Are people equal?

[Borachio]

This is in the news about the poor quality of care that people with learning difficulties get in UK hospitals.

People with learning disabilities have a high chance of dying prematurely, interim figures from a major government survey suggest - and critics claim hospitals are unable to respond to learning disabled patients' needs.

But in principle, all health care has to be rationed. There simply isn't an infinite pot of money. So health-care workers talk in terms of QOL's. The idea being that somebody's quality of life can be measured, and used to determine how much resource can be devoted to their care.

But a country can be considered to be civilized just in so far as it looks after its most vulnerable citizens.

So, what do you think?

Are some people just not worth looking after? Or does everyone have an equal right to health care?

And this is just one aspect of equality.

Do you think every one is in principle equal, but that their intrinsic value varies in some way? And if so what determines their worth?

 

[Loppan Torkel]

In Sweden we try to treat people as equal as possible within our health care. One example is that most regions do not let people pay extra for a more expensive and complex lens when treating people for glaucoma. The better lens isn't covered by our universal health care. It would let people skip glasses after the operation, but since the care would not be equal due to that some people may not be able to afford the extra cost, most regions do not allow this.


edit: Regarding the questions - All people should be treated with respect as human beings. Some deserve more respect than others. Some people are of greater importance, are more valuable to society and more liked than others. In what way are everyone equals?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

So, what do you think?

Though it sounds heartless, I believe some form of social medicine and accompanying rationing is a far superior outcome to the kind of rationing that goes on without social medicine. Like what we have now in the US.

Are some people just not worth looking after? Or does everyone have an equal right to health care?

They do, but when an outcome cannot be changed by treatment (as in the cancer can't be cured by chemo/radiation/surgery, not whether or not they should be given pain treatment and psych therapy as they face death) they shouldn't be given it unless they can pay for it out of pocket.

Yes, it's heartless. But I do not support using tax payer dollars to try and cure something when no possibility exist to extend that person's life span appreciably. In the case of something like AIDS, while it cannot be cured, life can be extended remarkably with treatment, so it should be given.

In the case of an inoperable brain tumor that doesn't respond to chemo or radiation, why should we have to pay for it?

God I sound like a total a-hole.

Do you think every one is in principle equal, but that their intrinsic value varies in some way? And if so what determines their worth?

In the eyes of the law and intinsic human worth, we are all equal. That's why the above guideline would apply to everyone.

In all other measures (wealth, intelligence, attractiveness, what have you) we are not equal at all. And if a person can pay for a treatment that doctors know won't save them or extend their life, I wouldn't deny them that. But I wouldn't pay for it when there may be a kid with a failing heart who could use those resources to better effect and go on to live a long life.

I expect so much crap for this. I won't even fight back.

Edit:

In Sweden we try to treat people as equal as possible within our health care. One example is that most regions do not let people pay extra for a more expensive and complex lens when treating people for glaucoma. The better lens isn't covered by our universal health care. It would let people skip glasses after the operation, but since the care would not be equal due to that some people may not be able to afford the extra cost, most regions do not allow this.

I thought of something like that when writing my response (yours wasn't up when I started typing) but I don't know if I could go along with it. I don't know. I'll have to think about it and read what other people say.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Sorry. It's a sarcastic thumbs up... Why shouldn't you be able to get better care if you pay for it? The health care is practically free for everyone here. Are people so small minded they can't let people pay out of their own pockets to get better treatment? Here? -Obviously so.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Sorry. It's a sarcastic thumbs up... Why shouldn't you be able to get better care if you pay for it? The health care is practically free for everyone here. Are people so small minded they can't let people pay out of their own pockets to get better treatment? Here? -Obviously so.

Oh, my sarcasm detection circuits failed so hard there. But I could see people going along that scheme though.

 

[Samson]

Sorry. It's a sarcastic thumbs up... Why shouldn't you be able to get better care if you pay for it? The health care is practically free for everyone here. Are people so small minded they can't let people pay out of their own pockets to get better treatment? Here? -Obviously so.

Here (the UK) the way I THINK it works is that you can pay for treatment that is not covered by the NHS, but then you haveto pay for all the treatment for that condition. So in the example you use, if you want the better lens (a small part of the whole procedure I guess?) then you have to also pay for the operation and post operative care that would be free if you took the govenment sponsored lens.

To the OP, it seems reasnoble to me to spend more on curing an identical cancer in an 18 year old than in a 85 year old. There is just more value in saving 60+ years than 6+. I can see the logic in saving say a nobel laureate than a blithering idiot, but a national health care policy explicetly based on this would be unpalitable to me and probably the rest of the population.

 

[Grendeldef]

Do you think every one is in principle equal, but that their intrinsic value varies in some way? And if so what determines their worth?

Yes, but finite resources in practice forces us to chose one over some other every time. What determines it? Basically most anything, really. There can be several rational reasons but not even nearly always. I approve some of the reasons while disagreeing quite violently some others. Anyway, impossible to say what determines one's worth in general as there just are too many variables.

G

 

[Smellincoffee]

Before the law, they should be. Otherwise, no. Every person's genes gives him or her strengths and weaknesses, and not in a balanced mixture -- and then everyone grows up in a different environment, and that environment also determines their success. A genius born to medieval peasants could waste her life in poverty, while a twit born to wealthy parents in the 20th century could run and win public office.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

To the OP, it seems reasnoble to me to spend more on curing an identical cancer in an 18 year old than in a 85 year old. There is just more value in saving 60+ years than 6+. I can see the logic in saving say a nobel laureate than a blithering idiot, but a national health care policy explicetly based on this would be unpalitable to me and probably the rest of the population.

Why is age-based descimination perfectly acceptable, but any other sort of value-based descrimination unpalatable?

 

[Samson]

Why is age-based descimination perfectly acceptable, but any other sort of value-based descrimination unpalatable?

I have to admit there is a significant element of "gut feeling" to this, and I have a suspicion that the below explanation is more justifying my pre-existing view than a logical progression that guides my view, but it makes sense to me.

One could say it is not age discrimination but clinical discrimination. If there was a cancer treatment that cost 30K GBP, and it would extend patient A's life by a year and patient B's life by a month then it would be justifiable for the tax payer to provide it to A but not to B (note this is not an entirely hypothetical situation, this is the case with many new cancer drugs). In the same way it would be justifiable to spend 300K GBP saving an 18 year old and gaining them say 70 years than spending that on an 85 year old and saving them 70 months.

 

[Nares]

And if so what determines their worth?

All I know is that hundreds of Americans will now have their worth determined by some Washington bureaucrat.

Forgive me for thinking this is even worse than before.

A genius born to medieval peasants could waste her life in poverty, while a twit born to wealthy parents in the 20th century could run and win public office.

Yes, but that was the beauty of the American experiment; a genius born in poverty was truly able to rise out of poverty, instead of being consigned to whatever social class they were born into. Wealthy individuals and the children of wealthy individuals have always had the freedom to be wastrels.

Why solidify the social classes through redistribution over healthcare and retirement? All you do is create a ceiling for the 99%, while drawing a clear demarcation between them and the 1%, and the end result will simply be an acceleration of the divide between the haves and the havenots, with an ever lowering ceiling for the 99% to be trapped by.

 

[Quackers]

I wouldn't blame it on outright discrimination. Maybe for these disabled patients they struggle to express their symptons which make diagnosis take longer, treatment delayed and hence a prematue death? Thats my first thought...

 

[Samson]

Why solidify the social classes through redistribution over healthcare and retirement? All you do is create a ceiling for the 99%, while drawing a clear demarcation between them and the 1%, and the end result will simply be an acceleration of the divide between the haves and the havenots, with an ever lowering ceiling for the 99% to be trapped by.

Eh? Surely "redistribution" over healthcare means providing life saving care to those who required it and would not otherwise recieve it, thus making people alive who would otherwise be dead. How is that not the ultimate in breaking down the social classes, in that havenots are alive to move up the social scale rather than dead in the peasants graveyard?

 

[LucyDuke]

All I know is that hundreds of Americans will now have their worth determined by some Washington bureaucrat.

lolno