How to Save Medicare? Die Sooner – They’re right, but Americans won’t stand for it at this point.
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How to Save Medicare? Die Sooner – They’re right, but Americans won’t stand for it at this point.
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“Most Americans. . .believe that each person is entitled to, technically and scientifically, the best medical care that they can get.”
I thought that was the best thing in the article. It points out a difference in medicine from almost everything else in our society. Everyone is entitled to the best medicine. I might not be entitled to a nice place to live, 3 meals a day, a car, the nicest computer, vacations, or anything else, but my medical care has to be the most amazing and cutting edge stuff. The absolute BEST medicine isn’t a luxury anymore.
Of course, try telling someone with Cancer that there is a treatment, but it costs too much to give you and since you aren’t rich you’re just going to die while someone in the same situation who is wealthier will survive it. It’s weird because I had a conversation about this with my parents recently and we kinda came to the same conclusion. Unfortunately, medicine (like everything else) starts out as a luxury. When it’s heated seats in a car it’s easy to say that you can’t have that progress because it’s too expensive. Heck, even writing here makes me feel bad for saying that some people can’t have the latest medical progress.
I don’t think you understand the point of the article. They were making no comment on the availability of cutting-edge treatments. They were specifically pointing out that our society’s obsession with death means that we pour money into health care to prolong life for a few extra weeks or months or even a year without looking at the quality of the life we are preserving. Meanwhile, the patients are suffering from living longer in terrible pain rather then dying in peace, and society is suffering due to the massive expense.
No one is saying that people on Medicare should not have access to life-saving medicine. They’re saying that people who are near death should be allowed to die.
Well, the article said that “gatekeepers” could decide what treatments patients would receive – like HMOs. Obviously, the expensive treatments would be the ones most objected to. But yeah, your view is a ton nicer that the “gobble gobble, i like money!” view.