The problem with socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people’s bed space: The Liverpool Care Pathway.
h/t Adrian
The problem with socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people’s bed space: The Liverpool Care Pathway.
h/t Adrian
I am so happy that my mother died at home. The last week of her life was not great as her kidney/liver systems failed (due to a life long condition of the Irish Drinking Gene). She died with family around, in her best outfit, freshly showered the night before and in her own bed. She was 85 years old.
I think that once the financial realities start to bite – “public healthcare” will degenerate into a plan where they give you pain killers until you die.
This same thing happened to my wife in the Regina General hospital in Saskatchewan,home of socialized medicine in Canada.
I don’t get the point.
Is it the problem that the UK government is withdrawing pointless end of life care?
Why?
healthcare is not free and if the government is paying for it why should it waste money on treatments that cannot possibly lead to recovery?
is there some law in the UK that prevents family members from choosing to pay for these pointless treatments out of their own pockets if they think it is important? If not why is the health care pathway an issue worth discussing?
Hey TimG. Why bother with any care at all? Folks will die anyway, right? Might take as long as 90 plus years, or even more, but they will all die eventually, so why not simply close all those expensive hospitals? It would save billions!
TrueNorthist,
The op was talking about wasting other people’s money yet the linked article was about the UK system trying to spend its money efficiently.
The contradiction does not compute. If you are against the use of public money you should be for any measure that reduces the cost of the existing system.
If you have a problem with useless end of life treatments being withdrawn then you should not be complaining about the cost of the public system.
TimG said: “Is it the problem that the UK government is withdrawing pointless end of life care?”
The question is: who decides when it’s pointless?
If third party pays, then third party feels it has the right to make that decision.
If it is private, then the person or the family can make those decisions at the point when they feel it is “pointless”.
As for me? I’ll take the care and decisions of my loving family any day compared to some nameless and faceless health care worker/civil servant. And if I had the choice (which non of us do in this socialistic country), I would choose to pay my own way with private health care.
Gruesome. As bad as being harvested for your organs before your time is up.
Once again, the end game of liberalism is law of the jungle. The strong survive and thrive; the weak are destroyed.
If the assertions in the article are true, then the situation is disgraceful, even criminal. Starvation and dehydration are the antithesis of palliation.
Frank Q, well said.
First it was unfettered abortion, now euthanasia, and soon soylent green.
Hitler was just a little ahead of the curve. His methods of getting rid of all sorts of expensive undesirables was cheap.
Socialized medicine is just plain evil.
Frank Q,
There is nothing stopping families in the UK from spending their own money to prolong life if they disagree with the system’s decision. So I see no issue with the system drawing a line and refusing to spend money if the system believes there is no ROI. In fact if we have a publically funded system it SHOULD be setting limits on what it pays for.
Which brings me back to mu confusion over this op. The link describes a public system acting responsibly with public money so what is the issue?
Furthermore, it would seem that there would be no lack of applicants for Dr. Mengele’s vacant post.
fiddle,
anyone who is in the situation where these end of life decisions needs to be made has likely already drawn services in the system that far exceed their contribution to the tax pool. so they cannot reasonably argue that they have already “paid” for such a service.
Ultimately, it is personal choice not governmental choice that I want for my family and myself.
Of course, I was referring to the country of Canada, which has a health system like North Korea and Cuba. TimG, you are correct in this much; in the UK you, at least, have the right to opt out of the public system but not here in Canada. But you are still missing the point of “personal choice” here in Canada. You are looking at life, strictly from an economic reference. As if to say, it is “responsible” use of public funds. If so, it is the first time there will have been responsible use of our money in this system.
If you think this is not happening already in some form or another in our system, I can assure you it is not.
In my last days, I hope that Dr. Ken (Kulak) or Dr. fiddle are looking after me and not Dr. TimG.
TimG I see where your coming from, but you may have missed the point where it doesn’t seem those in the article that share your interest in saving money have the ba–s to come out and say so.
I’m sure many people thinking governments act in their best interests would see the light if they knew the truth and make sure their aging loved ones where taken care of in places that valued their existence and what they have contributed to their families their community and their society.
If they are truly bumping off the elderly to save a buck, and doing so covertly doesn’t that raise one moral suspicion in your open mind at all?
Furthermore how much is spent on methadone clinics, and other social remedies requiring public money to make society more fair.
If someone old is near the end they deserve the respect and public dollars to meet it on their own time.
Anyone trusting government to administer when your due to leave this world is a complete and utter idiot period, and even worse is willing to give up everything they have or at the very least watch someone else give up theirs which is probably more likely.
Lord give me a cane and the gumption to use it when the time comes.
Frank Q and Mugs, well said.
“anyone who is in the situation where these end of life decisions needs to be made has likely already drawn services in the system that far exceed their contribution to the tax pool.” Taken right out of the Stalinist handbook.
Just so we have this straight, according to some, when a person is of no economic use any longer, they are thrown out like so much offal.
That is typical Marxist thinking, a human is just a cog in the socialist machine.
This is getting too close to putting our elders on an ice-flow or Logan’s Run for my comfort.
It is not the harsh reality of triage on a battlefield.
Same thing has been done in the US since 2005, when Judge George Greer ordered her to be murdered so her “husband” Michael could use the money he collected to treat her from the civil trial to buy stuff for the slut he was shacking up with.
Of course, the fact that Michael was part of the “Law Enforcement” family had NOTHING to do with the judge’s decision…
Frank Q and Mugs
I think it is fair to say that the prospect of a libertarian mindset sweeping the nation is next to zero which means we will always have some sort of government funded healthcare.
Given that context I think arbitrary limits on what the system will pay for are an essential mechanism for cost control. Right now these limits tend to be in the form of waiting lists for non-emergency surgeries largely because that is the area which the public will tolerate.
I would much rather change the discussion and get people used to the idea that the system can’t be all things to all people and if someone disagrees with the choices made by the system then someone needs to pay themselves.
The Nazi/Stalin rhetoric in response to spending limits imposed by other health systems is not helpful – in fact – such rhetoric plays into the hands of the people that want to expand the system even more.
For that reason, I think it makes sense for people who want the system to be reduced in scope to support initiatives like the UK one *provided* the system is also changed to allow individuals to override the system decisions with their own money.
FrankQ.
“in the UK you, at least, have the right to opt out of the public system”
Really, perhaps I can quantify that statement, in the UK you can buy private care, you can not opt out of the government system, and further to that you can not access the private system without being referred by your doctor, who is part of the government system, you can not access therefore the private system without going through the public one.
That Sir is a very strange “opt out” and I would suggest somewhat disingenuous!
With reference to some of the other comments I took from Kates headline and the article the fact that ultimately any government initiative invariably becomes a socialist driven agenda and is bound to end in tears, it might have been “well meaning ” to start with, it always is, but it has never ended that way, and it never will, and the good lord knows human kind, it does keep trying.
DSV, “well meaning”, you took the words right out of the mouth of Hayek, and he said that over 50 years ago, and, furthermore, he was right. Dr. Mengele, his fellow Nazi doctors and the Stalinist camp administration also were well meaning.
Bureaucrats deciding things never ends well, at least not for freedom.
Maybe other countries in Europe “allow individuals to override the system decisions with their own money”.
DSV & Ken(Kulak):
Agree about the initial well meaning reasons of the leftist socialist.
Ultimately though, we still can’t “override” our Canadian ironclad monopoly on healthcare. As I said before, it is true that there are only 3 countries in the world that have a system that makes it ILLEGAL to pay for medical care.
The countries are: Canada, Cuba and North Korea.
I do appreciate the clarification on the misuse of the term “opt out” as it pertains to the UK.
People have been warned about this for years. Let us call it what it is- killing. We are killing under the premise of “letting people go” and then justifying it financially. Who is the more compassionate now?
Liverpool Care Pathway, coming soon to an Ontario hospital near you.
And people were wondering why Dolton quit the other day. He quit to avoid being burnt at the stake by outraged Torontonian SUCKERS when they woke up one morning and realized the “free” healthcare had vanished.
Tim G. has the winning, brilliant Leftist comment of the thread of course: “Is it the problem that the UK government is withdrawing pointless end of life care?”
Awesome Timmy baby. Its “pointless” until its -your- mum, dad, Aunt Emmy or whoever under the gun. Then maybe its “life saving”.
And let us not forget, those old people receiving all that “pointless” care have ALREADY PAID FOR IT. They -already- paid for it, by paying their exorbitant taxes for their entire lives.
Socialized medicine is a CURSE on our society and always has been. Now we have reached the inevitable and prophesied end game in which the structure is so utterly broken it can’t actually provide the required care anymore. We’ve all known this was coming, we’ve told you ad nauseam since the 1970’s that it was coming, and now it is here. Just like we said.
So TimG, F- YOU, and F- every other Liberal who stuck us in the position of letting bureaucrats decide which old lady will die, and which will not.
Liverpool Care Pathway is not an option, its an atrocity. The people pushing it should be removed from their posts and jailed.
The trouble with Facists is you run out of support.
The Liverpool Killing Pathway is a timely reminder of the bloody red hand of socialism.
Few people perceive the darkness of the statement “cradle to grave government” because they have been led to believe and that Western socialist democratic govts will act benevolently and in the best interest of the public, which they, in turn, erroneously presume to mean the best interest of them as individuals.
It is a massive ruse that, tragically, keeps repeating itself again and again through history. Few people realize what they have imbibed until it is too late and state officials have the authority to end the lives of those deemed unwanted and/or not worth keeping alive.
The dark truth of “cradle to grave” socialized health care is this: When people allow govt to control their health care then they also implicitly allow govt to control their death care.
I agree with Phantom that the LKP is atrocious, but it is a logical extension of one of the core virtues of socialized health care, which is that it is better that all equally endure lower quality, rationed care, rather than some receive higher quality, more expedient care. Or, as Churchill famously put it, “The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” What greater misery and indignity is there for the individual or his family than being killed before his time by starvation and dehydration under sedation?
TimG’s comments make perfect sense when viewed through the Churchillian lens.
You could add to this:
The problem with socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people’s bed space. Thats when you start to hide the bodies.
TimG and his ilk should be happy that people like myself are not making the decisions. I would listen to his preferences and apply them to him and his. I would give him HIS wishes good and hard. Then there would be more resources for the rest of us.
I’ve ruffled a few feathers of those physicians who believe letting people die of dehydration when I asked them why they don’t just shoot those patients in the ER instead of admitting them to hospital? If one is into saving money, this would be a far better policy.
From a medical perspective, we deal with huge numbers of elderly people in which treatment is futile. To get the family on board takes a very large amount of time, especially if the family has unreasonable expectations. If Canada had private care, then this wouldn’t be a problem as then the deathly ill family members could be transferred to a private hospital and the family could then decide how much the life of their relative is worth to them.
One of the things that I’ve noticed is that a DNR order on a patients chart often results in decreased quality of care. I’ve had nurses not inform me about lab results which they would have immediately phoned me about should that patient have been a full code. Fortunately this doesn’t happen that often, but again it takes time in talking to the patients nurse and explaining what the medical situation is.
Working in a hospital where the new norm seems to be 120% of capacity and the acuity of patients is significantly greater, it’s very tempting to be able to move patients along the palliative pathway a little faster. The worst patients are the totally demented elderly in whom every other organ system works just fine. When they stop eating and drinking they die without intervention. My approach, in the case of a family who wants “everything” done, has been to give them a few days with a feeding tube and iv fluids. Invariably this means restraining their hands as, even though they are unable to feed themselves, they are quite capable of pulling out a nasogastric feeding tube, often multiple times/day. Generally at this point the family decides that it would be better to let nature take its course rather than having grandma thrashing around in restraints.
I’m less disgusted now with the system of letting people die of dehydration as it appears that many people, when they get older, seem to lose their sense of thirst. I’ve lost track of the number of patients I’ve seen who come into hospital obtunded and, 2 liters of iv saline later, suddenly are wide awake and their families are overjoyed. Once the iv is removed, then they slowly sink back into their near comatose state. Once this cycle has been repeated a few times, the family is disinclined to intervene the next time they get dehydrated at the nursing home.
The most dissatisfied families are those who come into hospital to see a just admitted elderly relative and are told nothing is going to be done because they are terminal. This is usually at the hands of physicians who are strong believers in the concept that death is a natural process. Considering that I went into medicine to figure out how to prolong life to a few centuries at the minimum, my initial approach is to fix all of the obvious pathology and, if there’s no meaningful brain function present in the patient, then discuss with the family transitioning the patient to a palliative pathway. For some reason this approach is accepted far better by people as trying to do something which might ultimately be unsuccessful is better than doing nothing at all.
“Socialized medicine is a CURSE on our society and always has been.” So very true. It never was about the masses.
Phantom, Mark and Loki, well said and thank you for truth.
Wow, suggest that we reinstate the death penalty and you get the auto response that we have made mistakes in past so better we incarcerate human waste indefinitely rather than take the risk of terminating the wrong person.
But to suggest that the govenment should never be allowed to euthanize the terminally ill, and the critics claim it’s an issue of saving tax dollars.
Socialists, the so called “compassionate” ones.
At least now I can use that point when the compassionate ones demand the govenment fund harm reduction strategies.
Wow, suggest that we reinstate the death penalty and you get the auto response that we have made mistakes in past so better we incarcerate human waste indefinitely rather than take the risk of terminating the wrong person.
But to suggest that the govenment should never be allowed to euthanize the terminally ill, and the critics claim it’s an issue of saving tax dollars.
Socialists, the so called “compassionate” ones.
At least now I can use that point when the compassionate ones demand the govenment fund harm reduction strategies.
The contradictory nonsense on this thread is jaw dropping. There are really two extremes:
1) No public system meaning some people (maybe many people) cannot afford care so the would have no choice but to euthanize.
2) A public system where everyone is given whatever care they want for as long as they want no matter how futile the treatment. People would not be euthanized but *a lot* of tax dollars would have to be appropriated to pay for the system.
If you have a problem with the taxes then you have absolute NO business complaining about euthanasia. Because you either cut the funding to the system which means poor people will have no choice but to euthanize or the system is going to limit costs by practicing euthanasia.
What I think we need to have is a rational discussion about how to manage the cost of healthcare and that discussion will have to include a discussion of when to use euthanasia. Immature rants like those in this thread are part of the reason why health care costs are spiraling out of control.
TimG, as is usual for well-meaning liberals you refuse to contemplate the economics of the situation. In the current system, for every dollar spent on patient care probably twenty dollars are spent on running the socialized medical system. That’s because for every physician and nurse and PT/OT/Tech or whatever, there are ten other government and/or hospital employees sending each other memos.
It is, I repeat, a curse on our civilization which results from the adamant refusal of people like you to live in the real world.
Don’t get sick or you’ll see first hand what I’m talking about. It will suck.
The Phantom,
You completely ignored my points. The US has a private system and many people ARE forced to euthanize their relatives because the hit the limits on their insurance.
And your claims that health care could be delivered more efficiently by a private only system are not supported by any real world data.
In my previous comments I was referring to a system of multiple private insurance company vs. single public payer. I don’t think there is any evidence that the former is more efficient than the latter.
The actually delivery of health care is best done by private enterprises.
TimG, “The actually delivery of health care is best done by private enterprises.” You are confusing us.
So which is it, public,private, or a combination, that you are making a case for?
Our public only is heading for disaster and the original topic of this thread is where we are headed if we continue on this course.
Most of my extended family had Soviet health care for seven decades and it was only health care for those that were more equal than others. The rest got pathetic or minimal health care. Much like Cuba and North Korea.
Many reports show most of Europe has a fraction of the wait times we do. I do not remember what end of life practices are, but the Netherlands also had a scandal a year or so ago where some doctors, like in the thread header, bypassed the family and just pulled the plugs.
There must be a system whereby the family through a partially private system can make the decisions about their loved one. Otherwise we have a shiny surfaced non-caring Soviet system.
Ken (Kulak),
I am making the case for a public insurer which a strictly defined scope that does not pretend to be all things to all people. The gaps would have to be made up with private money and private insurance (something that cannot be done in Canada today).
Healthcare delivery would always be done by private enterprise.
Restricting the scope (and cost) of the public system means that everyone must accept that euthanasia because of cost considerations is going to happen and the only discussion we need to have is on the criteria for making those decisions within the public system (with the understanding that the private system could pick up the slack).
My issue are the people who seem to want to reduce or eliminate the public system but also object to cost control measures like euthanasia. You cannot have one without the other.
TimG said: “You completely ignored my points.”
Yes. Because they are nonsense. Your entire proposal is to replace the restriction of care for those who can’t pay with the restriction of care for old geezers regardless of how much money they have.
Common element, RESTRICTION.
Unacceptable.
Then TimG said: “The US has a private system and many people ARE forced to euthanize their relatives because the hit the limits on their insurance.”
This is a damnable lie. Several lies in fact. I defy you to back that up with names and dates.
Finally TiimyGbaby said: “And your claims that health care could be delivered more efficiently by a private only system are not supported by any real world data.”
Please compare the delivery of physical therapy services in Ontario under OHIP and by private therapists. If you can.
fiddle
“Or veterinary services. Some of the very same services quicker and much cheaper.”
A very odd choice since euthanasia is a widely accept means to keep veterinary costs low. Are you sure you want to use that as an example?
The Phantom
“This is a damnable lie. Several lies in fact. I defy you to back that up with names and dates.”
I suggest you look at the effect of lifetime limits on US health insurance plans: http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2012pres/03/20120305a.html
Are you seriously arguing that such limits did not have the effect of denying care to some people and effectly euthenizing them?
You do realize that if it is did not occur it is ONLY because the US public insurance system picked up the slack – the system which you despise and think should be eliminated?
As I said: left to their own devices private insurance companies would deny coverage to limit the costs of their policies. That means euthanasia by starvation becomes a defacto consequence of private insurance.
If you don’t like this you must support a public system with infinite funding because that is the only way to ensure that the public system is not also need to use euthanasia as a way to limit costs.
Basically: if you care about the money being spent on health care you cannot rationally refuse to discuss euthanasia as a cost control measure.
‘Just so we have this straight, according to some, when a person is of no economic use any longer, they are thrown out like so much offal.
That is typical Marxist thinking, a human is just a cog in the socialist machine.’
Posted by: Ken (Kulak) at October 20, 2012 2:48 PM
Well said Ken (Kulak). Excellent comments Phantom, Mugs, Loki.
TimG I wonder if you will have the same belief in ‘winnowing out’ when your day to be ‘winnowed out’ arrives? (You were aware that you were paraphrasing Magaret Mitchel in ‘Gone With the Wind’, I trust)?
Tax paying citizens in Canada bought a pig in a poke when they allowed themselves to ‘sign up’ for Tommy Douglas’s Marxist scam. We now pay thousands of ‘administrators’ (paper shufflers) to ‘monitor and administer’ the ‘system’ as well as paying for the staff in the hospitals. Most ‘admin’ types never set foot in a hospital unless they go there for treatment or to visit. The ‘admin’ legions of public parasites serve no purpose whatsoever, yet more are hired every day. All admin jobs could and should be eliminated. A hospital should be run by the people who work in the hospital; hospitals should all be private. People who have paid into the system should be given a lump sum to put in the bank for future health emergencies. Newbies and young people would then have to make their own arrangements with insurance companies.
Clinics and hospitals are not the place to go with hang nails and minor cuts, scratches etc. – they are used for that purpose because care is ‘free’ (why buy your own band-ages??). As others have stated above, we, the sane, have known that this ‘getting rid of old/disabled people has been coming down the pipe for many years. We are now forced to face reality and look for solutions. Solutions are outside any kind of socialized care so those of us who were forced to invest in this failed experiment must be paid out so that we can afford a hospital if we need it; no insurance co. will sell a fifty plus aged person health insurance! If this country does not go back to private hospitals, we will have no safe places to go when we need a Dr. and hospital care. We will just die if we get sick.
fiddle,
I made it very clear that there should be a choice. If people to pay for futile end of life care they should be allowed to.
Why do posters here refuse to read an entire argument and instead jump individual phrases with critiques that make no sense if one looks the the entire argument?
Jema54,
more people who don’t read the argument.
A privately run insurance system means euthanasia for cost control is standard place because of limits and exclusions placed in policies. such pragmatic cost benefit decisions are capitalism at it purist so I don’t understand this obsession with Marx.
Why is it so difficult for people here to admit the obvious: if you want a system that controls costs then some treatments MUST be excluded and that means that people will die because they were denied treatment.
fiddle,
Buying medical care is no different than buying groceries
In that case you must also believe that euthanasia is perfectly acceptable as long as rich people can choose to avoid it. For poor people – well when they are no longer useful and they can be snuffed out without any qualms.
TimG – people belong to themselves, not the ‘system’.