Priority setting in health care

doi:10.1136/bmj.321.7266.954

BMJ 2000;321:954 ( 14 October )

Letters

Priority setting in health care

Of course we should ask the tax payer

Claims are not supported in research literature

Authors' reply

Of course we should ask the tax payer

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ Torgerson and Gosden argue that eliciting public views on healthcare priority setting is a waste of money.¹ It isimplicit in their argument that the many health economists whodabble in this allegedly inefficient activity should know better.As health economists and practitioners of the dark art of includingthe public in priority setting, we believe that we ought to respondto thischarge.

The problem with Torgerson and Gosden's argument is that it does not distinguish between facts and values. It seems reasonableto assume that patients normally know less than clinicians aboutthe facts concerning the effects of different treatments. As Torgersonand Gosden argue, this form of asymmetric information is one reasonwhy many British health economists believe that public fundingof health care is more efficient than private funding, which providesclinicians with a profit motive for supplying unnecessary treatmentsto ill-informedpatients.

Torgerson . . . [Full text of this article]

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