COVID anti-vaxxers should be denied COVID medical care

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cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
23,993
13,519
136
Yeah, seems as if, as ever, as with most things, the answer is a mixture of persuasion/social pressure and modest legal restrictions. "No admission to nighclubs if unvaccinated" I'm fine with. "No medical treatment" is going too far.
I was having this discussion some months ago and thought I had him cornered when I said, what about smokers, should they be denied care if(when) they develop complications on the lungs.. He pondered a few seconds and then: Yea.
Guess I am check mate right there.
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,636
8,522
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I don't think they should be denied care, but they should be a lower priority than others. A few months ago people died because they couldn't get into hospitals full of the unvaccinated. And the people that died didn't even have COVID, they need to get into a hospital for non COVID reasons. They should have kicked out a non vaxxed COVID patient and saved those other lives

By the time thngs get to that point it's hard to say there's a definitive 'right' answer. You're into 'lifeboat dilemmas' or a real-life trolley-problem then.

Do you push the MAGA guy off the bridge to stop the runaway trolley that will otherwise run over two anti-vaxxers?
 

MrSquished

Lifer
Jan 14, 2013
23,083
21,203
136
By the time thngs get to that point it's hard to say there's a definitive 'right' answer. You're into 'lifeboat dilemmas' or a real-life trolley-problem then.

Do you push the MAGA guy off the bridge to stop the runaway trolley that will otherwise run over two anti-vaxxers?

No it's just called triage. Like I said they should not deny care to anyone, but if you were unvaxxed just because and someone is going to die because of another health issue because the unvaxxed are taking up all the hospital beds and there is none for them, and this has happened, well it's time to triage one of them.
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,636
8,522
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No it's just called triage. Like I said they should not deny care to anyone, but if you were unvaxxed just because and someone is going to die because of another health issue because the unvaxxed are taking up all the hospital beds and there is none for them, and this has happened, well it's time to triage one of them.

Thing is though, it seems you are making a _moral_ judgement there, not a purely clinical one. Strictly, triage would be kicking out the patient who had the lowest chance of survival even with treatment, not the one you had morally decided was least deserving. I think that's a different issue, and far more justifiable.

Once you start making moral judgements I'm uncomfortable with where that leads. Contrary to Juiblex's cheap gibe above, I see healthcare as a basic human right, including for Trumpists. I admit that in extreme situations, it might be very hard not to make moral judgments (which, come to think of it, is partly what Shaw's "The doctor's Dilemma" was about)

Edit - reminds me of the controversy over George Best's liver transplant. There's a difference between denying someone a liver transplant because of a judgement that it would be wasted because they would carry on drinking heavily and destroy it again, or denying it because of a moral judgement that someone wasn't deserving of a new one (donor livers being a scarce resource, much as ICU beds are now) because it was their own 'fault' they'd wrecked their original one.
 
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MrSquished

Lifer
Jan 14, 2013
23,083
21,203
136
Thing is though, it seems you are making a _moral_ judgement there, not a purely clinical one. Strictly, triage would be kicking out the patient who had the lowest chance of survival even with treatment, not the one you had morally decided was least deserving. I think that's a different issue, and far more justifiable.

Once you start making moral judgements I'm uncomfortable with where that leads. Contrary to Juiblex's cheap gibe above, I see healthcare as a basic human right, including for Trumpists. I admit that in extreme situations, it might be very hard not to make moral judgments (which, come to think of it, is partly what Shaw's "The doctor's Dilemma" was about)

Edit - reminds me of the controversy over George Best's liver transplant. There's a difference between denying someone a liver transplant because of a judgement that it would be wasted because they would carry on drinking heavily and destroy it again, or denying it because of a moral judgement that someone wasn't deserving of a new one (donor livers being a scarce resource, much as ICU beds are now) because it was their own 'fault' they'd wrecked their original one.

Yes, of course I mean to kick out the sickest unvaxxed covid patient least likely to survive for someone who needs the bed now to live not because they made a political decision about saying fuck you to a vaccine.
 

cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
23,993
13,519
136
View attachment 53770

Just admit it, you only want things when it applies to you and your "side"?
And that is not the same person. Fox has taught you it is. It is not.

People fuck up. Opting out of the vaccine cause a cult brainwashed you… is on the list of fucked up. That being said, fucking up is our most defining characteristic as humans, if we were all judged by that noone would be worthy of anything.
Second most defining feature of man though is to recognize fuckup and try again. Adapt. And try again. And again….
 

weblooker2021

Senior member
Jan 18, 2021
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ACA banned per-existing condition. Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act basically bans hospital from denying treatment if it's an emergency. So basically law will need to be changed and that will never happen.
 

WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
31,443
9,343
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Well a small subset of the first group may be represented in the second. The dishonest part is claiming the two sets are identical.
The basic premise behind it doesn't make sense.
Vaccinations are health care.
People refusing vaccinations are choosing to refuse treatment.
Also who are these sides? Ones that want health care and those that want woo?
 
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kitkat22

Golden Member
Feb 10, 2005
1,464
1,331
136
No, they should not be denied care. If the Healthcare system is functioning and not overwhelmed they should not be denied care.

There is no easy way to have a person come into the ER, in extremis, and quickly identify their code status, vaccine status, or financial status to any degree without making mistakes. Yeah, there are systems in place for code status but most are clumsy.

The exception to this is when a Healthcare system is overwhelmed and we are rationing care. Healthcare has finite resources and we have seen numerous examples of this over the past couple years.

We can make people more financially responsible for their choices but placing a blanket statement on who or who should not recieve care should not happen. The responsibility would likely fall on a provider and I will not make that decision. Case closed. I would rather quit than make that decision.
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,636
8,522
136
Yes, of course I mean to kick out the sickest unvaxxed covid patient least likely to survive for someone who needs the bed now to live not because they made a political decision about saying fuck you to a vaccine.

So you are making a decision based on your moral judgement of the person in need? Not triage, then. Kind of like distinguishing between the deserving and undeserving poor? Again, I just am uneasy about where that leads.
 
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Sunburn74

Diamond Member
Oct 5, 2009
5,037
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Denied care? No.
Be financially covered? No

There should be a penalty for acquiring preventable diseases.
 

Sunburn74

Diamond Member
Oct 5, 2009
5,037
2,615
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Good luck changing ACA
Agreed. Probably won't happen, but we can wish. I guess a state can always pass a law that says you can blindly sue the unvaccinated , texas style and that'd be fine too.

It should be noted that hospitals get dinged 3% on their reimbursement for re-admissions because medicare considers most re-admissions "preventable". No reason we can't do this on the flip side for people coming in over and over again with completely preventable illnesses.

At the end of the day, we're only surviving because COVID's lethality is only about 1%. Given the response we've had so far, I shudder to think how we'd handle a more lethal virus as a society.
 
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weblooker2021

Senior member
Jan 18, 2021
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Agreed. Probably won't happen, but we can wish. I guess a state can always pass a law that says you can blindly sue the unvaccinated , texas style and that'd be fine too.

It should be noted that hospitals get dinged 3% on their reimbursement for re-admissions because medicare considers most re-admissions "preventable". No reason we can't do this on the flip side for people coming in over and over again with completely preventable illnesses.

At the end of the day, we're only surviving because COVID's lethality is only about 1%. Given the response we've had so far, I shudder to think how we'd handle a more lethal virus as a society.
Texas way of letting private citizen sue over law violation probably will not survive as SCOTUS do not want to open that can of warm. Regarding our responds to Covid, if Covid was 50% deadly like Ebola, you would see public react differently . It's the fact that death rate is only around 1% is the reason that public reacting the way they are. Unfortunately/fortunately(depends on one belief), covid is not deadly enough to change public way of acting.
 

Sunburn74

Diamond Member
Oct 5, 2009
5,037
2,615
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Texas way of letting private citizen sue over law violation probably will not survive as SCOTUS do not want to open that can of warm. Regarding our responds to Covid, if Covid was 50% deadly like Ebola, you would see public react differently . It's the fact that death rate is only around 1% is the reason that public reacting the way they are. Unfortunately/fortunately(depends on one belief), covid is not deadly enough to change public way of acting.
A 1% death rate is a remarkably high death rate. Talk less the numbers who are hospitalized and the cost to society. The public may not change it's way of acting but and I both know just how utterly stupid the average American is. This is not commentary on covid either. People are just plain stupid. They were stupid before covid and are still stupid.
 
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Sunburn74

Diamond Member
Oct 5, 2009
5,037
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Yup. If you smoke, you should pay a penalty for smoking related illnesses. A copay penalty would be fine. Similar to what hospitals face.

We just need to deincentivize it.
 
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