I have personally been involved in evaluating these considerations for my own health a few years ago. In fact, I had three choices.
Faced with highly active Crohn's disease, ended up in the hospital with bloody diarrhea 4 times in 6 weeks. My doctor who was treating me for years wanted to perform yet another resection - which may have worked.
I sought a second opinion. And this doctor wanted to treat me just with steroids - the blue pill, would cost just pennies per daily dose and the insurance does not have to pay any of it, as these are fairly cheap.
Frustrated with those options, I sought yet another opinion. And this doctor thought I was too young to resect away my intestine or treat with steroids. He decided to put me on Remicade - the red pill, costs upwards of $5,000 every 8 weeks and administered at the hospital or physician's office.
In all of this, my insurance company did not get between me and my doctors. And the improvement in the quality of life has been incredible.
Under state-run healthcare like the British system, NICE (the agency that sets these thresholds) would have denied this treatment option since it exceeded their arbitrary $20,000 limit for six months.
And now, anyone with basic understanding of how market works knows that, if the blue pill can do everything that the red pill does at a lower cost, there never will be a red pill.
If there is anything that red pill does the blue pill does not, there are probably patients out there who need it, regardless of the cost.
When you paint with such broad strokes as the President and the democrats are doing, the individuals such as me get the stick. The reason the nation is animated over this subject is because when individual rights are threatened for collectivist dogmas, are we still a free country and free people?
