Let's let Harry Reid make these calls....

The Cost of Living:

"That's how cancer treatment has mostly advanced--not with a spectacular cure that can be funded by better targeted NIH money, or identified by comparative effectiveness research. It grinds out small improvements one at a time, experimenting with combinations of drugs and radiation and surgery, dosages, and timing. A lot of the improvement in mortality rates comes from better detection--but that means a lot of money wasted on tests, and biopsies for false positives.

Will the drug be 'worth it'? What's the price of giving someone six months instead of one to say good bye to their family, or shrinking their tumors so that they don't die in pain? Technocrats can't answer those questions. We have to."