RE: Health measures in stimulus package

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RE: Health measures in stimulus package - 2/10/2009 6:18:54 PM

MmeGigs

Posts: 706
Joined: 1/26/2008
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quote:

ORIGINAL: thishereboi
Well in that case, I hope your one of the first to be told your too old for that procedure. Just accept that your old and going to die and let someone young use that money to get better. After all why should we waste money on someone who is going to die in the next couple years anyway.

Cagey is absolutely right. Healthcare dollars are finite, as are other health care resources like staff and facilities. There aren't enough resources to provide all of us with an excellent level of care, so what we have has to be rationed. Right now we're rationing based on ability to pay. The advantage to this is that we don't have to make the tough decisions about how to use our finite resources. With so many uninsured, those decisions make themselves and we don't even have to think about it.

There are an awful lot of disadvantages to this system, though. The uninsured are mostly working folks whose employers don't offer health insurance, can't afford it on their own and make too much to qualify for assistance. In 2003, estimates were that the uninsured cost our economy between $65 Billion and $130 Billion in lost productivity due to illnesses and premature death. It would have cost about $48 Billion to insure them. Uninsured people with colon or breast cancer are 50% more likely to die from their disease. Uninsured trauma victims are 37% more likely to die of their injuries. The Institute of Medicine estimates that 18,000 uninsured people die every year in the US because they lack preventive services, a timely diagnosis or appropriate care. Maybe if they'd all get together somewhere and die at once, folks would notice and see that this is a problem.

I'm figuring that we'll have some form of universal health care by the time I retire. When pretty much everyone is covered we'll have to come up with a different way to allocate our resources. I'm sure that no one is going to feel good about telling someone that due to the unlikelihood of a good long-term outcome we're going to have to limit the services we provide to them, even though without those services we're sure that their condition will worsen. I'm guessing that there are people who feel pretty crappy now about telling someone that due to their lack of insurance or wherewithal, we're going to have to limit the services we provide to them, even though without those services we're sure that their condition will worsen. I don't like either of these things, but I understand that it's not realistic to expect that everyone is going to have Cadillac care. We couldn't possibly afford it. It makes sense to concentrate our resources on the cases with the most likelihood of a good outcome. Age is a factor in this, like it or not.

Rationing on the basis of ability to pay is costing us a lot of money. How do you suggest we allocate our finite health care resources?

(in reply to thishereboi)