Death Records Now

Rationing by ability to pay.
Dr. Art Kellermann, associate dean for public policy at Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta, recently wrote of a woman who came into his emergency room in critical condition because a blood vessel had burst in her brain. She was uninsured and had chosen to buy food for her children instead of spending money on her blood-pressure medicine. In the emergency room, she received excellent high-tech medical care, but by the time she got there, it was too late to save her.

A New York Times report on the high costs of some drugs illustrates the problem. Chuck Stauffer, an Oregon farmer, found that his prescription-drug insurance left him to pay $5,500 for his first 42 days of Temodar, a drug used to treat brain tumors, and $1,700 a month after that. For Medicare patients drug costs can be even higher, because Medicare can require a copayment of 25 percent of the cost of the drug. For Gleevec, a drug that is effective against some forms of leukemia and some gastrointestinal tumors, that one-quarter of the cost can run to $40,000 a year.

In Britain, everyone has health insurance. In the U.S., some 45 million do not, and nor are they entitled to any health care at all, unless they can get themselves to an emergency room. Hospitals are prohibited from turning away anyone who will be endangered by being refused treatment. But even in emergency rooms, people without health insurance may receive less health care than those with insurance. Joseph Doyle, a professor of economics at the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T., studied the records of people in Wisconsin who were injured in severe automobile accidents and had no choice but to go to the hospital. He estimated that those who had no health insurance received 20 percent less care and had a death rate 37 percent higher than those with health insurance. This difference held up even when those without health insurance were compared with those without automobile insurance, and with those on Medicaid — groups with whom they share some characteristics that might affect treatment. The lack of insurance seems to be what caused the greater number of deaths.

When the media feature someone like Bruce Hardy or Jack Rosser, we readily relate to individuals who are harmed by a government agency’s decision to limit the cost of health care. But we tend not to hear about — and thus don’t identify with — the particular individuals who die in emergency rooms because they have no health insurance. This “identifiable victim” effect, well documented by psychologists, creates a dangerous bias in our thinking. Doyle’s figures suggest that if those Wisconsin accident victims without health insurance had received equivalent care to those with it, the additional health care would have cost about $220,000 for each life saved. Those who died were on average around 30 years old and could have been expected to live for at least another 40 years; this means that had they survived their accidents, the cost per extra year of life would have been no more than $5,500 — a small fraction of the $49,000 that NICE recommends the British National Health Service should be ready to pay to give a patient an extra year of life. If the U.S. system spent less on expensive treatments for those who, with or without the drugs, have at most a few months to live, it would be better able to save the lives of more people who, if they get the treatment they need, might live for several decades.
Seldon Surak II, It seems that you have thought a lot about the subject.
For those who do not consider economic rationing "rationing", use the phrase "limiting the delivery of wanted services".
That limitation is caused by price and the ability or inability to pay for wanted services.

you BET it is!

THAT IS WHY THEY ARE LYING ABOUT REFORM!

HERE IS THE TRUTH:
THERE WILL BE NO NATIONALIZATION OF HEALTH CARE

THE ONLY THING THE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO DO IS ADD AN OPTION FOR NON-PROFIT INSURANCE FOR THE POOR & UNEMPLOYED.

[I go to the Dallas VA Medical Center and the government doesn’t even run THAT!]

HOW WILL THEY PAY FOR IT?
>DRUG DISCOUNTS
>CONCENTRATING ON PREVENTATIVE CARE
[Currently, the poor only have the E.R. at county hospitals and that’s THE MOST EXPENSIVE CARE THERE IS!]
>ELIMINATING WASTE &
>LOCKING UP PEOPLE WHO COMMIT FRAUD!

WANNA KNOW WHO DOESN’T WANT CHANGE?
THE INSURANCE COMPANIES
THEY EAT 40% OF EVERY HEALTH CARE DOLLAR.

FOR WHAT WE PAY NOW, WE COULD INSURE EVERY MAN, WOMAN & CHILD IN AMERICA WITH NO DEDUCTIBLE, NO COPAY COVERAGE.