His care started back when he was a grad student nobody. Nor does it seem like the standard NHS rule for anyone with ALS is to refuse care as that IBD article implied. At the least they bother to write up information on treatments: http://www.warwickshire.nhs.uk/KnowledgeAndAdvice/Knowledge/PatientInfo/ConditionDetail.aspx?Title=Motor-neurone-disease&DisplayTitle=Motor+neurone+disease&SectionTitle=Treatment

Specifically, NHS does cover Rulizole, the principal drug used in ALS treatment in either the US or the UK at about $6,000/year. It's been approved and thus available for free to patients since about 3 years after it was first approved in the U.S.

On the Blue Cross plan that my wife's former employer offered, the drug was NOT covered. I'm not quite sure how that plan worked but at least some BC/BS plans there is 0% coverage for non-formulary drugs, meaning an ALS patient would have had to pay 100% out of pocket for it. On others it'd be a 40% copay. I saw another web site say Kaiser HMO likely does not cover it, either. Other plans (even BC/BS in other states) do but it does not appear to be universal in the US.

I wouldn't be surprised if the NHS did not cover 24 hour in-home assistance, but then again, virtually no US private health plans would pay for that either. I've got just about the most generous (and thus most expensive to me, too) plan a federal employee can choose and mine sure wouldn't. Would yours?