Americans watching the ongoing debate over drug prices may have gotten a preview of their future recently—and not in a good way. While politicians on the left claim their efforts will bring down the cost of drugs, examples from other countries demonstrate how cost controls often result in patients not getting access to drugs at all. In the United Kingdom, a new Alzheimer’s drug “was approved .
.. by the country’s regulator but deemed too expensive for wide use.
” While regulators found some signs of the drug’s clinical effectiveness, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) dubbed it not cost-effective for Britain’s National Health Service. As a result, approximately 70,000 English patients will not have access to the drug because a government board considers it too costly. On this side of the Atlantic, some states have created their own government boards to examine drug costs, which could lead to a NICE-style regime for American patients.
For instance, last year, Democrats in Minnesota passed a law, signed by Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), creating such a board in the Gopher State. On the plus side, the Minnesota legislation did include explicit protections for individuals with disabilities.
The bill signed into law prohibits the board from using “cost-effectiveness analyses that include the cost-per-quality adjusted life year or similar measure.” The quality-adjusted life year measure has come in for justifiable criticism as discriminatory, becaus.