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,

[Arizona Carolyn]

Trouble is he is a professor at a prestegious university and is charged with forming young minds.

[Redleg Duke]

Yes, in the Medical Ethics Chair, no less! Princeton University.

[astounded]

I have a male cousin who has been quadriplegic for nearly 26 years due to an accident. His wife of 26 years told us last week that my cousin believes he would not be the person he is had he not been injured. How does that view jibe with Peter Singer’s view?

I despise liberal academic pencilneck pinheads (which is a redundant phrase) like Singer who think they know what’s good for everyone else.

[socialismisinsidious]

Socialized Medicine aka Universal Health Care PING LIST

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[mo]

Same jackasses wrote blank checks to banks and insurance companies..who turned around and wrote checks to the members of Congress ...who gave them the blank checks in the FIRST Place...????WTF???

[dervish]

I agree that we already ration healthcare, but we ration it in a capitalist way which makes the marketplace the decision maker not the government. Huge difference as we can see from the horrible systems in Canada and UK.

The premise that if we already ration it a bit privately, we should institutionalize total rationing, is ridiculous.

I also find it unbelievable that the UK does not have a death penalty for criminals just for the sick.

Further, discussions of rationing never mention the wholly preventable disease AIDS and its high cost treatment ($300,000) for an incurable disease.

[dervish]

exactly.

Leave the government out of it. I don’t want my government making those decisions.

Also the story about O’s mother. Would you rather worry about how you were going to pay for the care or worry about how you were going to get the care?

The former are the socialized med countries; the latter is the US.

[dervish]

The former are the socialized med countries; the latter is the US

my mistake. reverse those

[discostu]

Do we get roll over? I’ve been to the doctor maybe 6 times in the last quarter century, that should get me a lot later.

[Lauren BaRecall]

I can tell that this guy is a hydration tube puller.

[Cacique]

btt

[patriot08]

.

Senator DeMint said on national television that it will take 30% of America out in the streets protesting to get the administration and Congress to take notice. Our war for independence was fought by 3% of the population. This war for independence requires more. You can no longer sit by and hope this gets better

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[tefis]

Singer is completely evil. Here’s one of my favorite quotes:

“When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed ... killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all.”

http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Saints/Authors/Interviews/Peter%20Singer—summary.htm