According to Manoj Jain of Emory University, every year 200,000 US patients could be kept alive a little longer with an LVAD, at a cost of $200,000 per patient, or $40 billion. Is that a sensible use of resources in a country in which there are officially 39 million people below the poverty line, which for a family of four is $22,000?
新的医疗设备，也面临同样的困难抉择。人工心脏，也称为左心辅助装置(LVAD)一直用来维持患者的生命，直到他们接受心脏移植。但是供移植的心脏存在短缺，并且在美国，目前植入人工心脏正在作为心脏衰竭的长期治疗方法，就像取代肾脏的透析机。