BiotechMashup

(The Hastings Center) Can insurers justify spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient per year on "orphan drugs" - extremely expensive medications for rare conditions that are mostly chronic and life-threatening -- when this money could provide greater overall health benefits to many other patients? Those spending decisions reflect the "rule of rescue," the value that our society places on saving lives in immediate danger at any expense. Will the rule of rescue become more difficult to support?