A Duty To Die

[CycloWizard]

Why do people think of costs as going to a blackhole? The "cost" of staving off old ages infuses the medical profession with funding. This funding drives research into the basics of our biology and provides benefits beyond helping granny live for another few years. Additionally the money goes to nurses and homes which then spend that money on the rest of society.

Except that money paid for treatment is not money used for research. The government has set up a system in which funding for medical research comes almost exclusively from tax dollars via NIH.

Ultimately it re-invests grannies money into the system, leaving her children with little inheritance (booo-hoooo, work for your own money).

Yes, the hobo on the street corner has as much a right to your father's money as you do once he's gone. *roll*

 

[JSt0rm]

I also, however, have no idea what you are on about, PJ.

he is trying to say liberals want to kill old people for profit.

As a liberal I think not only should we choose to let the old die we should be able to pick them and put them on an island to hunt.

 

[QuantumPion]

Here's an idea. How about we let people spend their own money however they like. If they want to spend millions of their own dollars to keep themselves alive another month, that is their prerogative.

 

[QuantumPion]

I think I might have a way out of this. Starting at, say, age 40, people could be given the option of paying some extra percentage of their income as taxes (with their being a minimum dollar amount of extra taxes to be paid--sorry poor folks) to be eligible for coverage for medical care to extend life an additional 6 months.

Why do you need a government middle-man? Let people save up their own money for their own medical expenses.

 

[daishi5]

You are pretty short sighted. As Technology develops and becomes more available, costs will diminish. Eventually, keeping someone alive on life support at 100 years old will be pretty cheap. Eventually 100 years old will be the new 50 years old.

That is the exact opposite of what has been happening for the past 40 years or so. What makes you think this trend is going to suddenly turn around?

 

[JSt0rm]

the reason its so expensive is because we will pay any amount to live. Thats why we need cost controls down the line.

 

[daishi5]

the reason its so expensive is because we will pay any amount to live. Thats why we need cost controls down the line.

So, the OP is right, we are going to force people to die to keep costs down? Or were your comments about spending so much to keep living, and cost controls not related?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

the reason its so expensive is because we will pay any amount to live. Thats why we need cost controls down the line.

Who gets to be the Sandman?

 

[shira]

Choose life, always messy, inconvenient, disruptive. Or not?

When the choice is yours, while the choice is yours, how do you choose?

Sometimes choosing is as simple as a vote for or against abortion on demand or for or against "universal" health care. Sometimes it is more personal, as when you make the choice to have life support pulled from a terminal patient, maybe a patient that happens to be a parent or grandparent.

As a society, we seem to have chosen convenient death as often than not. We have chosen the most pro-abortion politician ever as our President. We now have an ongoing debate as to what constitutes life worthy of investing limited funds for medical support.

I think, to most, the choice is clear. Some may couch the terms as politely or technically as possible to make their choice more palatable, others are less politic. But most do know where they stand, for life or against.

Once a choice is made, once clarity is reached, the next choice is always between being passive or active in support of that choice.

Since you're opposed to universal health care, you're arguing that the indigent elderly should do what, exactly?

 

[shira]

Here's an idea. How about we let people spend their own money however they like. If they want to spend millions of their own dollars to keep themselves alive another month, that is their prerogative.

So you're saying that EVERYONE at ANY age who doesn't have the money to afford the treatment needed to save or extend their life has a duty to die?

 

[CycloWizard]

So you're saying that EVERYONE at ANY age who doesn't have the money to afford the treatment needed to save or extend their life has a duty to die?

That's a dishonest interpretation at best. He might be saying that he doesn't have a duty to keep these people alive, which is completely different.

 

[JSt0rm]

So, the OP is right, we are going to force people to die to keep costs down? Or were your comments about spending so much to keep living, and cost controls not related?

Look I don't have the answers but I think we need to find ways to control costs and give people the best end of life care.

 

[CycloWizard]

Look I don't have the answers but I think we need to find ways to control costs and give people the best end of life care.

Those are two inherently conflicting positions. That's like saying, "Look, I don't have the answers, but I think we need to balance the budget while increasing spending and decreasing tax revenue." End-of-life care is the most expensive part of our healthcare system, so saying that you want to cut costs while providing for the best of the most costly thing in our healthcare system doesn't really make sense unless you are only going to pay for it for certain people.

 

[shira]

That's a dishonest interpretation at best. He might be saying that he doesn't have a duty to keep these people alive, which is completely different.

Really?

Let's generalize that attitude:

Society doesn't have a duty to keep "these people" (meaning ANYONE - of any age - who can't afford needed treatment) alive.​

Now, if society doesn't have such a duty, what's the alternative for "these people?" Beg for money? Steal? Sell body parts? Or should they do the honorable thing and just go off and die?

 

[JSt0rm]

Those are two inherently conflicting positions. That's like saying, "Look, I don't have the answers, but I think we need to balance the budget while increasing spending and decreasing tax revenue." End-of-life care is the most expensive part of our healthcare system, so saying that you want to cut costs while providing for the best of the most costly thing in our healthcare system doesn't really make sense unless you are only going to pay for it for certain people.

What your saying is lets not bother trying because it cant happen. What I'm saying is lets try. Now if that means limiting the pay out for some of those procedures then thats the answer. I would prefer removing for profit from the equation as profit is waist when talking about living or dieing.

 

[shira]

Those are two inherently conflicting positions. That's like saying, "Look, I don't have the answers, but I think we need to balance the budget while increasing spending and decreasing tax revenue." End-of-life care is the most expensive part of our healthcare system, so saying that you want to cut costs while providing for the best of the most costly thing in our healthcare system doesn't really make sense unless you are only going to pay for it for certain people.

Why draw the line at end-of-life care? Transplant surgery and cancer treatment for young people is outrageously expensive, too. So let 'em die and save money, right?

 

[CycloWizard]

Really?

Let's generalize that attitude:

Society doesn't have a duty to keep "these people" (meaning ANYONE - of any age - who can't afford needed treatment) alive.​

Now, if society doesn't have such a duty, what's the alternative for "these people?" Beg for money? Steal? Sell body parts? Or should they do the honorable thing and just go off and die?

I have no duty to anyone else in this country - that's one of the great things about being a nation founded on rights rather than duties. The problems we are having today can all be attributed to people who feel that they can impose duties on other citizens. Your argument is simply an appeal to emotion in an effort to take my rights away and replace them with duties. No thanks. If you feel so guilty that so many people are dying because of a lack of healthcare in this country, please tell me how much money you donate to the multitude of private charities which help people in this predicament. I'll speculate that it's zero because otherwise you would realize that it's not my duty to pay for everyone else's healthcare, but it is your right to do it if you so choose.

 

[CycloWizard]

Why draw the line at end-of-life care? Transplant surgery and cancer treatment for young people is outrageously expensive, too. So let 'em die and save money, right?

And now we have the slippery slope fallacy. Try harder.

edit: Not sure why I bother anymore, but I'll try to point out why your reasoning is absolutely insane. If person A gets sick but can't afford treatment, there are three options:
1. person A goes untreated and, for the sake of argument, dies a horrifying death due to spontaneous combustion
2. person A gets money from government to pay for treatment
3. person A gets money from a private source

If either 2 or 3 occurs, what happens the next time person A gets sick? The next time? The next time? What happens when a treatment will not save person A's life but will prolong it for X amount of time?

 

[CycloWizard]

What your saying is lets not bother trying because it cant happen. What I'm saying is lets try. Now if that means limiting the pay out for some of those procedures then thats the answer. I would prefer removing for profit from the equation as profit is waist when talking about living or dieing.

Can you make 3=5? No. So why would you expend time and effort to make 3=5? It's a waste of time. A contradiction cannot be true, yet you want me to try to make it true. You can't cut costs by increasing costs. As far as profit being a "waist [sic]," go ask a neurosurgeon if he would consider doing his job for $0 per year.

 

[JSt0rm]

Can you make 3=5? No. So why would you expend time and effort to make 3=5? It's a waste of time. A contradiction cannot be true, yet you want me to try to make it true. You can't cut costs by increasing costs. As far as profit being a "waist [sic]," go ask a neurosurgeon if he would consider doing his job for $0 per year.

im talking about eliminating positions that would not be needed under a single payer system. like all the bill collectors and insurance people.

 

[shira]

I have no duty to anyone else in this country - that's one of the great things about being a nation founded on rights rather than duties. The problems we are having today can all be attributed to people who feel that they can impose duties on other citizens. Your argument is simply an appeal to emotion in an effort to take my rights away and replace them with duties. No thanks. If you feel so guilty that so many people are dying because of a lack of healthcare in this country, please tell me how much money you donate to the multitude of private charities which help people in this predicament. I'll speculate that it's zero because otherwise you would realize that it's not my duty to pay for everyone else's healthcare, but it is your right to do it if you so choose.

The problems we are having today can all be attributed to people who feel that they can impose duties on other citizens.

Can the Gulf of Mexico oil spill be attributed "to people who feel that they can impose duties on other citizens?"

How about high unemployment? Global terrorism? Rampant obesity? AIDS? Child abuse by the Catholic clergy? Groundwater pollution? The Mexican drug cartels?

Did little Cyclo Psycho perhaps make a "sweeping generality."

And while we're on the subject of your vacuous reasoning, consider the second bolded "argument". You assert that if I give more than 0 to charity, I cannot help but "realize" that YOU have no "duty" to pay for others' health care.

Come again? What's the logical connection between how much I give to charity and my attitude about the duties of others? Ever heard of a non sequitur?

Given your penchant for confused thinking, your muddled brain believes it's qualified to label the methods of argumentation used by others?

But cutting through your usual BS - and despite your evasions - you've made clear that you believe that those without the means to pay for their own health care "have a duty" to die.

 

[Perknose]

American citizens of all ages die every single day because of decisions we have made and not made about how we fund our health care system.

Trying to pretend otherwise is stupid and a determined self blindness.

How is it not better to admit this unassailable fact and at least attempt to institute a better system?

 

[daishi5]

So you're saying that EVERYONE at ANY age who doesn't have the money to afford the treatment needed to save or extend their life has a duty to die?

Are you saying that any person with a life threatening condition has the right to force other people to take care of him without paying them?

 

[dmcowen674]

But how will we now deal with the aged?

There is this myth of the "golden years," a time without the cares of wage earning and labor, a reward for a lifetime of effort. The myth can only be supported by the use of very expensive medical care to hold off inevitable death. And as all life ends anyway, when does the cost outweigh the benefit?

Oh, I doubt we will mandate pulling the plug on anyone over 60, 70, 80, 90, anytime soon. We will likely just institutionalize the idea that once someone is too old to work and contribute it would be a good idea that they voluntarily go somewhere and die quietly.

Maybe we will celebrate them choosing to die with (inexpensive) memorials and testimonies to the braveness they show in their self-sacrifice to our own comfort and convenience.

Maybe we will disenfranchise them so that, should we need to make that kind of choice for them, we can do so with greater ease and efficiency.

Maybe, with universal health care, a faceless bureaucracy can make the choice to prohibit (for the greater societal good, of course) the most expensive life prolonging treatments to those who are in their "golden years" for us.

Our society is still making choices.

We have already chosen to abort the unwanted children that would make our lives inconveniently difficult.

How far away are we from choosing to remove the unbearable inconvenience of our expensive aged?

You and the rest of your Republican cabal will be old sooner than you know it and you will be singing a different tune.

Carousel is your wet dream not of us real Americans.

 

[Moonbeam]

he is trying to say liberals want to kill old people for profit.

As a liberal I think not only should we choose to let the old die we should be able to pick them and put them on an island to hunt.

He must be senile. Everybody knows liberals don't know anything about profit. We'd kill old people for free.