Children and Feeble First
Baroness Warnock: Dementia sufferers may have a 'duty to die'
Elderly people suffering from dementia should consider ending their lives because they are a burden on the NHS and their families, according to the influential medical ethics expert Baroness Warnock.
The last time we heard from the Baroness she was advocating that premature infants should be allowed to die so that they would not eat up precious government health care resources. I guess I should not be surprised that she has now turned her eyes on the elderly and the mentally infirm. She needs to get together with this "gentleman" and compare notes.The veteran Government adviser said pensioners in mental decline are "wasting people's lives" because of the care they require and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia even if they are not in pain.
She insisted there was "nothing wrong" with people being helped to die for the sake of their loved ones or society.
The 84-year-old added that she hoped people will soon be "licensed to put others down" if they are unable to look after themselves.
This in a nutshell is the British model of government health care that our friends on the left (including Senators Obama and Biden) have in store for you and your aging parents. Me - I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy or even on the Baroness herself.
My dear friend Ed called it what it is.....totalitarianism.
Totalitarian governments have always worked this way; the shock comes from the same impulse occuring in supposedly enlightened democracies. We’re seeing a new kind of government these nanny states, though — a democratic totalitarianism that makes all of the choices for its subjects after they willingly give the bureaucracy the power of life and death over them. It’s a voluntary totalitarianism, and it starts by assigning government the role of caretaker from cradle to grave, the latter point coming at their choosing.
Western civilization built itself on the sanctity of human life and the rights of the individual. It doesn’t take much for Westerners to give up that birthright. The only incentive for voluntary slavery appears to be low-cost prescriptions and catastrophic hospital coverage. Once we buy into that system, all manner of personal choices get removed: the foods you can eat, the beverages you can drink, your pastimes, and apparently your right not to be murdered just to clear a hospital bed.
Resources will get rationed in one manner or another. Only air exists in such abundance that it needs no rationing. The question for any society is whether they will choose the efficient method of market-based rationing or the caprice of a top-down bureaucratic diktat. The former encourages more of the resource to be produced, while the latter restricts new resources and forces a shortage management system onto its community. We see this more clearly in Britain’s NHS than in any other Western construct, and Baroness Warnock’s monstrous demand is only the natural result.
And that is why Ed is Ed and he is the best at what he does. All I can add is that I pray that the Baroness does not fall prey to her own "monstrous" diktats.
Labels: Socialism, Universal Health Care
posted by The Lady Logician at
12:06 PM
14 Comments:
Yanno, Lady, before you express shock and outrage at people who would let others die just so they won't cost money, you might want to examine the world view of your dear friend and co-blogger at Anti-Strib, Tracy Eberly.
Because it all comes down to "what's it gonna cost me?" with him. Perfect example: His view on abortion, one of the most divisive issues around, comes down to a basic cost benefit analysis. Welfare to keep kids fed? He hates it. Schip? Why, those little rugrats are wasting his money!
Come to think of it, your sudden outrage at the culling of human beings seems to deny its occurrence when it happens by the invisible hand of the marketplace.
Really, help me here. Why is it so objectionable when government run health care plans let people die but unworthy of mention when the privatization of a health care delivery system results in far more deaths? Are the lives of insured people (clearly the wealthier ones)more worthy of concern than those who are less well off? You want to tell me where your Christian Bible talks about valuing the rich over the poor? If - as you constantly screech at us - you believe in the "sanctity of human life" who do you not care when private insurance companies let people die? Why do you fight against coverage for children who have the poor luck to not be born into wealth?
Why do you make it so damn easy for anyone with half a brain to howl at your feeble attempts at logic?
Ok, enough of that. Back to work.
By
Anonymous, at 1:59 PM
Anon,
You offered no evidence that gov't run health care would not "let people die". You just said insurance companies do, so we need change.
But LL is arguing that that change will still kill people.
Your solution is just moving sideways, at best.
By
Cameron, at 2:36 PM
Cam - Anon is not arguing anything, he (or is it she Eva) is simply trying to slime me because I associate with a group of folks who are less delicate at putting out their points of view and are not politically correct. It is a guilt by association tactic that the left uses in order to justify ignoring legit criticism to their pet projects.
In this case, I would just ignore Anon....if they had a real case they would choose an identity and debate the issue face to face.
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 2:49 PM
That was a damned good post. I laid out many issues that often get gloosed over in the abortion debate. As for the point Anon was attempting to discredit, late term abortions are bad and I stated oppostion to Partial Birth abortion.
Banning abortion just drives it into the back alleys and your only basis for that is religion and we live in a country with a secular government.
But the commenter missed the real evil in Cindy's post. It is one thing for an individual to choose abortion or to give up a child. It is quite another for the government to mandate the death of an infant. That is totalitarianism.
You aren't free if it illegal to make a bad choice. If the government decides your morality for you, you are no longer free.
By
Unknown, at 3:05 PM
Hey, I'm plenty delicate at putting points. No one wields a rhetorical sledgehammer with my kind of finesse.
Question for the Baronesse:
If these people are "suffering from dementia", how can they be expected to make a rational decision? Aren't they, by law "vulnerable adults" and not permitted to sign contracts and such?
This leads to whomever holds power of attorney over them getting to make that life or death decision. Like, someone who stands to benefit financially from the eary departure of Grandma.
This is disgusting and inhuman.
By
Kermit, at 3:07 PM
Why is it so objectionable when government run health care plans let people die but But indeed.
Why is it so objectionable to allow government to kill the innocent?
They are sick and inconvenient so kill them?
THE GOVERNMENT!?!
You OK with that?
when the privatization of a health care delivery system results in far more deaths?
You have failed to establish that little nugget.
Even if that was true, (which I vehemently dispute) you can’t tell the difference between crappy healthcare, and government sponsored euthanasia of government selected individuals?
Same thing to you though eh?
Go back to wherever it is that this sort of reasoning goes undisputed.
By
sequel, at 3:25 PM
"You have failed to establish that little nugget."
Actually, that particular fact has been widely acknowledged for a long time. In 2004, the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine issued a report entitled, "Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations." The report concluded that at that time 18,000 unnecessary deaths occurred in the United States every year due to a lack of health insurance:
http://www.iom.edu/CMS/3809/4660/17632.aspx
And our health coverage has just increased SOOO much since then! Additional reports from the Institute have concluded that it is both mistaken and dangerous to assume that the persistence of a sizable uninsured population in the United States harms only those who are uninsured:
http://www.iom.edu/CMS/3809/4660/5404.aspx
Lady, have you taken the kids to the ER lately? How far did you have to drive? How long did you have to wait? How close to four figures was the bill? How did it feel when you had to wait with a bleeding little one because some uninsured asthmatic kid used $800 worth of services because he didn't get the albuterol this month? Are your sure it's going to be covered? Don't you think those are related to the number of uninsured who land there because they don't get regular care?
But from one mom to another, here's a hint: They usually move your kid to the front of the ER line if he's barfing all over the furniture, so encourage barfing while waiting. Just one of those tricks we all pick up along the way.
By
Anonymous, at 3:18 PM
"Are the lives of insured people (clearly the wealthier ones)more worthy of concern than those who are less well off? You want to tell me where your Christian Bible talks about valuing the rich over the poor?"
Wealthy? Rich? Affording health care doesn't mean someone has to be rich, they just need to be responsible and work hard in our country of opportunity. My wife and I are a lower income family and we can afford health care, we just need to work a little harder. What the problem seems to be is that many people squander their money or make foolish choices and then they expect the government to bail them out. That is our money and it is not solving any problems, only creating more! America needs to eliminate our nanny state mentality. Many of these people just need to get hard working jobs and stop expecting us to make up for their irresponsibility.
By
tsh, at 11:35 PM
Oh good, I'm so glad tshavlik piped up! I was beginning to wonder about the deafening silence here. I thought for a moment there that I was going to have to make your arguments for you. Things like "The National Institutes of Health! Why what do they know about health care -- they're just a bunch of bureaucrats!" Or, "Well, everybody knows that doctors have a bias in favor of health care!" But tshavlik saves us.
Well, it's now nice to know that merely "working harder" is all we need to do to afford health care. How simple. But what happens when the insurer decides that the insurance you thought was there suddenly isn't?
Here's a story of some of the people making those "foolish choices" tshavlik speaks of (from the LA times):
"When Steve and Leslie Shaeffer’s daughter, Selah, was diagnosed at age 4 with a potentially fatal tumor in her jaw, they figured their health insurance would cover the bulk of her treatment costs.
Instead, almost two years later, the Murrieta, Calif., couple face more than $60,000 in medical bills and fear the loss of their dream home. They struggle to stave off creditors as they try to figure out how Selah can keep seeing the physician they credit with saving her life.
Shortly after Selah’s medical bills hit $20,000, Blue Cross stopped covering them and eventually canceled her coverage retroactively, refusing to pay for treatment, including surgery the insurer had authorized in advance.
The company accused the Shaeffers of failing to disclose in their coverage application an undiagnosed bump on Selah’s chin and physician visits for croup. Had that been disclosed, the company said in a letter, it would not have insured Selah."
(continued in next comment)
By
Anonymous, at 12:33 PM
Anon again: What foolish people, those Schaeffers! Skipping a tiny bump and the croup. Squandering their money on an insurance plan they thought would protect them. I guess they just didn't work hard enough.
Now, between 2000 and 2005, the number of Americans with private health insurance coverage fell by 1 percent. But over the same period, employment at health insurance companies rose a remarkable 32 percent. Tshavlik, what do YOU think all those extra employees doing? Helping you get more and better care? Processing that advance approval for the bunion surgery any faster? Dream on. They're searching through your application to find reasons to deny coverage once you or your loved ones get sick.
Oh, but you say, I have a good job. My employer pays for it. After all, I work hard. I'm responsible. They can't turn me down. Well, John McCain has some news for you. His heath care proposal (a write up by the candidate himself is here) involves removing those incentives that make it possible for your employer to afford health care coverage. It's the usual McCain cry for less regulation, more private markets, blah, blah, blah. Throwing consumers into the maelstrom of the free market where those who work hard and make smart choices always prosper. We know how well all that's worked out this week, don't we?
In case you're wondering where the model for sen. McCain's proposal comes from, he provides it for you:
"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."
I'll leave it to just about any newspaper to explain to you how successful those "more vigorous nationwide competition" ideas have worked recently in the financial markets.
Tshavlik, do you honestly think that you'll be able to even get coverage should you and your wife have special needs children? Get cancer? Suffer some tragic accident? Being lower income - especially if it means doing what you truly love and feel called to do - shouldn't be penalized by worrying about getting sick or kicked off your insurance.
By
Anonymous, at 12:39 PM
The silence here sometimes really does get deafening.
By
Anonymous, at 7:51 AM
Sorry Anon but sometimes LIFE (you do have one of those don't you) gets in the way! Read the post "In Case You Were Wondering" since you are wondering....
As far as taking a kid to the ER - I have a teenaged son. It's not a matter of IF I have done so it's how many times. THEN there was the tonsillectomy and.....
But that is what insurance is FOR and that is what SCHIP is for.
BTW what does that have to do with someone advocating that the feeble and infirm be euthanized because they "use" too many services?
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 6:37 PM
Lady, did you list every single ailment the kid ever had when you last applied for insurance? I doubt it.
You are on the same thin ice everyone else is, sweetie. Hope you make it.
As for what your position has to do with the ridiculous never-to-be-enacted ravings of one person? It's like this: Why are you so worried about those ravings when they're not really ever going to result in the euthanization of one single infirm person, but you proclaim the wonders of a health care system that regularly results in the cruel abandonment of those very same people? And let's not forget that you rallied long and hard against SCHIP not too long ago.
But let me put it this way: Why is it cruel to advocate for the elimination of sick people but it's somehow noble to simply allow some sick people to die for lack of medical care? Don't both result in the "managed delivery of care" in a very efficient manner? Don't both result in the deaths of people who couldn't help themselves?
Why are the (nonexistent) deaths advocated by Baroness Warnock so offensive to you, while the very real deaths of people for lack of health care coverage (or the failure of their parents to afford it) somehow morally sanctionable?
By
Anonymous, at 11:09 AM
Anon - It has ALWAYS been a priority for my husband and I to have family insurance. We DO WITHOUT luxuries so that we can do the right thing for our child and make sure that we have the proper insurance. Instead of buying the big screen TV or buying new cars or whatever, we got insurance. That way, when one of us gets sick we have the insurance to cover it. Yes when we enrolled we DID have to list out every illness we have had and every procedure we have ever had done.
As far as the "never to be enacted ravings of one person" go back and re-read the post. The person in question is the top ethicist FOR the NIH - the organization that runs British health care. SHE IS THE ONE THAT SETS POLICY! That is why her "ravings" are so dangerous!
If we are going to have an honest debate on health care policy then it is only FAIR for the people to know everything about the plans in question. What your side continues to hide is the FACT that under this type of government administered plan SERVICES WILL BE RATIONED!
If you are fine with rationing great. However, I am not! I do not want my mother (or your mother for that matter) to be denied services because of her age. I personally do not think telling people that they are too old to live is compassionate. How about you?
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 3:44 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home