Phelps County Focus: Don’t deny treatment to people ‘too expensive’ for medical care

By Connie Farrow, Patients Come First Missouri Executive Director

Access to the most advanced medical treatments our healthcare system has to offer should be a privilege all patients enjoy, especially when they are intended to improve their health and quality of life.

This is why it’s critical that arbitrary cost-effective metrics like the Quality Adjusted Life Year, or QALY, cannot be used to determine pricing and even deny reimbursement of healthcare services and technologies. As federal lawmakers debate legislation to ban these discriminatory value assessments, I implore them to take into consideration the dangers of these policies for patients.

The legislation, HR 485, known as the Protecting Health Care for All Patients Act, passed the U.S. House of Representatives in February.

Missouri U.S. Rep. Jason Smith, R-Salem, has been a leader in the ongoing effort to ban federal health care programs from putting a “value” on patients’ lives through the use of a QALY. These discriminatory value metrics have serious consequences, deeming some individuals as “too expensive” to receive care.

Read the full op-ed in the Phelps County Focus here.