It's all well and good to be for a culture of life, but the unanswered question in all these situations is who's going to pay for it? I've never gotten a good answer. Not everybody has great insurance, and not every family has the financial resources to pay for it out of their own pocket. So who picks up the tab for this Culture of Life you talk about? The taxpayer? And isn't that socialism?
I'm not trying to get in a big fight over this, just pointing out that at the end of the day, like it or not, it DOES come down to economics. I'd love to be able to give everybody as much care as they could possibly want and then some, but there simply are not enough resources to do that, and it's going to get rationed somehow, whether by the insurance companies, the government, or families who finally decide that they simply can't afford to shell out fifty thousand bucks to keep their hopelessly ill loved one alive for six more months. Call that a culture of Death if you like, but unle
There's a real dichotomy about health care on FR: On threads like this one you'll see people decrying what they see as a Culture of Death in the allocation of medical care. At the very same time you'll see other threads decrying the never ending expansion of entitlements like Medicare. Two sides of the same coin.
It's all well and good to come down on the side of Life, but again I ask, who pays, and who decides who pays? putting forth solutions like Tort Reform won't cut it. That may stand on its own merits, but it would only be a drop in the bucket.
In a capitalist society, people have insurance and either they or the insurance pays for it. THAT is the purpose of insurance.
In a socialist society or a country like Canada, where medicine is socialistic, the problem is precisely what you point out -- they ration medical care to save cost.
I am not advocating heroic measures to prolong the life of someone who is 97 years old, by a few days or weeks. But would you want some random people make decisions about your life based on cost or their own likely inaccurate assumptions about you? Three is such a thing as common sense -- or should be.
I think there was an old StarTrak episode, where there was a society, where people walked into a disintegrator, when they reached age 60, regardless of their health or use to society.
In the meantime, those resources are not available for other patients who are likely to survive if they receive prompt care. Of all the times I did cpr, I had one patient reach the emergency room alive, and she did not survive to be discharged from the hospital.
While we were treating those patients, we had to hope that no one else got sick or injured at the same time, becuase we were not available to treat them. It's a painful truth that there are only so many ambulances and so many hospital beds.
Also, advanced life support (paramedic) terminates cpr on verbal orders from a physician, or based on standing orders written by a physician. I can say that I'm glad I never had to decide who will get care and who will not.
With the current system we have universal "health care" but not universal "coverage". Joe Smith might not have insurance but the hospital is required by law to provide emergency stabilization care. If he need a million dollars of treatment and can't pay he can apply for medicaid which will pick up the tab. Private Insurance increases because that is where the hospitals and other providers make up the losses for providing the free care for no insurance and for care to medicaid and medicare patients whose reimbursement, per procedure aand/or patient day by the government, tends to go down every year.
We may need a system where everyone is forced to have catastrophic insurance (Like the bare bones in a HSA) this would bring many healthy young people into the risk pool who otherwise would skip the coverage. Additionally if you have an economic incentive to economize you will become a better consumer of healthcare. Just my halfcent worth.
Who's going to pay for it?
Charities have for centuries been the guiding force behind medical care for indigents. A local charity paid for the bill for my uninsured nephew's emergency appendectomy.
Perhaps if we paid less taxes, more money would be freed up for charitable giving.
If paying less taxes, people could afford major medical insurance.
There are lots of ways to pay.
Ultimately, It's sad that some people see life only as it relates to dollar signs.
In my husband's situation, when he had his heart attack, TriCare paid for it. Now he's back at work, and still collecting military retirement and disability, as he was before. A lot of tax-payer dollars could have been saved by refusing him the medical care that he earned during 21 years of service. He's paying income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and a host of other taxes. But he probably won't pay enough taxes during the remainder of his life to cover the cost of initial treatment, much less the continuing treatment he'll receive for the rest of his life.
Of course, not every situation is the same. Maybe we should require a financial impact statement before dispatching an ambulance or admitting a patient for treatment. If their usefulness to society has reached its peak, they shouldn't be allowed to suck up medical resources.
Then again, that's not the America my husband fought to preserve.