DGS49
Diamond Member
Many years ago, while “Hillary-Care” was being debated in Congress, a Doctor acquaintance of mine told me that the AMA had a working group that was developing a plan for socialized medicine. Very briefly, it was as follows. A dedicated tax would be implemented. The country would be divided into 7 regions, and each region would be allocated a budget, based on the revenues coming out of the healthcare tax.
Within each region, there would be a committee of lawyers, doctors, ethicists (?), business owners, and regular citizens who would decide, basically, how that money would be spent.
Out of that process would come LIMITATIONS on spending. For example, they wouldn’t allow people over a certain age to get major, costly surgeries; that is to say, the Program would not fund those surgeries. A related question would be, what if the person had the resources to self-fund those things? That could still remove resources from “everyone else.” But whatever.
Clearly, a disproportionate amount of money is spent on Americans who are in the last 90 days of life, much of it merely to extend life by a few days, weeks or months.
Another touchy question arises at the other end of life. Kids are born all the time who are, to put it bluntly, fucked up. They have multiple physical defects (or a combination of mental and physical defects) that could theoretically be corrected by a series of very expensive surgeries over many years, but…is it sane to expend those resources on a person who probably will never be healthy or lead a productive life?
I saw a thing on (I think it was) Facebook yesterday. A mom was writing about her kid, who was like the theoretical one described in the previous paragraph. She attached a copy of an invoice for medical/surgical expenses of about a quarter million dollars, said that this was one of several such surgeries her son had had, and one of several more he would require in the future. And isn’t my kid cute? (Cute picture appended). Yes, the kid is cute.
“And if the Republic plan is adopted,” with its coverage caps, “will my kid be condemned to die???????”
One of many problems with the American conception of healthcare now – unlike the conception in countries that actually HAVE socialized medicine – is that Americans have been convinced that EVERYONE should be able to access – at a “reasonable cost” – the kind of care that the richest person in the country could access if he needed to.
This is INSANE, people! At some point, to quote the late Nancy Reagan, we, as a society have to be able to, “Just Say NO!”
I realize one can say, “What if it was your kid?” but Jesus, no society can afford to spend an INFINITE amount of money on some kid who will probably die before he’s 20 anyway.
We don’t seem to be able to confront the issue of limited resources.
Within each region, there would be a committee of lawyers, doctors, ethicists (?), business owners, and regular citizens who would decide, basically, how that money would be spent.
Out of that process would come LIMITATIONS on spending. For example, they wouldn’t allow people over a certain age to get major, costly surgeries; that is to say, the Program would not fund those surgeries. A related question would be, what if the person had the resources to self-fund those things? That could still remove resources from “everyone else.” But whatever.
Clearly, a disproportionate amount of money is spent on Americans who are in the last 90 days of life, much of it merely to extend life by a few days, weeks or months.
Another touchy question arises at the other end of life. Kids are born all the time who are, to put it bluntly, fucked up. They have multiple physical defects (or a combination of mental and physical defects) that could theoretically be corrected by a series of very expensive surgeries over many years, but…is it sane to expend those resources on a person who probably will never be healthy or lead a productive life?
I saw a thing on (I think it was) Facebook yesterday. A mom was writing about her kid, who was like the theoretical one described in the previous paragraph. She attached a copy of an invoice for medical/surgical expenses of about a quarter million dollars, said that this was one of several such surgeries her son had had, and one of several more he would require in the future. And isn’t my kid cute? (Cute picture appended). Yes, the kid is cute.
“And if the Republic plan is adopted,” with its coverage caps, “will my kid be condemned to die???????”
One of many problems with the American conception of healthcare now – unlike the conception in countries that actually HAVE socialized medicine – is that Americans have been convinced that EVERYONE should be able to access – at a “reasonable cost” – the kind of care that the richest person in the country could access if he needed to.
This is INSANE, people! At some point, to quote the late Nancy Reagan, we, as a society have to be able to, “Just Say NO!”
I realize one can say, “What if it was your kid?” but Jesus, no society can afford to spend an INFINITE amount of money on some kid who will probably die before he’s 20 anyway.
We don’t seem to be able to confront the issue of limited resources.
