Language To Control The Pro-Death Debate

The pro-deathers are ceaselessly creative – here’s the latest: the “ethics of waste avoidance.” Not hard to figure out what they mean.

From an Ethics of Rationing to an Ethics of Waste Avoidance

Bioethics has long approached cost containment under the heading of “allocation of scarce resources.” Having thus named the nail, bioethics has whacked away at it with the theoretical hammer of distributive justice. But in the United States, ethical debate is now shifting from rationing to the avoidance of waste. This little-noticed shift has important policy implications.

Whereas the “R word” is a proverbial third rail in politics, ethicists rush in where politicians fear to tread. The ethics of rationing begins with two considerations. First, rationing occurs simply because resources are finite and someone must decide who gets what. Second, rationing is therefore inevitable; if we avoid explicit rationing, we will resort to implicit and perhaps unfair rationing methods. more

UK Doctor Asks The Big Euthanasia Question

Here’s a Brit medico who is calling the elephant in the room: That legalized killing will be used as a cost-saving “treatment.”

Assisted suicide is cheaper than caring, warns doctor
An experienced doctor who works with terminal patients has asked whether assisted suicide is just a cost-saving exercise. more

Becoming Mainstream: Cost Containment As A Medical treatment

Well, well, well. Now the medicos in the US are openly calling for cost containment as a way of treating patients. What’s next? A special medical protocol stipulating that cost of treatment be part of every patient’s treatment plan? Don;t be surprised that this will come sooner rather than later.

Should Doctors Be 'Parsimonious' About Health Care?

A major medical group issued ethical guidelines on Monday that take the provocative position of urging doctors to consider cost-effectiveness when deciding how to treat their patients.

The American College of Physicians, the second-largest U.S. doctors' group after the American Medical Association, included the recommendation in the latest version of its ethics manual, which provides guidance for some 132,000 internists nationwide.

"The cost of health care in the United States is twice that of any other industrialized countries and we are not providing care to as many people as they do in other places, and we don't even have as good outcomes," said Dr. Virginia Hood, president of the group. "So given that, we really have to look at ways of doing things better." more

More Palliative Care Needed

Here's a good piece on palliative care and the dilemma on how to pay for it.

DESPITE SUPPORT FOR PALLIATIVE CARE, DOCTORS AND PATIENTS AT ODDS OVER EMPHASIS ON COST

79% of physicians believe too much money is spent saving lives, a view held by only 37% of the general population, according to a Regence/National Journal poll  published November 15th. more

Obamacare Starts To Take It's Deathly Bite - Duh!!

Well when some of us warned a long time ago that Obamacare would mean businesses unloading their health insurance and forcing their employees into Obamacare, we were laughed at (to put it mildly). Guess what? We were right. It’s simply market forces at work – if firms pay for expensive healthcare, and all of a sudden they can save money by terminating it because a government option is available, why wouldn’t they?

Firms cancel health coverage

The relentlessly rising cost of health insurance is prompting some small Massachusetts companies to drop coverage for their workers and encourage them to sign up for state-subsidized care instead, a trend that, some analysts say, could eventually weigh heavily on the state’s already-stressed budget.

Since April 1, the date many insurance contracts are renewed for small businesses, the owners of about 90 small companies terminated their insurance plans with Braintree-based broker Jeff Rich and indicated in a follow-up survey that they were relying on publicly-funded insurance for their employees. more