Why We Must Ration Health Care (You Must Die for the Greater Good- Peter Singer/NYT)

New York Times ^ | July 19, 2009 | PETER SINGER

[nickcarraway]

You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?

If you can afford it, you probably would pay that much, or more, to live longer, even if your quality of life wasn’t going to be good. But suppose it’s not you with the cancer but a stranger covered by your health-insurance fund. If the insurer provides this man — and everyone else like him — with Sutent, your premiums will increase. Do you still think the drug is a good value? Suppose the treatment cost a million dollars. Would it be worth it then? Ten million? Is there any limit to how much you would want your insurer to pay for a drug that adds six months to someone’s life? If there is any point at which you say, “No, an extra six months isn’t worth that much,” then you think that health care should be rationed.

In the current U.S. debate over health care reform, “rationing” has become a dirty word. Meeting last month with five governors, President Obama urged them to avoid using the term, apparently for fear of evoking the hostile response that sank the Clintons’ attempt to achieve reform. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published at the end of last year with the headline “Obama Will Ration Your Health Care,” Sally Pipes, C.E.O. of the conservative Pacific Research Institute, described how in Britain the national health service does not pay for drugs that are regarded as not offering good value for money, and added,

[Texan]

Rationing.....and there’s the added benefit of paying fewer people Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, and SSI.

A big incentive for the government to deny care to the elderly.

[nuke rocketeer]

But our current system of employer-financed health insurance exists only because the federal government encouraged it by making the premiums tax deductible. That is, in effect, a more than $200 billion government subsidy for health care Typical leftist crap, where letting an individual or company keep more of their hard earned money is considered a subsidy. That is a BS redefinition of the word. A subsidy is a direct government payment to an individual/company.

[henkster]

I always like to respond to socialists in kind; to refute their arguments on the same plane. That way they can’t say I changed the subject. Here’s the appropriate argument:

Sutent was created by a thorough and well-funded research program that has the goal of curing cancer. Without this research, Sutent would not exist. Nor would all of the other drugs, surgical procedures and technologies that have rolled back the curse of this dreadful disease. The drugs, like Sutent, must be tried on human populations to determine their effectiveness, and the data gained guides scientists in creating the next generation of drugs. Those drugs may not only prolong life with better quality, but may actually reverse and cure the disease. That research has a cost, and is most effectively borne by an insurance coverage system. The private sector, driven by motivations of profit and achievement, provide the competitive milieu to accomplish this.

Also, by spreading these costs of research and development through the insurance system, all members benefit directly, not just the isolated recipient of Sutent. Because we are all going to become ill someday. Without trying out these drugs on everyone, no one has the chance to beat what was once an incurable disease. And what human talent and ability is lost because of this? Will a talented physicist, who could have discovered a new source of energy for our planet, not make that breakthrough because he died of cancer at age 44? You cannot be selective here; you cannot spare the physicist and sacrifice the plumber because the plumber is “less important.” Without the research data gained by trying to save all, you wind up saving none.

Even you, Mr. Singer. Someday you may be diagnosed with cancer, or ALS, or Alzheimer’s disease. Under your system, you will be declared “obsolete,” and sacrificed on the altar of your socialist eugenics god. Perhaps if the proper research had taken place, there could have been a cure for your ailment. But alas, you deemed that it was not worth saving the “lost.” No research was done that might have saved you.

Too bad you condemned yourself to an earlier death than you otherwise would have had. But I won’t feel sorry for you; you brought it upon yourself. Instead I would feel pity for the millions of others you condemned to an early death. And the billions of all of us who suffered because of that loss of human potential.

[fortunecookie]

To which I say, 'You first, Peter.'

He wants the rest of us to do what he and a few others he deems worthy will be exempt from, through their own wealth, rationalizing or perceived 'usefulness', ie his profession.

And who defines how much is too much to spend? How long is too long to savor another day? Is one life worth more than another? Oh, that's the best part - he thinks only he and people like him can do that.

And woe to us will be the suckers, the 'little people', who vote for it, endorse it, buy into it thinking it will be for everyone else, except them.

[Hardastarboard]

All resources are ultimately scarce (except, unfortunately, liberals, although you could argue that they're not really resources as they have no value whatsoever). For that reason, they are rationed by one mechanism or another. In a free market system, resources are rationed by price, which in an ideal, truly free market, would reflect the exact value of that resource in terms of producing it, whether that resource is a good or a service.

In a socialist system, there is still rationing, only it is now done by unelected government officials making rules as to what they believe is the common good. To be totally fair, they do have input from the Congress, which is at least theoretically representative of the people's wishes.

The problem is that government officials get to make the decisions, as opposed to the free market, their inherent human biases come out and they decide who gets what based not on need, as Marx said, but on who they THINK has a need. This distorts the market so badly that you end up with situations like the one in England where people are pulling their own teeth because they can't get in to see dentists.

Liberals, blinded by their Marxist religion, believe that this is a better system somehow.

[KarlInOhio]

But our current system of employer-financed health insurance exists only because the federal government encouraged it by making the premiums tax deductible. That is, in effect, a more than $200 billion government subsidy for health care.

And that's where the trouble started...

And why did that happen? Wage and price controls during WW II prevented companies from competing for the remaining employees with pay, so the sneaked some benefits like medical insurance under the radar. Just as the housing bubble was caused by government interference in the market, so too are many of the problems with the medical system.

[fortunecookie]

This bastard would have had my son euthenized at birth. My son's crime? Hemophilia!

Yes, unfortunately. Low birth weight preemies, like me, are also on the list as too costly to bother with. Post-birth abortions.

Peter Singer should take his own advice. He has nothing to offer society.

Lead by example.

[grimalkin]

This is a diabolical ethos and has no place in a rational society that values the individual. This is a logical outcome of a society where materialism is God. Funny how conservatives are often referred to as greedy, materialistic, and cold-hearted. No, we believe in the inherent value of the individual over the collective. Without the triumph of the former, the latter will always suffer.

[henkster]

You’ve gotten right to the source of the problem. When employers began picking up the tab for health care, people began to think of it as a “right” and that it would be provided by someone else at no cost to them.

Look at it this way:

Who here has car insurance? All of us responsible people do.

Who takes good care of their car with routine maintenance, oil changes, etc...? All us responsible people do.

When we do take the car in for routine maintenance, how many of us think we should submit a claim for payment for the oil change to our auto insurance carrier?

Anyone?

Anyone?

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Former governor of Colorado Richard Lamm (Democrat): seriously ill old people have a duty to die and get out of the way.

Daschle-Obama-Hillary! (DOH!) health care: The solution to the Social Security / Medicare funding problem.

(Someone tell the AARP! I tried. They don't care.)

[MarMema]

Joseph Doyle, a professor of economics at the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T., studied the records of people in Wisconsin who were injured in severe automobile accidents and had no choice but to go to the hospital. He estimated that those who had no health insurance received 20 percent less care and had a death rate 37 percent higher than those with health insurance. This difference held up even when those without health insurance were compared with those without automobile insurance, and with those on Medicaid — groups with whom they share some characteristics that might affect treatment. The lack of insurance seems to be what caused the greater number of deaths.

This doesn't make sense to me nor does it sound likely to hold up under closer scrutiny.

[RichInOC]

You first, Peter.

[tcrlaf]

It won’t be called “Rationing”...

It will be called “Responsible Spending!”, or somesuch, and the Obama-worshipping MSM will play right along.

Meanwhile YOU, and very likely your relatives, WILL DIE.

CHANGE (Eugenics) HAS ARRIVED!

[EQAndyBuzz]

So the term ‘pro-choice” only applies to killing an unborn child?

Liberalism is in fact a mental disorder.

[MarMema]

Yes indeed. Peter Singer once recommended euthanasia centers in every city where new parents could turn in their infants
they were not satisfied with, go home and have another.

[jmaroneps37]

This scumbag is a mentally ill little twerp who would have hospitals kill babies who somebody decided were defective.

[The Pack Knight]

If there is any point at which you say, “No, an extra six months isn’t worth that much,” then you think that health care should be rationed.

Or maybe you think you ought to have more choice in what sort of medical insurance policy you want to buy. This is as dumb an argument for socialist medicine as I've seen to date.

[mdmathis6]

I suspect from what I see as an RN that they need to revise upward the statistics of survival for a whole lot of cancer treatments. Newer treatments are given best low ball numbers in their efficacies for treament(to avoid pollyanna
pronouncements of “instant cures”).

Over time however I often see many patients who have lived years beyond forecasted mortality rates because their cancer treatments were much more efficacious than predicted. I see a lot of 80 year old women who come in with typical old age ailments who have had multiple bouts of breast cancer over 30 years. Even lung cancer patients are living way beyond forecasts with good quality lives. I had one patient who was into her 4th treatment for non-hodgkins lymphoma who was averaging 3 years remissions.(she was benefiting from new discoveries when treatment time came around again).

Liver and pancreatic cancers are the only ones that continue to be stubborn and resistant to treatments.

[listenhillary]

Hell, They started the business provided health care system when the enacted wage freezes in the 40’s. That was the only way they could attract employees. Anytime there is a disconnect from direct impact on the wallet of the consumer, you will have run away prices.

There is a direct correlation of the ever increasing cost of medical care from the time government started mucking with wages and then sticking their nose into health care.

[BenLurkin]

Evil.

Just plain evil.