Comments on: The Truth: At some point, we will have to pull the plug on grandma. http://moniquestuart.com/2009/08/14/the-truth-at-some-point-we-will-have-to-pull-the-plug-on-grandma/ Politics Just Got A Lot Dirtier Sat, 04 Sep 2010 01:00:03 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 hourly 1 By: Wellescent Health Blog http://moniquestuart.com/2009/08/14/the-truth-at-some-point-we-will-have-to-pull-the-plug-on-grandma/comment-page-1/#comment-11485 Wellescent Health Blog Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:46:04 +0000 http://moniquestuart.com/?p=1717#comment-11485 Though you indicate that death panels and the like are extreme, the scare of rationing that you mention is also towards the far end of the spectrum. While any real system must introduce rationing or have uncontrollable costs, the selection of who does and does not receive treatment is not nearly as simplistic as your make it out to be. It is also not nearly as restricting as you suggest. In many European countries and in Canada, extremely ill seniors are frequently kept alive at the request of their families despite their own requests to be taken off of life support. In other words, no politician is sitting at the ventilator switch ready to flip it off at a moments notice just to save a few bucks. In the US, 17% of GDP is spent on health care as compared to approximately 10% in other OECD countries without any real difference in the quality of treatment. The real difference among countries is that people in the US are at the mercy of insurance providers and complex insurance policies that they may not fully understand. Having your access to healthcare bound up in a legal contract that most people won't have the capacity to fully grasp is far more damaging than the supposed loss of freedoms or rationing that a public system could theoretically introduce. Though you indicate that death panels and the like are extreme, the scare of rationing that you mention is also towards the far end of the spectrum. While any real system must introduce rationing or have uncontrollable costs, the selection of who does and does not receive treatment is not nearly as simplistic as your make it out to be. It is also not nearly as restricting as you suggest. In many European countries and in Canada, extremely ill seniors are frequently kept alive at the request of their families despite their own requests to be taken off of life support. In other words, no politician is sitting at the ventilator switch ready to flip it off at a moments notice just to save a few bucks.

In the US, 17% of GDP is spent on health care as compared to approximately 10% in other OECD countries without any real difference in the quality of treatment. The real difference among countries is that people in the US are at the mercy of insurance providers and complex insurance policies that they may not fully understand. Having your access to healthcare bound up in a legal contract that most people won’t have the capacity to fully grasp is far more damaging than the supposed loss of freedoms or rationing that a public system could theoretically introduce.

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