. . . if all goes according to the polls next week.
Cardiologist DrRich argues this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since it will open up discussion on how we should limit health care to provide this “right.”
Here’s the dissonance that the public will have to face, as DrRich so eloquently states:
To reiterate the fundamental problem: 1) In America we believe that it is wrong to limit healthcare in any way, that everyone is entitled to the very best healthcare, that any bit of healthcare that offers even a small potential of benefit should be provided, and that death itself is merely a manifestation of insufficient research (or actionable incompetence, or systematic discrimination against the unwealthy, or corporate greed). 2) But against that closely held belief, we must balance the unremitting law of economics which tells us that there is simply not enough money in the known universe to buy all the healthcare that might potentially offer some small amount of benefit to every person. Healthcare spending has to be limited, or it will become a fiscal black hole.*
Opening the dialogue on how care will be rationed is welcomed, as this will be a necessary issue to tackle in the coming years. Declaring health care a right may be the impetus to start discussing these difficult decisions.
Related posts:
- Limits
- Is health care prohibition in our future?
- Medicare and cutting health care costs
- Rising health care costs
- Marginal care
- Why you should root against US health care reform
- Some continue to think that health care is "free"
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{ 4 comments }
As physicians, we can argue ad nauseum if health care is a right, “moral obligation”, or neither.
The fact is that our society has already made up its mind. If a person walks into an ER with appendicitis, we do not have the right (not to say we should do this), to ask for that person to pay before he/she has surgery (By the way, this is what a dentist does, asks for payment upfront before an abscess is treated).
Because it already has been decided that healthcare is a right, we need to , as physicians, have a major role in deciding what to do now. We need to be paid fairly for the work we do. The days of a “safety net” are over.
I do not believe in rationing care, that is a slippery slope in and of itself. However, I think we should mount a massive public education project regarding futile and end of life care. Too often, an elderly patient does not want to talk about it while they are healthy. Also, the family does not want to be the ones to “pull the plug”, so as a result, futile care is performed, all with a hefty pricetag.
For example, we should videotape a “code”, put a black stripe over the patient’s eyes to protect identity, but show the patient, nude, tube down the throat, surrounded by people performing chest compressions, etc. I think when people really see how ugly a process this is, they may be more likely to not put grandma or grandpa through it.
I do believe in rationing care. I ration my own care according to how much of my treasure it is worth to me. If I am forced to pay for someone elses, I sure as hell want someone in the system to ration his–not just limit payment for things that don’t work, but also to limit payment for things that do work but are reasonable consisdered just not worth the cost. That is what I do with the part of my property that the government permits me to keep.
Having someone else do that for you is indeed a slippery slope, but one you already stepped off one when you decided that healthcare is an entitlement to be paid for by others.
It is not and can never be a “right” because it is a service provided by people who are free beings and free to provide it or not–and who also like to eat. It is a commodity that can (and has been) with a resulting series of inevitable consequences, be made an entitlement.
Rights are not given by a public vote or governmental declaration, they are given by God and are a result of the inherent nature of man, of God, and their relationship. Governments, votes, laws, can trample on or recognize rights, not create them. They can also extend priveleges and entitlements.
Healthcare has always been a right; that is, if you believe Thomas Jefferson. He wrote over 200 years ago, “Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society”. Therefore, you cannot have liberty or happiness without healthcare!!
Dr. K is clearly possessed by the delusional belief that healthcare and health are the same thing. If healthcare is a right, then some have no liberty for they are compelled to be slave to their neighbor’s healthcare needs. Health is a state of being, like liberty, Healthcare is a form of labor and belongs to the laborer, not he who would avail himself of it. Does the pursuit of happiness being a right mean that my neighbor can compell me to expend my labor and treasure to fullfill his happiness? Does life being a right mean that my neigbor can compell me to feed him? Does freedom of press give him the right to take my paper and ink for his publications without paying for them?
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