The Disabled and Elderly should pay attention to health reform
Jul 28th, 2009 by David Anderson
Why do we spend so much time on the health care reform issue this summer? As Mrs. Collins says, it is a matter of life and death. Peter Singer wrote an article for the New York Times Sunday Magazine which seems to articulate the philosophical basis for some of the provisions now surfacing. The Economic Policy Journal did a great analysis of this article. This Singer quote should get the discussion started.
As a first take, we might say that the good achieved by health care is the number of lives saved. But that is too crude. The death of a teenager is a greater tragedy than the death of an 85-year-old, and this should be reflected in our priorities. We can accommodate that difference by calculating the number of life-years saved, rather than simply the number of lives saved. If a teenager can be expected to live another 70 years, saving her life counts as a gain of 70 life-years, whereas if a person of 85 can be expected to live another 5 years,then saving the 85-year-old will count as a gain of only 5 life-years. That suggests that saving one teenager is equivalent to saving 14 85-year-olds.
Is a delinquent teenage criminal 14 times more valuable than a grandfather who is writing a book which will inspire millions? The value of our lives can not be calculated by simple arithmetic. It is determined by what we do with the gift. That is why availability of health care is based upon need. We have the resources, if we choose to spend them in a way that values humanity at all stages that is not a waste. Who knows that teenager and that grandfather may end up being the same person many years apart. We can not be arrogant enough to think that we should make such decisions based upon a blind formula.
According to pages 427 to 428 of the House Bill 3200, life sustaining treatments will be determined by a coalition of stakeholders, oddly enough you and your family are not mentioned.
[...] Read more from the original source: The Disabled and Elderly should pay attention to health reform [...]
As opposed to now, when – if you’re lucky enough to have insurance – your life sustaining treatments are determined by a corporation which loses money every day you keep breathing. You tool.
Thankfully the government has fixed all the problems, and every day a patient spends breathing on life support will earn them more money instead of loosing it. [/sarc.]
The government is not an endless fountain of money. It temporarily creates that illussion by passing the payment of its expenses and debts on to others. That includes other countries, other companies, and other generations. A government take over will not solve these problems. It will only transfer them, all of them. In this game of hot potato I am pretty sure those in power will not stop the music while the burden is in their hands. However, they know they can’t keep the music playing forever, and that is why they were attempting to rush a bill through.
I support limiting the influence, controll, and responsibility placed with insurance companies. I would like to see as much of that as possible shifted directly to us, rather than indirectly to us through the government.
One ‘factoid’ that has been bandied about is that most medical spending comes at the end of life. Some ‘Soylant Green’ enthusiasts may see a simplistic answer to their health care costs in an effective euthenasia of their elders.
Yet our trauma centers tend to be filled with young people whose life decisions proved to be very costly. Their expensive ‘end of life experiences’ come at an early age.
Should we trust our lives to political hacks and bureuacrats?
Are those people from the Government really their to help you as they attempt to impose ‘one size fits all rules’?
“According to pages 427 to 428 of the House Bill 3200, life sustaining treatments will be determined by a coalition of stakeholders, oddly enough you and your family are not mentioned.”
Come on, David, it is a given that the family would be involved, just as they are with the private health insurers, so I concur with Mithras. So be off with your straw man!
Moreover, you are cherry picking here from a 1000 page bill. And it is not even finalized yet, so it is still a work in progress. Let us wait to see the finished product that comes out of reconciliation of the House and Senate versions.
“it is not even finalized yet, so it is still a work in progress.”
yeah, wait until it already a law to read it… just liked congress.
If you want to shape legislation, you do it before it can’t be changed. I am not here to complain. I am here to add a voice for change. You can sit back and take it if you so desire. I don’t.
Comment #1 The insurance company actually pays off. The government is threatening not to. If the insurance company chooses not to pay, you can still get treatment. They can not tell you what you can and can’t do. People pay for things all of the time not covered. The government agenda seems to be trying to stop the market from offering alternatives.
That is why they want to tax the so-called Cadillac plans. They object to people paying for and getting the best available care.
“If the insurance company chooses not to pay, you can still get treatment. They can not tell you what you can and can’t do.” – David Anderson
This is one of the biggest sticking points. An insurance company can only say what it will pay for and what it won’t. That approval process should be fixed and improved. The government on the other hand will be able to say, not only what it will pay for but what treatment you can recieve and when.
Excellent point #9! That is a very, very scary thought. I should be able to privately find and pay for alternative treatments if I so choose and am able to. Right now the insurance company has absolutely no say in my choices – only say in what they’ll pay for. And, if you know how to play the system, sometimes you can even get them to agree with you and pay anyway. I guarantee if you tried the same thing under a public-option goverment run program you would die while waiting on hold before you even got the chance to state your case!
This whole issue is not about access to health care for everyone. It’s about some people having insurance and other’s who don’t. Health insurance and heath care are two different things!
This health insurance bill is going to punish those who have private insurance. I ask why? Why can’t we expand the eligibility requirements for federally and state run programs that we already have so that they can cover more people who need the coverage? Why is it so important to do away with the system we already have if it’s working for most of the population?