Why We Must Ration Health Care (Obama media prepping Americans for rationed care)

ny times ^ | 7/19/2009 | peter singer

[tobyhill]

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.

[GeronL]

first if Peter Singer is on your side. YOU are the nutcase.

[samtheman]

If we ration we won’t be writing blank checks to pharmaceutical companies for their patented drugs...

Aha! I was wondering when we would get to the evil pharmaceutical companies.

Let's see...

How many new drugs are developed in England, Canada, France or any of the other socialist-medicine countries?

I thought so: ZERO.

Well, President Zero wants us to join those countries in producing ZERO new drugs in the future and Maximum Cheerleader and DeathMerchant Singer is leading the charge!

Hip hip hooray! Death is on the way!

[shove_it]

FTA: "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."

I will ration my own health care, not someone else's and I don't want someone else rationing mine.

[kitkat]

It seems strange that the health insurance companies can make a profit by providing whatever the patient needs to stay alive, but OBAMA and the government he leads can NOT provide what the patient needs Which tells us that the government should stay out of the health care business.

Obama lied when he told us that we can choose our own doctor and our own health insurance company. What he DIDN’T tell us is that in his DeathCare bill we must choose which doctor and health insurance company the government controls. In other words, we have no choice but to accept government controlled health care.

[samtheman]

But the British media leapt on the theme of penny-pinching bureaucrats sentencing sick people to death.

And we're going to make sure that no media in America makes THAT mistake, right?

President Zero already has 95% of the media in his pocket and the other 5% is going to be heavily REGULATED.

If you oppose health care rationing you're a HATER, right Singer?

If you oppose health care rationing you're involved in HATE SPEECH, right Singer?

If you oppose health care rationing you're guilty of a HATE CRIME, right Singer?

[grey_whiskers]

They're right. You just inspired a vanity.

Cheers!

[samtheman]

In Britain, everyone has health insurance.

In Britain, everyone waits in line for health care.

In Britain, the people are finally waking up to how horrible their health care is.

In Britain, after years of public silence on the subject, people are finally starting to say: THIS SUCKS!

[tobyhill]

Peter Singer is only speaking for Obama because Obama knows his healthcare plan is doomed because of the cost. The only way to bring down the cost under $1 trillion is to ration care so Singer is prepping Americans with the ration care propaganda.

[theBuckwheat]

The only real fix for this government-caused crisis is that people return to spending their own money on their own health care. Then if someone wants to spend $54,000 on a drug, that is their business and nobody else's, as it should be.

There is a role for insurance that is simply insurance against risks that the insured is not willing to pay for himself.

The Fair Tax folks are missing the opportunity to have a public discussion that we sorely need: at what level of need does a citizen deserve help from the rest of us and at what level should it be the duty of a citizen to pay their own bills? This includes food, clothing, shelter and yes, medical costs.

We have allowed government to define a level of health care that raises costs. I don't mind paying for lifesaving care for the indigent, but paying for sex change operations for prisoners? We have stretched and expanded what is considered medically necessary to include treatments for the indigent that almost insult the taxpayer.

We have also allowed government to force insurance companies to cover conditions such as mental health that only raise costs for the rest of us. One way to cut insurance costs is to allow companies to sell stripped down plans across state lines. Another way to lower costs is to require hospitals to give their best price to patients who will pay for their bill in full in cash.

[Sylvester McMonkey McBean]

The author doesn’t get it.

My health insurance premiums cover MY health insurance which is a contractual agreement between myself and my insurance company.

The competitive for profit insurance model ensures that group risk rates are accurately spread out among all members and that the necessary premiums will take into account the “outlier diagnoses/treatments.” This model is best for all as the person who gets really sick and needs special long term care pays a lower premium relative to the care they receive while the remaining healthy members pay a minimally higher premium. Everyone that pays premiums gets coverage. This works because the very sick person’s use has already been factored into the premiums everyone pays.

Add to this the competition element between insurers, and this has two interesting effects. First, it encourages more accurate risk health assessments across the represented groups. Second, the competition results in lower premiums for the individual as those risk models are further refined. Competition also allows the insureds to choose which insurer best fits their needs while the providers also can choose which insurer pays them the highest UCR and whether or not to accept members of that plan.

A forced single payer health care system is not a health care plan at all. It’s simply additional taxation without representation and yet another example that the Left is only pro-choice when it comes to abortion.

[broken_arrow1]

I wish Ted Kennedy would take that advice and save the taxpayers a lot of money by not having to extending his worthless life for an extra few months. Ted, do your country a favor - take the assisted suicide option. Nazi Pelosi is pushing 70 years old and her days are numbered. Maybe you can push for a group discount!

[BusterBear]

Evil, pure evil, has set up shop at the white house.

I've been thinking that for a while, given their response to events in Iran and Honduras and their bullying, thuggish behavior at home. And now, with their health program, - that's just more evidence. It's just a small step from killing live babies born from botched abortions to depriving the elderly and infirm of medical care.

[samtheman]

Governments implicitly place a dollar value on a human life when they decide how much is to be spent on health care programs and how much on other public goods that are not directed toward saving lives.

Which is another reason to get the government out of all such decisions... or as many such decisions as we possibly can.

[livius]

One thing that many people overlook is that once we start deciding that death is the treatment of choice for serious illnesses, we have removed any incentive for drug companies or scientists/physicians in general to seek cures.

Many things that were once very expensive to treat and had a hopeless prognosis (childhood lukemia, for example) by now have almost routine treatments and a high level of success. In addition, in the course of treating for extreme conditions, cures or ameliatorive treatments are often found for more ordinary ailments, and this may even result in a decline in the cost of treating them.

In other words, by giving an automatic death sentence to anybody who has a serious expensive illness, we are cutting off the way to future treatments that may benefit us all.

But that sums up utilitarian, socialist society in a nutshell: shortsighted, hopeless, and uninventive.

[samtheman]

thanks

[Mr. K]

he was making A POINT - that you obviously missed

in fact, he was making YOUR point

READ, then post

[Mr. K]

he was making A POINT - that you obviously missed

in fact, he was making YOUR point

READ, then post

[devane617]

The following paragraph is spooky to me....

"Rationing health care means getting value for the billions we are spending by setting limits on which treatments should be paid for from the public purse. If we ration we won’t be writing blank checks to pharmaceutical companies for their patented drugs, nor paying for whatever procedures doctors choose to recommend. When public funds subsidize health care or provide it directly, it is crazy not to try to get value for money. The debate over health care reform in the United States should start from the premise that some form of health care rationing is both inescapable and desirable. Then we can ask, What is the best way to do it?"

[samtheman]

One thing that many people overlook is that once we start deciding that death is the treatment of choice for serious illnesses, we have removed any incentive for drug companies or scientists/physicians in general to seek cures.

Many things that were once very expensive to treat and had a hopeless prognosis (childhood lukemia, for example) by now have almost routine treatments and a high level of success. In addition, in the course of treating for extreme conditions, cures or ameliatorive treatments are often found for more ordinary ailments, and this may even result in a decline in the cost of treating them.

In other words, by giving an automatic death sentence to anybody who has a serious expensive illness, we are cutting off the way to future treatments that may benefit us all.

But that sums up utilitarian, socialist society in a nutshell: shortsighted, hopeless, and uninventive.

I'm repeating this because I tried to say something similar but didn't say it as well as you did.

Thank you, livius. Excellent, excellent, post.

[NoobRep]

Why is Ted Kennedy getting any treatment right now??