Saw this the other day, maybe book face or something. Yeah that is what happens when you allow "people who know what's best for you" to make decisions for you. The liberal idiots still won't wake up.
"The court "also considered that it was appropriate to lift the interim measure" which had required doctors to continue providing life support treatment to Charlie",.. I guess that makes some sense since the government's footing the bill,.. I wonder how U.S. medical insurance companies would have looked at this,.. no doubt they would have washed their hands of it long ago. In this case the aforementioned are insignificant side issues and not a factor. "European Court judges have now concluded it was most likely Charlie was "being exposed to continued pain, suffering and distress" and undergoing experimental treatment with "no prospects of success... would offer no benefit". That is a weak argument, in my eyes, the parents are the ones who have to make these decisions. The money is raised, let them go and try to save their son,.. it's not like they want to take him to a witch doctor,.. though IMO that too would be up to the parents. Bottom line, I think it's fucked that the government and their high courts, think they are the deciding entity, and have the right to quash the parent's last hope.
Cases like this make everyone look bad. First thing is that a court makes this decision is the inevitable result of government run and provided healthcare. When you allow the government, any government to pay for your healthcare you give up control of your life. Bureaucrats, lawyers and judges will make critical decisions not you. Medicare, Obamacare and even the Republican alternative are steps along the path to what we see here. None of the people making the decision in this case are evil.....it's the system that's evil. Now to the specifics of this case. It presents a Hobson's choice for us and is venue for another debate on how far do we push medical science and treatment. How do we balance cutting edge treatment that provides the future with realistic expectations of what we expect of the healthcare system? I doubt this baby has much chance of a viable life even if treated. However there are so many examples in the past where forlorn hope treatments evolve into standard and life saving treatments. There are many many people who 50, 20 even 5 years ago had no hope of life now not only live but live well. These same treatments are part of the reason healthcare costs are so high. We see extraordinary treatments and expect to have them available to all. Yet no one counts the cost or expects to pay for it. That is the responsibility of insurance or government in too many minds. We rarely ask or are asked to consider what any treatment costs. We just what it done whatever it takes. This my friends is the kernel of the healthcare question. How do we balance treatment with cost? How do we make these decisions when we have no real knowledge of the expectations of the outcome or the cost incurred? All the discussions in congress and the press are about who pays. That's just arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The system is going to sink unless we radically change direction. We need to be educated consumers first of all. We need to demand an open and competitive market for services. We have been passively going along with the flow allowing big insurance, hospitals, pharma and government to lure us in with a siren song. We assume they will handle everything and don't want much if any out of pocket cost to us. We expect the best possible treatment including cutting edge and don't want to worry about cost. So if you want healthcare think it's a right and don't want to understand and pay for what you get, then get ready for what happened in England with that family. If you want to control your life understand there is a cost. Fight not for Obamacare or the republican alternative but for a radical change.
"We need to demand an open and competitive market for services",.. this is the key I think, probably our only hope for a better health care system in America. This country is getting gauged horribly by the medical and pharmaceutical industries,.. I believed that socialized medical care was our best hope of reducing the staggering costs,.. but I've been convinced that the reduction in patient care makes a socialized system unacceptable. I now believe Capitalism's gotta save us,.. but our current setup, a medical oligopoly, well, that's going to be a very tough nut to crack,.. they're big big money and they have a strangle hold on our political system.
