Posted on 03/15/2005 5:51:44 AM PST by The Great Yazoo
By BONNIE ERBE, Scripps Howard News Service March 15, 2005
"Love Hurts," said the Everly Brothers. And Life Costs, say I.
Florida lawmakers should bear that in mind as they conjure up a bill to keep Terry Schiavo forever alive (as opposed to productively alive). Yes, in that persistent vegetative state known as Florida, lawmakers seem to believe they have no poverty to eradicate, no children to educate, no affordable houses to build and no health care to provide to walking, talking people. So they've decided to spend their time passing a law that would make it a crime to unhitch Terry Schiavo's feeding tube.
Lost in this debate over Schiavo's future is the question: Who pays when life-worshippers, a/k/a religious zealots, cite religious mores while insisting on prolonging a barren existence? In Schiavo's case, there's no one answer to the question, who pays. Rather, her family relies on a melange of sources—-a scenario as follows.
Michael Schiavo's lawyer, George Felos, told reporters there once was a trust fund containing almost $800,000 (won in a malpractice case) to support Terry Schiavo's abundant medical expenses. That has been whittled down to near extinction. Felos says Schiavo's costs during the past few years have been borne by a confusing and twisted agglomeration of Social Security disability benefits, Medicaid and a corporate hospice fund for indigent patients. Meanwhile, her parents' legal bills have been subsidized by church groups passing the collection plate.
Whatever Schiavo's medical costs are and however much may have been sustained by private funds, there's still the inevitability we find in many religiously driven fights for life: Taxpayers and other individuals not similarly motivated are still drawn in, willing or not, to help subsidize someone else's "moral" choice. Praise the Lord and the, er, hat.
Bob Schindler, Terry Schiavo's father, sponsored as his legal fight is by church groups, has contorted his daughter's fate into his own personal Schindler's list. But the original Schindler did not force his fellow Germans to pay for the Jews he saved during World War II (and, of course, the people he saved were still very much alive). If Bob Schindler wants to keep his daughter alive without forcing others to chip in (via taxpayer-funded programs such as Social Security and Medicaid), that's one thing. It's his private right and he's free to do so. When he starts asking me to contribute, that's quite another.
Oh, I can just hear the choir of outrage now: How dare you put a price on human life? Well, honey, I'm not alone. Capitalism, modern medicine and society have all decided that insurance, medicine, surgery and hospitals cost money.
Consider this: Our collective obsession with end-of-life augmentation costs billions each year. The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality released a report in 2003 showing that last-year-of-life expenses ate up 22 percent of all medical costs, 26 percent of Medicare expenses, 25 percent of the tab for Medicaid and 18 percent of all non-Medicare health-care costs. If only we could let go of our obsession with end-of-life medical heroics, think how much we could save not only in medical costs, but also in insurance and in heartache. But no, the godly among us will have none of that.
That's not to say we should not try to save lives, or even use heroic measures when necessary. But when the patient is medically dead, when the doctors give up hope, it is no longer about saving a life. At that point, it's all about saving a principle. With public money. It's easy to stand on principle when the bill goes elsewhere.
Fine, then. Let those whose mores dictate preservation of life at all costs, pay those costs. We would see feeding tubes and respirators across America not pulled but ripped out at lightning speed.
(Bonnie Erbe is a TV host and writes this column for Scripps Howard News Service. E-mail bonnieerbe@CompuServe.com. )
1. Terri had a malpractice settlement (just or not) that should cover her cost.
2. This will be the solution to social security: when you've run out of 'your account funds', your medical care will stop.
No, but any good conservative should.
Have we forgotten what Limited Government means?
Those of you who say "It's all right with me if they use my tax money for this" have abandoned all moral right to object to anything the liberals ever want to spend money on, just as Erbe has abandoned all moral right to object to our ending any and every government giveaway program.
If some private charity wants to support the woman forever, that is their business, but to have taxpayers do it is an outrage.
So9
Terry does not seem dead to me at all, medically or otherwise. Can this woman be for real or is this an onion type satire and I am just not hip to the joke? Please say it's the latter of the two.
If she was home with her parents there wouldn't be any medical costs besides the costs of therapy and normal medical expenses. These people are so invested in pushing the notion that this is a sick woman. It's disgusting. It's funny, they are the"life worshipers", those who fear death the most because they have no faith. There's a very good movie with William Hurt called The Doctor which is about a doctor who gets cancer and finds out what it's like to be on the other side of the street. I wish I could be there to listen to George "The Felon" Felos on his deathbed begging for just a little more time, but I know that's impossible.
I'd like to know how Bonnie Erbe KNOWS that Terri's existence is barren? Maybe Bonnie is doing some projecting, wondering what HER life would be like if she were in Terri's position, and if there were anyone who loved her so well that they'd fight for HER?
Ahh - and who decides the meaning of "productively alive"? I bet this same lady (lady?) would consider someone's pet "productively alive" because it gives the owner satisfaction. I suppose if Terri was generating tax dollars for social programs, she would then be "productively alive". Then again, if she was on welfare rolls and spitting out babies, she would also be "productively alive".
How sick is this society? Bonnie Erbe is on Satan's side in her selective selfishness.
I guess she missed the lawsuit the "husband" won that was suppose to care for her the rest of her life. Oh well, we know how "journalist" do research.
The point is: Who pays?
Who says the tax-payers are paying for her or would? She has a right to Medicaid just like everybody else, and her maintenance is not going to be that hit. Don't try to blow smoke up anybody's butt around here Mister, that dog won't hunt.
I'll probably get flamed but IMO, the writer, irrespective of her political and philosophical underpinnings, does make some relevant points.
Bonnie Erbe is a socialist. How did she become such a libertarian about government spending? Curious.
If we'd clean out Death Row, we'd have plenty of money to take care of Terri
This may be true, but it is not relevant to Terri's case. Terri is clearly NOT dead, she only requires assistance in eating. If she had gotten the therapy that her husband CLAIMED he was going to provide with the money he got from the original malpractice suit, she'd likely be eating just fine without the need for the feeding tube.
As for we, "religious zealots", as a Catholic, I know that taking 'heroic measures', and keeping someone on artificial life support, are not necessary in order to keep faith with my religion, but feeding someone is not a 'heroic measure' it is simply the most basic thing that we humans, we children of God require.
Regardless of where you stand on the Terri debate, this assertion is simply not true. Someone who is completely bedridden requires a good deal of nursing care.
I thought BONNIE ERBE was on trial for crashing Worldcom.
What the author is not saying is that the majority of hospice care is covered by Medicare. That alone can account for a large part of the 26% Medicare cost mentioned here. Their work can not be considered to be end of life heroics or an attempt to prolong life in any manner.
Soylent green is people.
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