cover dental or the more exotic drugs, but daaamn is it cheap, I pay $100 and change a month for health insurance I've never had reason to complain about (I've walked into specialists' offices without an appointment or a referral and gotten to see a doc in a half an our or so) and taxes are low here (lower than the states) so there's not too much if anything subsidizing what I get beyond what I pay in.

Love it Right now my wiffe is upset that a c-section and two weeks of hospital stay (including food etc) would set us back $1K so she's determined to have a natural birth

[SlowwHand]

Yeah, that's a real good idea.

[Nikolai]

Here in Norway, they have a list of possible medicines. For example, I have Tourettes. So to treat that, I've got Haldol. Now, that had some unwanted results aside from the wanted ones, so my doctor suggested we tried another one. There were some 4-5 possible medicines that was on the recommended list IIRC, and then some that could be used if I sent an application. That is, I could get it, but it cost money for me if the authorities didn't fund it. So we agreed first to try out one of the recommended medicines, which worked, but not good enough. So we sent in an application through the doctor, and got a yes.

[Kidlicious]

There has to be some control over the medicines that are paid for by whoever is financing the health care system. Doctors are inclined to prescribe any medicine that will benefit their patients in even the smallest degree and not consider the cost of the medicine at all.