[Chancellor Palpatine]

$2,000.00 a day, in 1994.

[ladyjane]

So Christopher Reeves will have his ventilator and Mickey Mantle will have his liver transplant. And for the rest of us...?

[Askel5]

I think you'll be gratified to learn of the advances in "Futile Care Protocols" (also known as "Inappropriate Care Protocols") made since 1994.

In some areas -- Houston, for instance -- hospitals have conspired to join forces and agree on protocols such that no one hospital makes the others look bad for their myriad means of refusing wanted care to the very infirm and/or dying pending a finding of "futility" by a Medical Director or interdisciplinary review board. Houston is only one of many major metro areas who've initiated this sort of network.

Here's a story by Wesley Smith at NR which ought to cheer you up.

[sarasmom]

Well if a feeding tube is that expensive, perhaps we should make certain that the only people receiving medical treatment in our society ACTUALLY are from our society?
Might that cut down on the "heavy" drain of our available societal medical funds?
/sarcasm.
BTW, we are one Florida Senate vote away from saving Terri Schiavo from murder.
Thamks for all your assistance!

[MarMema]

Just so you know, financial wizard, the costs of those ten thousand vegetative patients per day is about 3% of our healthcare costs in this nation.

So you go kill people for that 3%, ok? P>And be sure to do it in the most cruel manner possible, that of allowing them to dry up literally, from lack of fluid.

[nmh]

So now we should murder our loved ones because it maybe partially funded by taxpayers? A GUILT trip? GEESH!

WHERE does one begin with such *hit? When I think about ALL the *hit that I fund through taxpayer dollars, that I TOTALLY DISAGREE with, THIS is a situation when I'd HAPPILY pay my taxes to help someone else keep a loved one alive.

I see an epidmemic of PRO DEATH propaganda coming on because of what's going on with Terri. THey're feeling VERY defensive. They're trying to rationalize, just as they did with abortion, as to WHY we must murder human beings - especially if they are vulnerable.

[MarMema]

scarce resources to warehouse increasing numbers of warm cadavers

Can you spot the dehumanizing parts in this sentence?

Hint - someone still alive is not a warm cadaver.

Hint - warehousing is not something we do to people, made in the IMAGE OF GOD.

Scarce resources is what began the holocaust. There are no scarce resources except for nursing schools. This is all baloney. I work in the field and for an HMO!! We made money last year in spite of doing piles of unnecessary testing and care for patients. I do the testing, I know how much we do. We do way more than we need to.

[Don W]

Maintaining a moribund patient on mechanical ventilation in an ICU setting can be phenomenally expensive, as much as $2000.00 per day.

the ICU bed ALONE was better than 80% of the "cost".