The current Medicare operation—reimbursing medical goods and services to a growing number of people without basing the reimbursement benefit on the actual cost of the services—is unsustainable, but there are some possible remedies.
The Keiskamma Altarpiece, bears witness to the AIDS crisis, performing for South Africa the same narrative function that the Isenheim Altarpiece, a 16th-century masterpiece, did for medieval Europe during a plague.
Physicians are cautioned that the two obstacles to reforming post-marketing clinical trials are the FDA's reluctance to revisit past approvals and its inability to enforce pharmaceutical companies' commitment to conduct Phase IV trials.
The conventional quality-adjusted life years approach to resource allocation has greater societal value if it is distributed among many rather than concentrated on a few, assuming that severity of illness is the same.