One Libertarian's View on Health Care Reform

    Probably too much of a pragmatist for some of our readers, but here is Andrew's take on the direction and size of this step.  I find myself largely in agreement on this issue.

Comments

[evagrius]

It would be interesting to know how much health care is given to pregnant women, infants and children vs. end-of-life health care.

It's a well-known fact that the better health care one receives at the beginning of life the better one's health wil be throughout life.

Of course, it would also be interesting to know the adequacy of nutrition from pre-birth on.

These are topics in health care that are rarely debated yet they are crucial to adequate health care.

[zero]

excellent points, evagrius. it's like education. put the dollars into kids as an investment. prenatal/early childhood is an investment that is worth the money. of course, kids in this country don't count. nor do the poor and certainly not the working poor. it's still a tough sell. the interests who like how things work own those that can make the changes. of course, people could vote for different candidates. i want to know why they don't! this is very frustrating to me. i never vote for incumbents. never. that's my policy. they get their "turn" and they are finished.

[chuck]

You both are right on. I have a friend, nominated by Bush to be surgeon general. He claims 80% of the dollars spent on a person in their lifetime will be spent in the last year with no appreciable improvement in quality of life......

Of course, let anyone bring this up and the "death panel" demagogues come out in force.

[zero]

i would gladly death panel myself. there seems to be no value in putting even a fraction of 80% into a person's final year. should someone be given the gift of long life, then give a gift back to the world and let go, gratefully. of course, this includes family members as well. keeping someone alive for the sake of keeping them around doesn't seem to be valuing that person's life as much as not being able or willing to let go. there's a ton of bucks in old age care. i don't want to contribute.

[Doug]

I agree with you both... I've got the same view of myself as you, zero. But to play devil's advocate here... if the insurance industry has scammed me all my life and I've paid tons of money to them, shouldn't I let them pay all I can eek out of them at the end? :-)

On a serious note, though... do you believe that the State should make the decision on when somebody's life isn't valuable enough to "go on"? It's not too uncommon with modern medicine to see a forecast of "one year to live" and it's much longer. My mentally retarded aunt is 59 years old, and not expected to live past her teenage years. My mother now takes care of her. Though I suppose if she were aborted (if it were legal back then), the State would "save" 59 years of expenses, right? It all comes back to money, doesn't it?

[Doug]

(P.S. – That last comment was sarcasm. I don't believe abortion is the answer to such problems, or 99.99% of problems, for that matter.)

[zero]

the state doesn't and shouldn't tell people how long to live or when to die. (there's already those decisions made for people based on whether they have insurance and/or ability to pay. care is already rationed and the government didn't have to do a thing to make that happen). people should make those decisions well in advance of need. this means couples, families should talk to each other about what they wish for the end of their lives and get it in a legal document. and family/spouses should not be able to override decisions made of sound mind and judgment, which often happens once the individual can no longer speak for themselves.

with the healh care industry, it makes a lot of money based on how much "care" is delivered. if we were, as a population, much healthier, there would be less need and the industry wouldn't make as much bucks. if people would say no to the extreme measures at the end of life, this would also withhold major bucks from the industry. whether insurance "pays" or not, someone/some entity is getting lots of money and all of us pay indirectly.

[zero]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-abrams/limbaugh-lauds-socialist_b_409378.html

interesting commentary from that horrid huff post. by a doctor, no less.