New York Times Column: Why We Must Ration Health Care

Proof • July 16, 2009

Peter Singer has an interesting column in the New York Times in which he attempts to make a case for government rationing of health care. To make his point, he poses the following scenario:

You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?
If you can afford it, you probably would pay that much, or more, to live longer, even if your quality of life wasn’t going to be good. But suppose it’s not you with the cancer but a stranger covered by your health-insurance fund. If the insurer provides this man — and everyone else like him — with Sutent, your premiums will increase. Do you still think the drug is a good value? Suppose the treatment cost a million dollars. Would it be worth it then? Ten million? Is there any limit to how much you would want your insurer to pay for a drug that adds six months to someone’s life? If there is any point at which you say, “No, an extra six months isn’t worth that much,” then you think that health care should be rationed.

His point is that you cannot provide an unlimited supply of medical care. It’s impossible. Nobody can do it. Not the government. Not the private health insurance industry. Even the wealthiest citizens of earth only a finite amount of resources they can spend on their own health care or the health care of their loved ones.
And, in that narrow sense, I agree with Mr. Singer. Health care has to be rationed. The question is how should it be rationed. Singer, like other proponents of government health care, thinks that such rationing should be the function of government. We should have bureaucrats telling us when, where and how much medical care we can receive.
Personally, I’d rather have the market do such rationing. Because while market rationing still isn’t perfect – there are always going to be people who don’t have enough money to get the health care they need – I’d rather know that I can always buy as much health care as I want even if I sometimes can’t afford all I need than be locked into a system where someone who doesn’t even know me and may have other interests than my health in mind making decisions about my care.
The idea we need to bury is this utopian dream of everyone being able to waltz into a hospital and get all the health care they could possibly want. Because that’s never going to happen.
What we should seek is the empowerment of individuals to pay for their own health care. Not more third-party health care nonsense that only results in our health care being rationed by someone else.

Tags: Asshats, Domestic Issues, Politics

http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

When Peter Singer is the one defending the rationing of health care, hold on to your wallets and your pacemakers!

Singer once wrote, “because people are human does not mean that their lives are more valuable than animals.“15 He not only advocates abortion but also killing disabled babies up to 28 days after they are born. In his book Practical Ethics, he wrote, “When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed…. Killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Often, it is not wrong at all.“

“killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living.” -Peter Singer

If this guy is a point man for Obamacare, then the barbarians are truly within the gates!
Bat One

Mr. Singer’s argument is elegant. And specious.

In essence he is saying that because not everyone can get everything they want, the government ought to be empowered to decide who gets what instead. We are thus saved from the bewildering task of taking personal responsibility for ourselves and those we care for. Instead of allocating resources now for healthcare we may not need for years to come, we can abdicate that responsibility to the government, and buy that new flat screen TV, and a handful of lottery tickets instead

But nationalizing the healtcare system, or even just providing a so-called government option, doesn’t fix anything. It merely compounds the problem, and at a substantially higher overall cost.

What we should be looking at instead of government boondoggles and another under-funded federal mandate, is market based solutions. Want better healthcare? How about more doctors and more nurses, for starters? That means more medical students, more qualified immigrant doctors and nurses from abroad, and a concerted effort to keep the ones already practicing by limiting malpractice lawsuits and awards, thus reducing the cost of providing healthcare services in poor rural or urban areas.

Successful Med students could be given substantial tax incentives for completing their schooling, internship, and residency requirements. Same for nurses and physicians’ assistants.

Health insurance should be universally available, across state lines. So too should health savings accounts., the healthcare equivalent of IRAs. The more decisions that are placed in the hands of the individuals instead of institutions such as government or insurance companies and HMOs, the more knowledgeable and selective people can be.
budsmoke

Healthcare costs could also be reduced if patients started rationing care themselves. If you have a minor injury or illness, do you really need to see a professional? How much does it cost for a doctor to clean a cut and put on a band-aid? How much does it cost for a doctor to say “Yup, you have a cold. Stay home and get some rest.”?
2Hotel9

Yes, we should ration healthcare. All persons who have in the past, ever, or are currently, or in the indefinite future do, hold elected office should pay for healthcare at a rate of 100X the cost any real person would pay. Plus, each dollar they spend on healthcare should be taxed at a rate of 100%. Add that to the 100% windfall tax on every penny they receive as “salary” as an elected official and we can, through illness, starvation and disease, wipe these enemies of the human race off the face of the planet.

That is an excellent plan from Herr Doktor Singer. And since he supports forced abortion all the way through to the point of birth, and beyond, we can ship him over to the nearest Planned Parenthood abattoir and they can do a retro-active late term abortion, thus removing another enemy of the human race from our planet.

It is a win/win. I say we implement Herr Doktor Singer’s plan immediately.
drew conk

Singer, like other proponents of government health care, thinks that such rationing should be the function of government. We should have bureaucrats telling us when, where and how much medical care we can receive.

Personally, I’d rather have the market do such rationing. Because while market rationing still isn’t perfect – there are always going to be people who don’t have enough money to get the health care they need – I’d rather know that I can always buy as much health care as I want even if I sometimes can’t afford all I need than be locked into a system where someone who doesn’t even know me and may have other interests than my health in mind making decisions about my care.

I wish I had your private insurance representative. Mine seem to definitely have “other interests than my health in mind making decisions about my care.” Who’s your provider?
Brent

Why is rationing needed at all, even by the market?

Let me give it a shot.

Because medical care is an economic good = it is scarce. There are only so many doctors, so many nurses, so many hospitals, so many drug researchers, so many factories producing drugs, so many respiration machines, so many MRI machines, etc. Not all of the things that people want to do with these things, including non-medical care uses for the labor and capital goods, are possible. It’s technically impossible, given physical resource limitations (including labor) and people’s insatiable wants.
2Hotel9

Brent, the government is the last group you want in charge of anything, especially healthcare. It will rapidly degenerate into a system with which to punish people who refuse to vote for the government sponsored(Democrats) candidates and anyone who speaks out against anything the government(Democrats) do.
http://www.super-science-fair-projects.com/ Health Science Fair Projects

If you are looking for ideas for your science fair projects then consider examining how easy access to health care could impact the mortality rate of a country.
http://suitepotato.blogspot.com/ sayanything-4808

Why is rationing needed at all, even by the market? Why are we not about end running this situation and putting more emphasis on reform of the legal sector with regard to liability and malpractice, reform of the political sector with regard to intrusion, reform of the medical sector with regard to encouraging more people to become doctors and reform of the scientific sector with regard to producing more technologically advanced basic knowledge and practices such as molecular engineering and sensor techniques to name but two of hundreds?

Why are we taking a glass only maybe half full maybe half empty approach instead of let’s get a bigger glass and overfill it approach?

It reminds me of the drive for solar power and electric vehicles. Had we only kept up the technological imperative on the race for space we’d now have much greater advances than we do and we display why we didn’t ever day: we have consigned ourselves to arguing over where to stand on which deck as the Titanic sinks, and not to bother lowering the lifeboats and getting to another ship.

If we could keep government out of things that only empower politicians at our nearly explicit detriment then we might have a chance. As it is, we’re merely arguing over how deep the knife is going between our ribs.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

Healthcare costs could also be reduced if patients started rationing care themselves. If you have a minor injury or illness, do you really need to see a professional?

that’s a good point, but it isn’t going to happen until there’s a price incentive.

SayAnythingBlog.com

New York Times Column: Why We Must Ration Health Care

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