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

A New Evil: "Parsimonious Medicine" (Read Rationing)

Yesterday I linked to an NPR story about recommendations published by the American College of Physicians where the mask of pretense is starting to slip. They are openly advocating for futile care medicine and rationing care. So goes the slippery slope.

Author: Let The National Debate On ‘Parsimonious Medicine’ Begin

Uh oh. I just looked up the official definition of “parsimonious” and found, “characterized by or showing parsimony; frugal or stingy.” Receiving “frugal” medical care would be just fine with me.”Stingy,” not so much.

My dictionary-diving was prompted by the controversial new ethics guidelines just put out by the American College of Physicians, the country’s second-largest medical group. As NPR reported, the new guidelines include this language:

Parsimonious care that utilizes the most efficient means to effectively diagnose a condition and treat a patient respects the need to use resources wisely and to help ensure that resources are equitably available.” more

Canada: Should We Ration Healthcare?

This is a good discussion of Canada's dilemmas around rationing care at the end of life.

Can rationing possibly be rational?

Annie Farlow was just short of three months old when she died in an Ontario hospital of what her parents believe might have been a treatable respiratory condition. . . .

Canada’s aging population and the ongoing development of expensive therapies for life-threatening illnesses are further escalating pressures on the health care system, particularly intensive care units. Surveys estimate that Ontario, among other provinces, will need 80%–93% more intensive beds over the next 20 years, while about 87% of intensive care physicians indicated they had provided “futile” care at least once in the previous year. more

Scots Push-Back To Elder Care Rationing - Good!!

Yes, the bone-headed suggestion by a Scots surgeon yesterday that medical care for the elderly be rationed, is, indeed horrifying, as noted in this piece.

Proposal to rein in treatment for elderly ‘horrifying’

Proposals to rein in aggressive therapies and treatments for older people in the final stages of life have been compared to “euthanasia for the elderly” by one of Scotland’s foremost patient advocates.

Dr Jean Turner said she had been horrified by suggestions put forward in The Herald yesterday by Professor Phil Hanlon, a former adviser to the Scottish Executive, that the elderly should be prescribed far fewer drugs and given fewer tests and procedures as they enter physical decline. more

The Drumbeat For Medical Rationing Increases

Truth in transparency: The author of this piece, Arthur Caplan, once called me a “cockeyed optimist.” I took it as a compliment. He’s a highly respected ethicist, but here it sounds to me like he’s beating the drum for rationing care. Death panels, anyone?

Dialysis payment program is costly in too many ways

. . . Experts agreed that the End- Stage Renal Dialysis program might ultimately

serve 10,000 people with kidney failure and would cost Medicare about $135 million dollars. They expected many of those on dialysis would return to work — paying taxes that would help cover the costs involved.

The experts were wrong. . . .

The End-Stage Renal Dialysis program was an act of noble compassion. But ripping off the American people by allowing too many people to receive lousy or unnecessary care is not compassionate at all. It is cruel. more

UK: National Health Service Brutality II

Well, as we know, socialized medicine never rations care – uh huh. Read this piece, where a Scottish study found that for women, the older they were, the less likely they would be offered some treatments for breast cancer. That’s exactly what Obamacare will do here in the US, trust me.

patients receive 'lower level of treatment', claims charity

OLDER breast cancer patients are much less likely to receive surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy as part of their treatment, a charity claimed today.

Breakthrough Breast Cancer said it is "wrong" that not all women have equal access to such care.

The charity is calling on the Scottish Government to ensure older patients are treated on the basis of clinical need.

About 4000 women in Scotland are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, with the disease claiming more than 1000 lives annually.

However Breakthrough Breast Cancer said patients aged 80 or above are 40 times less likely to be treated with surgery than younger patients.

Older women with cancer are "significantly less likely" to get chemotherapy and radiotherapy. more

UK: National Health Service Brutality I

For those of you who think nationalized medicine is such a brilliant idea that we in the US should get it too, read this – a UK mom, terminally ill, is being refused an expensive drug because it’s not going to make her better. The fact that it may well give her enough survival time to see her son go to school is completely ignored by the NHS murderers.

Family 'just wants more time' with mother denied costly cancer drug

A devastated family today attacked doctors for refusing to give a mother life-prolonging drugs that could let her live to see her son start school. more

Just What We Need: Organ Donation Euthanasia

Just when you think the pro-deathers have outdone themselves with outlandish suggestions that eventually morph into policy, something more troubling appears. Oxford’s radical Julian Savulescu has been making pro-death pronouncements for years under the guise of academic “bioethical” scholarship.

However, Savulescu’s arguments (like Peter Singer’s) are rather rudimentary, completely utilitarian, and unashamedly macabre.

For several years now, under the radar, and lead by Savulescu, there as been a bioethical stream of thought kicking around novel ideas about how to separate patients from their organs before they are dead.

Generally, donor organs are only removed from patients once the patient has been declared dead evidenced by irreversible stoppage of the heart. This takes at least several minutes, and is a major problem because organs begin to deteriorate the moment the heart ceases pumping blood around the body.

So, what’s a good medical and bioethical profession to do?

Well, take the underground idea of taking the organs before the patient has been declared dead, clothe it in civic-minded do-good-you-owe-it-to-your-fellow-man hyperbole, and start to twist broader public opinion to accept medical killing as a good thing.

Start the propaganda by writing a scholarly paper in a reputable journal to present killing patients as a meaningful, profound, and absolutely appropriate thing to do.

Yes, folks, make us think that removing all donatable organs from living people is cool.

Except for the poor patient, of course, who dies because their organs have disappeared into a cooler for someone else.

I’m not making this up. Wish I were.

Unsurprisingly, Savulescu’s rationale is the same old same old:

The patient is going to die anyway.

We’ll put “safeguards” in place so the system is not abused.

Just think how many people can be helped if we do this.

Think how many people will not be helped if we don’t.

And, yes, of course, we’ll do our best to convince people on their deathbeds that this is for the larger good.

And oh, by the way, we’ll give you anesthetic before we kill you and take your organs. You won’t feel a thing.

A win-win all around, no?

Beyond frightening.

Hastings Center Spins Healthcare Rationing - Without Ever Mentioning Rationing

Here's the rationing spin from the Hastings Center (yes, the same place where President Obama got many of his new members for the President's Council on Bioethics). Note that the word rationing is never mentioned. Instead, it's a "new way of thinking" another needed "revolutionary movement" like feminism, environmentalism, and civil rights. Okkkaaaayyyy...... so we want a new way of thinking that restricts medical treatment. Spin, spin, spin. Keep a sharp eye out for it.

Healthcare Rationing - Ya Think?

Well yes, of course health care will be rationed – no way around it. Now it’s just a little more out in the open seeing that the healthcare “reform” has now enshrined entities that will make decisions abut what treatment you get, what treatment you don’t get. And you’d better like it.

End-Of-Life Patient Care Debate Tries To Balance Funding With Needs

Washington, DC, United States (AHN) - The healthcare debate on Wednesday, held at the National Press Club, on the cost and spending in the country on “end-of-life patient care” ended with a consensus that with finite level of resources there must be a pragmatic system in place to make sure all patients are given equal care. more