first you deny treatment to “incoherent 90 year olds” to justify rationing
then when your costs continue to rise and your dollars remain “finite’, how about denying treatment to incoherent 80 year olds? well, then, how about 70 yr olds with stage 4 cancer that can be managed but not cured? Is that last 5-10 years of life “too expensive”??
What about a 40 year depressive who wants to die? Is it worth expensive treatment to keep them alive against their will?
Now, what about vaccines for a Tay Sachs child or neurobastoma child with a life expectancy of 2 years? For a Down’s child? For a child with a 3rd recurrence of leukemia? Is that the best return for your finite dollars?
What about a 22 week fetus? Is it worth a million dollars to do a C-section and try to save them with a 10% chance of normal survival?
Government takeover and then rationing of medical care for private citizens is not a line in the sand - it is a steep and slippery slope. If I had to choose between the Catholic church and the obama administration to make decisions about medical care and the value of my life, I choose the church
opinion.
You make a credible case for the worth of pursuing all these expensive medical care scenarios, but fail to make it clear whether or not you believe taxpayers should be forced, under penalty of imprisonment, to pay for them.
I choose the church opinion.
That's as may be, but I don't see the Catholic (or any other) church stepping up to replace the government's role in paying the doctors, nurses, and hospitals. The Catholic hospitals take every Medicare and Medicaid dollar they can. And having "the king's shilling" they are not well positioned to object to the king's decrees.