Quality of life measured when treating the sick

There are few ways to cut health care costs without cutting treatment to the sick, the elderly and the chronically ill. Evidence is found in Great Britain. As they say, it puts a $ value on the quality of life you lead. Read about it at the LA Times: 

Everyone agrees that costs have to be wrung out of healthcare, which won't be easy if Obama and Congress insist on preserving a role for private insurers, which impose enormous administrative costs on the system for no commensurate gain. Savings from highly touted projects like computerizing medical records will be marginal at best.

The only solution is going to be discouraging the use of new treatments and drugs that fail a cost-effectiveness test. Britain's experience teaches us that these judgments are better made in the open rather than in the counting houses of insurers, and that however they're made, they won't be easy.