Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Your Family's Health Care: Who do you trust?

Situation:

Your sister is 62 years old. After having some speech problems she see a doctor. The doctor either a) immediately sends your sister to get an MRI or b) consults a government-appointed, bureaucratic "specialist" to determine if an MRI is warranted. (Or, if some other less expensive option would be better.)

Assuming that the MRI option is given, the doctor tells you, your sister, and your family the unfortunate news that she has a brain tumor called a Glioblastoma Multiforme. Because you have seen this before, you die a little inside. You know that there is virtually no chance that your sister will survive this diagnosis. You, being a caring individual, want your sister to live as long and as happily as she can.

The doctor can a) start an aggressive treatment of radiation and chemotherapy, with the help of steroids and pain medicine, that can give your sister the chance at two to four years of more life. This time, however long it is, can give your sister more time to see loved ones not long seen and to say goodbye to loved-ones. Or, b) the doctor could consult a government-appointed, bureaucratic "specialist" who could say that since the condition holds virtually no hope of survival that using expensive procedures/techniques/surgeries to prolong the inevitable would not be appropriate. In stead, steroids and pain pills are given to your sister. She then succumbs to the tumor in just a few weeks (the last part of which are spent with low mental functions that are so bad that she does not even recognize you).

Should this difficult decision be made by a) your sister and your family or b) by a number-crunching bureaucrat. If you are a freedom-loving, independent American you will probably have chosen a) in every situation. If, on the other hand, you choose b) then your would most likely rather have the tough decisions in life made by the government and "those that know better".

For effect, I wanted to leave it there: “those that know better”.
But, there is more to say, important stuff that must be said.

What if your sister had a disease that is relatively rare and has been found to be fatal in most cases. Your sister could a) with the direction of your doctor, seek a treatment center that specializes in the treatment of this, and similar other, rare diseases. The treatment could yield a breakthrough for your sister, it could offer more time, or it may not yield much success. In any case, however, the treatment facility will have gained valuable knowledge from the treatment of your sister that will help others down the road, posterity benefits. Or, b) the treatment is deemed too risky, not cost-effective, not immediately beneficial, and is denied by the government-appointed healthcare-Nazi. Bad for your sister but worse for American (Human) posterity. These treatment centers will not get the patients that they got before under the evil, Capitalist-Pig health care system. Slowly they will go away, not right away (at first), but surely they will disappear. No innovation or improvement, just stagnation and mediocrity.

Is it a) or b) folks.

No comments: