Welcome and Hello.
This will not likely be read by very many people, and I'm not certain that I'll keep it going very long, but my good friend, Danny, inspired me to have an online exhaust for some of my opinions. To see our lively discussion centered on prescription drugs and free will, go here.
I'm starting it off with a few words of support for death panels.
There were a few people who used the term "death panels" as lightning rod for anti-reform anger-making. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what they were talking about or what the specifics of the bill were.
This is what I think a death panel is: a guy comes in to the ER because he can't breathe. Turns out he has COPD. He smokes. He's admitted to the hospital, given oxygen treatment, IV steroids. Perhaps he has a touch of pneumonia so he gets some very expensive IV antibiotics. He gets better. The doctors say, "You have to quit smoking or it's going to kill you." The guy lights up a cigarette on the way home and he's back in the hospital with the same problem and the same treatment 2 weeks later.
Whether this guy has his own insurance, or he's using medicare/medicaid to pay for his hospital stay, his own poor decisions are draining the system of resources that could be used to treat people who aren't killing themselves. The "death panel" is when the ER doctor pulls up the guys file on the computer, discovers that the guy has been treated three times already in different hospitals and hasn't quit smoking, so they say, "I'm sorry, but your insurance company (or medicare) won't pay for you to be admitted again." He has to go home and die.
I don't think alcoholics should get liver transplants. I don't think people who eat themselves into horrid masses of fat should get to have open heart surgery (because they won't do well afterward anyway).
I also think that people with advanced dementia shouldn't receive life-saving treatment of any kind. Sorry, folks, but everybody dies. If grandma doesn't know who she is, can't feed herself, and can't use the restroom, it's time for her to move on to a place where she can do those things. (Do we pee in heaven?)
She doesn't get CPR, she doesn't get antibiotics, and she doesn't get to go to the $5000/night ICU. She can have morphine. All she wants.
It would make a lot of people mad, but maybe people would start taking care of themselves a little better if they knew that the system wouldn't support their bad choices forever.
The term "Death Panel" refers to the practice of approving or disapproving coverage based on certain criteria. For example, under nationalized healthcare, the UK in 2009 enacted a policy that would deny certain treatments to Breast Cancer patients. This is a "Death Panel" Nowhere in the NHS of the UK is the term used, however, the government retains the right (and has exercised said right) to make decisions for patients that will affect their quality of life and life span. This is what right-wingers are afraid of - that if the Government does indeed eventually run healthcare, that they will ultimately decide what will be paid for and what will not. Before you say that's absurd, then do a little googling and take a look at how many nationalized healthcare systems throughout the world have done exactly that.
ReplyDelete--Spencer (Danny's Bro)
I couldn't find the exact info you were referring to about breast cancer, but I have no reason to doubt you. It makes sense that a system with a finite amount of money would have to draw the line somewhere. Is there a criteria for the treatments available? For instance, stop giving chemo if the doctors have already tried the best drugs and the cancer has been deemed terminal? Limits based on age? How much radiation do you pump into an 80-year-old woman?
ReplyDeleteI'm ok with limits being put on healthcare spending. Right now, for-profit insurance companies are deciding what treatments are worth paying for. Is that better? I dunno.
here's one of the articles...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1221945/Breast-cancer-sufferers-denied-life-extending-drug-championed-Jane-Tomlinson.html
That's why the government needs to butt out. They have finite resources. Less than most insurance companies. It's one thing for a capitalist juggernaut to deny a life saving service, it's another for the government to get into the business of who gets what.
Wait, what?
ReplyDeleteSo it's ok for some greedy a-hole in an AIG office to tell you that mom's chemo isn't covered, but it's not ok for some government jerk to do it?
And the government has less money than an insurance company? What?
And you do know that 70% of healthcare is already being paid for by the government, right? Do you think we should drop medicare and medicaid?
This post was just about reducing some of the wasted expenses that both the government and insurance companies spend on unwarranted and unnecessary procedures and medications.
No corporation is charged with the general welfare of the people.
ReplyDeleteNot saying it's a good thing, but you can't force it.
But just because 70% of healthcare is already paid by the fed doesn't make it right.
Medicare and Medicaid is broke. Fix it.
You can't eliminate waste if you keep spending more than you take in.
I agree with your entire posting. Resources should not be wasted on people who are not willing to do anything to improve their health. Neither should they be wasted on people who no longer have any quality of life. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "Yes. Keep me alive at all costs, even if I don't know who I am, don't recognize my family or loved ones, soil myself on a regular basis, no longer even communicate." I have always heard people express the desire to die before (or at least soon after) they lose their faculties and therefore, essentially, their identities.
ReplyDelete