Exponential increase in cost to stay alive

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yellow8yellowM

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At what point are we morally obligated to try to extend the life of a person?

We would all agree that if we saw somebody choking we would administer CPR until we passed out from exhaustion.

But since we do not all enter into the medical profession, we do not all agree that saving lives (earthly lives, that is) is something to which we should devoting our entire lives.

Where is the middle ground? I would suggest that as society become more secular and less religious, more and more tax money and more and more worker productivity will be spent on healthcare and extension of life therapeutics (most cancer drugs, for example, cost a fortune but on average only extend life for a few extra months).

Since the atheist has nothing to look forward to after death, he is willing to spend 100% of his resources and will try to get as many other people’s (taxpayers’) resources to extend his life.

Looking forward to your comments…
 
yellow8yellowM said:
At what point are we morally obligated to try to extend the life of a person?

We would all agree that if we saw somebody choking we would administer CPR until we passed out from exhaustion.

But since we do not all enter into the medical profession, we do not all agree that saving lives (earthly lives, that is) is something to which we should devoting our entire lives.

Where is the middle ground? I would suggest that as society become more secular and less religious, more and more tax money and more and more worker productivity will be spent on healthcare and extension of life therapeutics (most cancer drugs, for example, cost a fortune but on average only extend life for a few extra months).

Since the atheist has nothing to look forward to after death, he is willing to spend 100% of his resources and will try to get as many other people’s (taxpayers’) resources to extend his life.

Looking forward to your comments…
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I believe human life is sacred.
My comments are not directly related to your question, but I thought I would share the viewpoints of someone who is not a Christian from a conversation a few months ago.

To give you some insight of someone who is not Christian- Actually, they claim to be a pagan, but won’t go into any details regarding that or religion. He believes no one should suffer. You know like, pull the cord, but worse. He believes if someone is in the depths of despair, has no quality of life and so on that they should be able to basically be put out of their misery by means of a pill or medication. He wasn’t referring to those on life support. The example was one of someone suffering much from poverty, depression, and other issues many Americans and people around the world face on a daily basis due to our economic and social crisis.

So, if some these folks got together, you wouldn’t have to worry about too much money being spent on saving atheists as some people would have offset the costs by getting rid of many others. :rolleyes:
 
yellow8yellowM said:
At what point are we morally obligated to try to extend the life of a person?

We would all agree that if we saw somebody choking we would administer CPR until we passed out from exhaustion.

But since we do not all enter into the medical profession, we do not all agree that saving lives (earthly lives, that is) is something to which we should devoting our entire lives.

Where is the middle ground? I would suggest that as society become more secular and less religious, more and more tax money and more and more worker productivity will be spent on healthcare and extension of life therapeutics (most cancer drugs, for example, cost a fortune but on average only extend life for a few extra months).

Since the atheist has nothing to look forward to after death, he is willing to spend 100% of his resources and will try to get as many other people’s (taxpayers’) resources to extend his life.

Looking forward to your comments…
Click to expand...
If everybody tried to become a medical doctor, most would not succeed. And the maximization of human life requires people other than doctors, for example, chemists who provide safe food and water (as well as medicines): engineers, who provide a secure technological infrastructure; teachers and professors, who prepare the next generation of minds; etc. All of which are needed for an environment in which the human body can live as long as the DNA allows.

So the fact that not everybody seeks entry to medical school does not mean that not everybody wants to maximize human earthly life. Some just don’t see their role in that maximization in terms of treating the sick.

And it’s not just atheists and pagans who see no desirable alternative to extended human life. Many Christians see the afterlife as only a sad shadow of human life. I’d expect their clamor for extended life to be as strident as everybody else’s.

ICXC NIKA
 
yellow8yellowM said:
At what point are we morally obligated to try to extend the life of a person?

We would all agree that if we saw somebody choking we would administer CPR until we passed out from exhaustion.

But since we do not all enter into the medical profession, we do not all agree that saving lives (earthly lives, that is) is something to which we should devoting our entire lives.

Where is the middle ground? I would suggest that as society become more secular and less religious, more and more tax money and more and more worker productivity will be spent on healthcare and extension of life therapeutics (most cancer drugs, for example, cost a fortune but on average only extend life for a few extra months).

Since the atheist has nothing to look forward to after death, he is willing to spend 100% of his resources and will try to get as many other people’s (taxpayers’) resources to extend his life.
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Um… I don’t think so. God or not, quality of life is a huge factor. Sometimes death is a release.
 
When common-sense voluntary end-of-life counseling and planning was proposed as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010 it was vociferously and falsely decried as being Death Panels and eventually dropped from the legislation. Unless I’m sorely mistaken, the vast majority of its opponents weren’t atheists.
 
It is an interesting question. IIRC, the statistics are that 1/2 of all healthcare costs a person will spend in their life is spent in the last 12 months of their life. This is often expensive care for a terminally ill patient, eg chemotherapy, where the best hope is to extend the life.

How is this problem solved? I don’t know the answer. I do not like ObamaCare, and putting these decisions in the hands of the government scares the heck out of me.

It is really easy to say you would not choose a lot of that care, but when the time comes, most of us do choose it.
 
Bix said:
I believe human life is sacred.
My comments are not directly related to your question, but I thought I would share the viewpoints of someone who is not a Christian from a conversation a few months ago.

To give you some insight of someone who is not Christian- Actually, they claim to be a pagan, but won’t go into any details regarding that or religion. He believes no one should suffer. You know like, pull the cord, but worse. He believes if someone is in the depths of despair, has no quality of life and so on that they should be able to basically be put out of their misery by means of a pill or medication. He wasn’t referring to those on life support. The example was one of someone suffering much from poverty, depression, and other issues many Americans and people around the world face on a daily basis due to our economic and social crisis.

So, if some these folks got together, you wouldn’t have to worry about too much money being spent on saving atheists as some people would have offset the costs by getting rid of many others. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
A few years ago, a friend was on a panel for students in the health fields; nursing, medicine, etc. The subject was the use of “living wills”. My friend was the lawyer component. Also on the panel was a minister, a physician, a nurse, a social worker, a psychologist.

Anyway, the physician said he had had a power of attorney over his father. His father had signed a “living will”. The physician’s father had a terminal disease, but was not near death and was not in pain. His father developed an infection and the doctor instructed his father’s physician not to treat it. So, his father died of the infection.

Asked by my friend what, exactly, the physician considered the proper point at which the plug gets pulled on somebody. That, the physician responded, would be when the individual no longer could enjoy those things in life which he enjoyed most. My friend asked “Would that include being able to play golf? Would you pull the plug on somebody because he really enjoyed golf but could no longer play it?” The physician replied in the affirmative.

Weirdly, most of the audience was approving of what the physician had to say. Of course, they were young and had been educated in a sort of technical approach to life.

My lawyer friend vigorously opposed that point of view as, interestingly, did the psychologist. (Not the minister, strange to tell, and he was an evangelical) But my friend doubted many had been persuaded, though some came up to him afterward and thanked him for defending human life.
 
cornbread_r2 said:
When common-sense voluntary end-of-life counseling and planning was proposed as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010 it was vociferously and falsely decried as being Death Panels and eventually dropped from the legislation. Unless I’m sorely mistaken, the vast majority of its opponents weren’t atheists.
Click to expand...
Probably because many of us know all about the “common-sense” voluntary “pregnancy counseling” that happens in Planned Parenthood and had seen enough of what Democrats consider that to mean to know we opposed it 😉
 
cornbread_r2 said:
When common-sense voluntary end-of-life counseling and planning was proposed as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010 it was vociferously and falsely decried as being Death Panels and eventually dropped from the legislation. Unless I’m sorely mistaken, the vast majority of its opponents weren’t atheists.
Click to expand...
Nate13 said:
Probably because many of us know all about the “common-sense” voluntary “pregnancy counseling” that happens in Planned Parenthood and had seen enough of what Democrats consider that to mean to know we opposed it 😉
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Well said, Nate. It is telling of an individual that has to link to Wikipedia for their vociferous support for Obama;).

Peace, Graubo
 
yellow8yellowM said:
Since the atheist has nothing to look forward to after death, he is willing to spend 100% of his resources and will try to get as many other people’s (taxpayers’) resources to extend his life.
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Why do you believe this? Oblivion sounds rather comforting. It’s not true, but it would be nice.
 
Nate13 said:
Probably because many of us know all about the “common-sense” voluntary “pregnancy counseling” that happens in Planned Parenthood and had seen enough of what Democrats consider that to mean to know we opposed it 😉
Click to expand...
You oppose voluntary, common sense end-of-life counseling and planning conducted by the patients’ physicians? You do know, don’t you, that some of these physicians would be Catholics offering counseling and planning consistent with Church teachings?
Graubo3 said:
Well said, Nate. It is telling of an individual that has to link to Wikipedia for their vociferous support for Obama;).

Peace, Graubo
Click to expand...
If you were referring to me, where did I vociferously (or otherwise) support President Obama in my post?
 
tafan said:
It is an interesting question. IIRC, the statistics are that 1/2 of all healthcare costs a person will spend in their life is spent in the last 12 months of their life. This is often expensive care for a terminally ill patient, eg chemotherapy, where the best hope is to extend the life.

How is this problem solved? I don’t know the answer. I do not like ObamaCare, and putting these decisions in the hands of the government scares the heck out of me.

It is really easy to say you would not choose a lot of that care, but when the time comes, most of us do choose it.
Click to expand...
It is often chosen not realizing that it is the beginning of the last 12 months of one’s life…
 
tafan said:
It is an interesting question. IIRC, the statistics are that 1/2 of all healthcare costs a person will spend in their life is spent in the last 12 months of their life. This is often expensive care for a terminally ill patient, eg chemotherapy, where the best hope is to extend the life.

How is this problem solved? I don’t know the answer. I do not like ObamaCare, and putting these decisions in the hands of the government scares the heck out of me.

It is really easy to say you would not choose a lot of that care, but when the time comes, most of us do choose it.
Click to expand...
It is often chosen not realizing that it is the beginning of the last 12 months of one’s life…
 
cornbread_r2 said:
You oppose voluntary, common sense end-of-life counseling and planning conducted by the patients’ physicians? You do know, don’t you, that some of these physicians would be Catholics offering counseling and planning consistent with Church teachings?
Click to expand...
I think you missed the entire point. The point was that government health care will have to lead to what is essentially “death panels”. You only have so much money and your going to have decide how much each drug is going to cost people. Another poster has been pointing out that its ridiculous that the government is going to make contraceptives free, but still require her to pay a $100 co-pay through Medicare for her insulin that she needs to survive. These are the kinds of cost decision the government is going to be making that have a direct effect on what people can and cannot afford. Its what you get in a “one-size-fits all” policy.

You can’t point to the UK as a good example of anything considering they are forecasting that they will be in 15 trillion dollars of debt by 2015. That’s an incredible sum as well when compared to the U.S debt considering our GDP is over 6 times that of Brittain.
 
Nate13 said:
I think you missed the entire point. The point was that government health care will have to lead to what is essentially “death panels”. You only have so much money and your going to have decide how much each drug is going to cost people. Another poster has been pointing out that its ridiculous that the government is going to make contraceptives free, but still require her to pay a $100 co-pay through Medicare for her insulin that she needs to survive. These are the kinds of cost decision the government is going to be making that have a direct effect on what people can and cannot afford. Its what you get in a “one-size-fits all” policy.
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Excellent point!
You can’t point to the UK as a good example of anything considering they are forecasting that they will be in 15 trillion dollars of debt by 2015. That’s an incredible sum as well when compared to the U.S debt considering our GDP is over 6 times that of Brittain.
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How do you figure they will be $15T in debt? They are only around $1.5T or $1.75T in debt now, and you’re saying it will 15-uple in 3 years?
 
St_Francis said:
Excellent point!

How do you figure they will be $15T in debt? They are only around $1.5T or $1.75T in debt now, and you’re saying it will 15-uple in 3 years?
Click to expand...
telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8118467/UKs-total-debt-forecast-to-hit-10-trillion-by-2015.html

Your correct I put total debt by mistake. The comparable number to the 15 trillion in public debt of the U.S is around 1 trillion for the UK. The comparable number for America in total debt would be 57 trillion.

Their total debt is 1/3 of ours, while their GDP is 1/6 of ours.

gfmag.com/tools/global-database/economic-data/10403-total-debt-to-gdp.html#axzz1mNwQJot7
 
cornbread_r2 said:
You oppose voluntary, common sense end-of-life counseling and planning conducted by the patients’ physicians? You do know, don’t you, that some of these physicians would be Catholics offering counseling and planning consistent with Church teachings?
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And do YOU realize that our society is one presidential pen signature away from effectively banning faithful catholics from practicing as doctors?

You think I’m paranoid, don’t you? I’m not. This is precisely what has ALREADY happened here in Illinois to the profession of pharmacists. In IL if a pharmacist refuses to fill a prescription for an abortion inducing drug, the IL board of professional regulation will fine him and strip him of his professional license. Know how this came about? Executive order of the governor. No votes, no referendums.

The exact same power now lies in the presidency courtesy of the Obamacare legislation. All it would take is a new HHS mandate that no doctor may refuse to prescribe FDA-legal medications on conscience grounds (i.e. no physical contra-indications) to force catholic doctors to either betray their faith or depart the profession. Tell the pharmacists that it could never happen, I dare you.
 
cornbread_r2 said:
You oppose voluntary, common sense end-of-life counseling and planning conducted by the patients’ physicians? You do know, don’t you, that some of these physicians would be Catholics offering counseling and planning consistent with Church teachings?
Click to expand...
Undoubtedly some physicians would be just as you say. Some, unfortunately, would be like the physician in my post #7.
 
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