A luxury is something that is not cost effective. In the...

A luxury is something that is not cost effective. In the commonwealthfund there is talk of adopting cost effectiveness as a way of pricing drugs.
Yes it is an ethics dilemma.
Is reducing pain in arthritic knees by 40% an essential. Well if it can be done for a few thousand and get people productive probably yes.
Regarding covid and weather we should let it rip or not develop a vaccine there is a lot of complexity. I can't say if the lock downs and developing a vaccine are cost effective because the economic consequences are far reaching. Also a lot of unknowns at this stage and earlier in the pandemic.
Personally I think a serious problem we have is the cost of developing new medicines. Neu has spent 20 years, huge hours of high cost highly experienced specialists to get one or two drugs to market. Developing drugs is a speculation and either investors face loses or high returns to justify the risk.I am well aware of the dangers of medical misadventure, and inadequately tested treatments. But can't something be done to improve the current situation?
What is the consequence of continually living beyond our means, borrowing or printing money to pay the bills? We really need a new type of economic system, the present one is inadequate to provide our wants and needs. One would have to imagine some sort of social and financial collapse is the destiny we face on current trends. Management is the allocation of resorces to achieve goals. Spending $100,000 on one patients medication for a year sounds to me like a luxury when there are so many people with pressing health needs in the health system.