Because that’s where the money is
A Campbell Live trailer just asked “Why is the disease that’s at epidemic levels about to be targeted by government cuts?”
In what is unfortunately an urban legend, Willie Sutton was supposedly asked “Why do you rob banks?”, and replied “Because that’s where the money is”.
There is no point in the NZ medical system spending too much time and effort on assessing cost-effectiveness in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, Fabry syndrome, or Hashimoto’s encephalitis. Reducing the cost of diabetes treatment, on the other hand, can free up a lot of money to spend on other illnesses. There’s nothing surprising or shocking about targeting diabetes for cost savings, especially in a low-cost public health system like ours.
The real question is whether the savings in money come at too high a price in patient care, not why diabetes is one of the targets.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »