Posted on 08/16/2010 8:09:18 AM PDT by Nachum
A reasonable point, but how do we decide which is which?
For example, I am personally aware of cases where $40,000 defibrillators have been implanted in patients with end-stage cancer and who died less than four months after the implant.
Bearing in mind that it's your and my tax money, are you willing to call that a "life and death issue" and give Medicare carte blanche to pay for it?
Some of the signs I saw in the tea party coverage ("Hands Off OUR Medicare") indicate that the answer must be yes.
Which means we drive the Medicare bus at its current speed until the wheels fly off and we're left with a smoking wreck at the roadside.
The $40,000 price buys medical providers with a device that has mostly reusable parts ~ so when one patient dies in harness you pull it out, refurbish it, or cannibalize it for the parts, then it goes into another patient.
Still, I suppose there are some folks who demand all new parts, and others who want to be buried with the device.
Be sure to check your contract to see if they want it back!
There are probably other models out there that just trash out simultaneously when the patient dies.
Not being an expert in the devices all I can give you are ideas derived from following the evidence.
Think for a moment of the vast politico-industrial complex backing up the modern antiseptic sterilized bandaid.
It costs a lot, and yet, if we'd just let the kiddies bleed their bodies would quickly form scabs and healing would proceed in a natural and healthful fashion just like it did for hundreds of millions of years.
If we could shut down the intrusive bandaid business think of the billions of dollars we'd save.
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