Shooter: In case you weren’t aware, there is considerable evidence to indicate that the degree of Terri Schiavo’s disabilities were exaggerated by Michael. There is controversy surrounding both the autopsy (which confirmed less than hoped for, and excluded impartial observers) and the 1996 CT scan that ostensibly showed massive loss of brain tissue (which was never corroborated with other data so that medical fraud could be conclusively ruled out).

More than one nurse has sworn under oath that, although not talkative in the normal sense, Terri communicated with them while under their care (since 1996). Such communication ncluded what she did or did not want to eat, for example. Her mood changed (for the worse) on the days that Michael visited.

And as to getting your living will in order: You may be interested in the post on my page that explains why a living will wouldn’t have helped Terri Schiavo in the slightest (nor others in her situation).

Freedom Watch sends word that Andrea Clarke, the ill woman in Texas whose plight was spotlighted by pro-life bloggers and disability activists over the past two weeks, has died. Keep her family in your prayers…….

Government is horribly inefficient in providing services, but it does have a role in setting standards, like the FDA, FHA, FDIC, SEC, FCC, etc.

Patients THINK they are insured and can pay, until they get the jacked-up premium bill after filing a claim. This is how the insurance companies drop their clients. “Base” premiums are artificially low, and do not reflect the costs for real people. This is how the public is mislead. We need “truth in labeling” so that clients can know where they REALLY stand.

As you might tell from some of my other posts, I have had it with accusations of racism, regardless of source or intent (serious or not). We’re Americans first – so let’s stick to the issues.

Regarding this issue, I agree that health care is a limited resource, and is “rationed” whether we like it or not. Remember that the problems started when the insurance company dropped Andrea. We need to take a hard look at insurance company acitivities in the light of fraud and misleading promises. Cherry-picking new applicants and dropping sick patients defy the common understanding of what “insurance” is.

There needs to be a CONSISTENT standard for what insurance companies/HMOs can and cannot do, who doctors and hospitals must treat, etc. Yes, a patient’s bill of rights. This would include the practice of subsidizing “free” care of illegals, etc. by increasing charges to insured patients.

I’m aware that the doctors are as frustrated as their patients, but the doctors and nurses simply pass their costs through to those who are covered. I don’t buy their whining. These costs ultimately show up in our insurance premiums. Start with the insurance companies, and let’s see where that takes us.

As MO correctly points out healthcare exists in limited quantities. And we must remember: when we talk about healthcare, we are speaking about the people with the knowledge and skill able to provide that service.

The article in the Houston Chronicle suggests that the lady Mr. Ponnuru discussed is unable to pay for her treatment. When any person talks about rationing healthcare in any manner other than in trade, they speak of servants and masters.

I am struck by the fact that one gentleman posts here that he does not think he has the right to decide about putting his dog down. On the same board, we have people implying that they have the right to dispose of another human being’s irreplaceable time and energy.

Comparing this issue with illegal immigration is a dead end. Perhaps shooter and dman’s point is that healthcare, like illegal immigration, is an issue to be dealt with, and paid by, the government (read taxpayers). Nothing could be further from the truth. Immigration (i.e., the control of our borders) is properly the province of the federal government.

Doctors and nurses are private citizens; they are not providing any service the government ought to be providing.

-FOG (Fat Old Guy)

In general, ICUs are reserved for those who need intense care and are expected to recover or benefit from the care enough to be transferred off the unit at some point in stable condition. For example, patients that are DNR/DNI do not get admitted to ICUs if they’d otherwise be an ICU patient. Things like long-term brain injury centers or long-term ventilator care centers (including nursing homes who accept vented patients) handle patients like Andrea who may or may not recover and need long-term rehabilitation.

Michelle made it sound like it was a 10-day countdown to death with no other options. The law is mainly a discharge from the hospital and a forced transfer of care to a non-acute care facility.

If you are hanging by a thread for months and months and are being kept alive with maximal medical intervention in a state of pain and minimal consciousness with a non-improveable underlying heart condition, is it really appropriate to keep the person in the ICU forever and ever?

The thesis of the argument was simply that healthcare is a limited supply good and ought not to be a right.

My professional diagnosis? Thin skin. Seek treatment immediately.

Check out Michelle Malkin’s Vent for today about the case of Andrea Clarke. For those of us that blogged extensively last year to save the life of Terri Schiavo, this is certainly dega vu to the max, except this time, the family is trying to keep the …

Let’s relax, guys, okay?

I also think you are not accurately representing the point I was applauding dbc lawyer for making. I was thanking him for recognizing the the corollary of “Healthcare is a Right” is that physicians, particularly young ones like myself, are turned into slave labor, because as the government then becomes required to make sure everyone gets their right, they try to cut costs by arbitrarily setting prices at whatever they dictate, which usually isn’t even enough to cover our costs. This problem with designating something as a right was nicely illustrated back in the day when health insurance companies would provide coverage for medical expenses but not dental. At first the dentists were terrified that they would go broke, but the reverse happened, as all Reaganites should have guessed. Under government regulations and lack of free market, physicians got poorer, quality got worse, and I’d say the quality of physician got worse too. (You may say but look at all the advances in technology and drugs…that is not something that is regulated the same way, new drugs and tech often get reimburshed quite well) Dentists on the other hand operated in the free market, figured out what people wanted (teeth whitening etc.) and have advanced their trade amazingly. Several articles, including in the WSJ have done nice comparisons about Dentist and Physician brothers/in-laws etc.

It was that aspect (Right to Healthcare vs. Right of Physician) that I was addressing to dbclawyer and not the totality of the situation. I thought I was making that clear when I wrote “Thankfully, I don’t know any physicians who would stop treated a deathly ill person just because they couldn’t pay. That’s more a State, Hospital, Society issue.” but apparently I wasn’t.

What I meant by SHS issue, is that there is only a limited amount of any good, including healthcare, and someone is going to have to figure out who gets what and I don’t want or think the physician should be deciding that. It should be the State or Society.

Because there is only a limited quantity of healthcare, there is going to have to be some limiting or quota system to ration out the supply there is. That may be quotas, ration coupons or free-market dollars…or something else.

It is all fine and good to say “non-emergent stuff should be paid for by the patient” but what if that non-emergent stuff pays the best (usually does) and there aren’t enough physicians (and hospital beds etc) to take care of the emergent stuff? Going to force physicians to do the work anyway? That actually does happen now, in case you weren’t aware. It also happens with drugs: companies make more lifestyle drugs because they are more profitable than vaccines. I don’t blame the companies…it is Society that decides they are willing to pay for their erections, but not for the MMR….oh, look, we got mumps and measles back again in this country. It is a systemic problem in this country: teachers make crap, but actors with no skills make millions. It is we in society who are to blame.

The creepy issues of terminating care is best described when during a legal stand-off traveling through courts, someone who is supposed to be taken off life support (based upon doctors opinion) suddenly recovers.

C’mon folks, there’s gotta be more “opiners” out there.
Shooter-