Posted on 07/15/2009 1:21:23 PM PDT by Steelfish
Why We Must Ration Health Care
PETER SINGER July 15, 2009
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
as long as its not the government making those decisions
Peter Singer of the “I’ll save a drowning dog before I save a drowning child?” or the “a pig is a rat is a dog is a human” kind of thinking??
Why would we take advice from this... eugenicist?
Big difference. If insurance is private, I can decide which care is rationed and what price I will pay for for that level of care. (We are not as close to that system as I would like.) But I definately do not want to move further toward having an all-powerful government making that decision for me.
You know if I do loose my job I may consider getting a job in the funeral industry, I grew up on a farm and have no hangups on gritty parts of life/death.
“as long as its not the government making those decisions”
Not even a highly qualified Healthcare czar?
Why don't all these freaks off themselves and do the world two favors?
Do you want it rationed by bureaucrats who want to make it illegal to pay for your own care?
Is that the same Peter Singer who said that parents should have the legal right to kill their disabled children up to thirty days after birth?
“Obviously, healthcare is rationed like everything in the entire world is rationed (unless you have an infinite supply of something).”
Which, ironically, is the focus of the leftist attack on our economy; something we have plenty of (air) and something that need not be rationed (our own natural resources and nuclear technology). These guys a pretty clever, eh?
Go ahead and try to convince that government bureaucrat that you'd really rather live.
Blue Dog Democrats
http://www.getliberty.org/files/BlueDogLetter.pdf
“The Blue Dog Democrats realize that there is blood in the water. They are hearing from constituents angry over the $1.8 trillion deficit, the $13 trillion in committed bailouts, the failed, wasteful $787 billion ‘stimulus’, and the costly cap-and-tax. So, the Dogs know that their political necks are on the line,” said Wilson.
“The American people do not want government-run socialized medicine. Right now, the Blue Dogs have enough signatories to kill the legislation or, at the very least, slow it down. And if they value their political survival, that’s exactly what they will do,” Wilson concluded.
http://www.getliberty.org/files/BlueDogOppositiontoObamaCare.xls
GetLiberty.org, a project of Americans for Limited Government, gives you the resources to stand up against the tyrannical government.
“End Stage Renal” qualifies most people AUTOMATICALLY for Medicare, regardless of age.
The CommieCare bots always bring up bogus cases that don't make any sense. They also like to trash private insurance companies for doing EXACTLY what Medicare or Medicaid would do, in the same situation.
Medicare and Medicaid deny claims all the time.
Also, Medicare and Medicaid WILL go after court judgments and other insurance proceeds, if they have already paid your bill and then another type of insurance pays, as well.
The left SCREAMS when Walmart goes after a court settlement, from a car wreck, after Walmart Insurance had ALREADY paid all of the claims.
Guess what? Medicare and Medicaid will do EXACTLY the same thing!
It is called “coordination of benefits” with Medicare, and they have a separate 800 # to take care of people who have more than one form of insurance.
With Medicaid, there is a means test, which means you have to be poor. Also, if someone does use Medicaid, and then dies, and tries to pass assets to heirs, Medicaid Estate Recovery Rules allow the government to place liens against any heir who inherits money, from a “debtor” Medicaid beneficiary.
That is your “compassionate government” at work!
What garbage.
If I’ve chosen to buy the health fund that promises to pay for any marginally life-extending drug that may be available - then I fully expect that anyone else on the same fund get the same benefits. I should be since I’m paying a premium to be attain the top-level insurance. If instead I’ve only opted to pay for a cheaper insurance that won’t pay for experimental or barely effective treatments then I certainly won’t expect such things to be covered for anyone.
At least that’s the way things should work. We’re free to choose the healthcare that best suits our needs and wants; we may get the best, we may get the worst, but at least the power rests in our own hands. Instead, the NYT wants such decisions carefully administered by a bureaucrat/parasite who adds no value to the service we receive, but above all makes sure we have no say in the matter.
Everything I ever needed to know about this piece of “human” excrement:
“Killing a NEWBORN baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living.”
—Peter Singer
Just like all of these wise Democrats in the Obama White House who do not pay their taxes!
You gotta love a guy named Angus Scrimm.
“Shovel Ready”
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