July 2020 – Article 2:
What’s a human life worth? According to some chemists, less than $200.
Jesus says the real us—our soul—is worth more than the entire world (Matthew 16:26).
So what price tag do health professionals, insurance agencies, and some governmental agencies place on protecting our lives? How much are they willing to spend to keep us healthy and alive—to honor our Personhood?
The answer increasingly depends on a QALY number. QALY stands for “Quality Adjusted Life Year.” It’s a formula used by insurance agencies and some government agencies to determine the cost-effectiveness of medications and treatments.
“This is an extremely anti-Personhood issue,” Georgia Right to Life (GRTL) President Ricardo Davis said. “Reducing the value of life to dollars and cents is morally reprehensible.”
Davis noted that GRTL gets numerous reports from people alarmed that loved ones—especially the elderly—are not receiving proper medical care.
How Does QALY Work?
Don’t know how the QALY process works? Not surprising, since those who use it would prefer that you don’t.
A QALY is a number which theoretically represents the degree to which a drug or treatment will extend and improve a person’s life.
Here’s how it works:
- If a person is expected to live in perfect health with treatment for one year they would have a QALY of 1.
- If that person is expected to live in perfect health for only half a year their QALY number would be 0.5.
- There can be fractional numbers in between those estimates, such as 0.75. or 0.25.
The lower the number, the less likely health providers will cover treatment.
National Council on Disability Alarmed
Now, an independent federal agency—The National Council on Disability (NCD)—is raising the alarm over concerns QALYs are being used to limit, or even deny, life saving medications and treatments to people with disabilities and those with chronic illnesses.
In a report to President Trump, NCD said: “QALYs place a lower value on treatments which extend the lives of people with chronic illnesses and disabilities.”
NCD said it is “troubled that health insurance providers, government agencies, and health economists are showing increasing interest in using QALYs to contain healthcare costs despite QALYs discriminatory effect.”
The agency added: “The lives of people with disabilities are equally valuable to those without disabilities, and healthcare decisions based on devaluing the lives of people with disabilities are discriminatory.”
In addition, NCD said the process is wrong “…because the QALY calculation reduces the value of treatments that do not bring a person back to ‘perfect health,’ in the sense of not having a disability and meeting society’s definition of ‘healthy’ and ‘functional,’…”
NCD member Clyde Terry expanded on that point saying: “The perception that people with disabilities do not have a high quality of life is based on old stereotypes from a bygone era. Purely measuring the quality of life based on cost-effective outcomes starts with a premise of counting a person with a disability as less than whole, producing inherently discriminatory outcomes.”
Recommendations in the report include:
- Prohibit the use of QALYs by Medicaid and Medicare.
- Provide funding to Health and Human Services (HHS) to research “best practices” that utilizes cost-effectiveness practices that facilitates greater access to care and does not reduce care for people with chronic health conditions and disabilities.
- When enacting health reform legislation, Congress should avoid requiring any oversight agency to only cover the most cost-effective drugs.
In addition to praying that these recommendations are implemented, everyone is encouraged to demand complete transparency from healthcare professionals caring for loved ones, especially the elderly and infirm.
Sources: ncd.gov; notdeadyet.org; physio-pedia.com; celforphama.com.
By Wayne DuBois
Georgia Right to Life
Media Relations Advisor