CASE STUDY: The Value of a Life
QALYs (Quality-adjusted life years) is a formula that can be used to establish the value of an individual's life and assign each year a numerical value. You could imagine the value of the life of an individual confined to a wheelchair would be less than someone who was ambulatory. If you were blind or deaf, you would also score lower. All that remains is to assign a specific dollar value to the QALY and the one year of additional life has a price tag.
The 2014 British film The Theory of Everything is adapted from the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen by Jane Hawking, which deals with her relationship with ex-husband, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who suffers from motor neuron disease.
Stephen Hawking is arguably the most gifted scientist of our age. Yet because of his disease, he can neither walk nor talk and is confined to a wheelchair, needing assistance for his most basic needs. He communicates using a computer with a built-in voice synthesizer and uses it to write books and lectures. Using a QALY assessment, where 1 represents perfect health, his condition reduces him to somewhere slightly above 0.
1. Although it is clear that it is wasteful and we cannot afford "everything for everyone" in health care, and some form of rationing must be done, do you think that the use of QALYs is the right answer? Support your answer.
2. How would you take into account the value of the unique individual? (Note that Milton was blind when he wrote Paradise lost, and Beethoven was hearing impaired).
3. Do you agree with the quote attributed to Stephen Hawking," There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. We are all different. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there's life, there is hope," which seems to indicate that the QALY based on perfect health is not a correct formula of his worth? Explain your Argument.