Redstate

We're already fully at the point that seemed to some like the improbable bottom of the slipperly slope.

I think if I weren't already a conservative, this news report would make me one.  It would have to be.  It's such a total and complete confirmation of the theories put forth by conservatives.  This is exactly what was predicted, but people said would NEVER happen.

I just don't know what else to say but all this.  You really did say it all.  I especially like that sinkhole bit, given how inevitable the drop is.

We have now progressed from an ever-varying definition of Life, to disputing the qualifications of a quality life.

that profanity is not tolerated. Or perhaps the sensitive eyes of RedState readers are better off that I'm compelled to keep my tongue, as it were, in check.

For all the rhetoric, and even jokes about "retroactive abortions", we now see a case easily described that way.  

Actually, it's simply euthanasia.  At some point the standard changed from protecting life by whatever means necessary to protecting life unless it becomes difficult, or unless someone's going to die anyway.  

But a doctor who withheld medical care because the patient would eventually die may as well stop treating anyone.  Death awaits us all.  

The death worshippers will, perhaps sincerely, point out that many other people could be given medical care with the resources spent on this poor child.  

The trouble is that it isn't a zero-sum game.  If an emergency constrains the number of people who can be saved, that's one thing, but to make the decision based on "quality of life" is a horror.

Both for having the cojones to take on their death-worshipping government...

...but also for expressing an understanding that artificial ventilation can indeed represent an extraordinary life-saving measure. Not now, but some time in the future.

I totally agree with the sentiment of this post that the doctors tendency for death is sickening, and for the British government's willingness to strip parents of such precious powers to save a few bucks.

I also have to acknowledge that this baby's condition will continue to worsen, with no end until complete paralysis, without a miraculous medical development. In such circumstances I think that reasonable hard-core lifers can agree that the withholding of artificial life support may at some point be justifiable.

Just in case, though, I'm going to duck now.

Part of this stems from a nationalized health care system. The argument for terminating (murdering) this child is that maintaining the life is take health care resources from others who have a better chance at life.

If there was ever an argument against nationalized health in America this is it. And don't let anyone say "it can't happen here." It's inevitable in that kind of system; there are shades of it in the current insurance based environment.

Parents have to fight absolute strangers in order to keep their OWN SON alive??? If this story would've appeared 50 years ago, we all would've expected it to say  Dateline:Moscow. Chilling.

  non immediate life threatening cases.  At this very moment we are fighting with my mother-in-laws doctor in Michigan over a quality of life decisionthat he is arbitrarily making about her life.  She is 1st stage alzheimers and her particular case is advancing slowly with the help of meds.  She is also suffering from stenosis of one of her heart valves.  The doctor has said he doesn't want to do the surgury as it would be a waste given her dementia.  Myself and my wife, who is an RN, disagree as we believe that the dementia is far less horific a way to die than starving for oxygen and slowly drowning in her own fluids that build up in her lungs. Part of the whole deal is helping the person, and at times I think they forget there's a person involved, be as comfortable as possible fpr as long as possible.  With the surgury to fix the stenosis she could have several more years and during those several years there is the possibility of new meds coming along that would help her to an even greater extent.  You never get anywhere when you give up and this is not a case where her suffering can't be eleviated.  Yet the doctor was ready to give up.  Life now does seem to have a dollar value and wether you win or lose can be based solely on wether your treatment is cost effective.

   

That almost happened!  I'm sure some Americans never thought there would exist a national healthcare plan...that is until Hillary Rodham Clinton came along and tried to force it on us.

Indeed, Hillary Clinton is the living proof that it CAN definitely happen!  It is ironic that she is a baby boomer, born to 'generations of warriors' who fought to make the world freer, now only to make it an even more repressive world to live in!

It's equally ironic that socialism itself was meant to promote the quality of human life, only to have it turned into some kind of lifeless statistics, devoid of any meaningfulness or purpose to live on this world.

Dan

they are adjudged useless and hopeless, I want to be the judge and I want Ted Kennedy in my court at 9:00am tomorrow.

I'm one who doesn't believe that human life with attendant fundamental rights begins at conception.  I choose a later stage of pregnancy for that threshold.  But, these kinds of stories make me increasingly "pro-life" because it's hard for me not to see the connection, and it's increasingly untenable for me to deny a causal relationship between current abortion policy (and rhetoric) and the more general de-valuing of human life.

what changes at a "later stage of pregnancy" that imbues the child with life and thus the status of a person? What is different at 12 weeks than 12 seconds?

The last reports I've come across state that she's off the ventilator,has been transferred to a hospital for physical, speech, and occupational rehab, is in stable condition, able to eat scrambled eggs and cream wheat, and can tap out drum rhythms. I guess she can still both identify and play with her toys.  One life snatched from the ghouls.  But in the name of progress they will be back for more,   having given notice what the lives of others mean to them.  In their corner is compassion to be found only in the grave?

In increments.  We now have a professional class of medical ethicists whose function seems to be chiefly rationalizing the previously unthinkable.  Futile care theory is one current project, and frankly it sounds a lot like what this family in the UK had to go through.  I agree that a big factor is the nationalized health care thing.  But that's not the only factor.

Another problem is that we've already opened the door to withholding care based on quality of life perceptions.  The only real difference is that, so far, the opinions of experts don't trump the will of the family in this country.  That is changing slowly, case by inevitable court case.

Part of the old Hippocratic oath used to include a reference that the doctors actions were to be performed for the benefit of the sick - that is largely being replaced in medical ethics by the doctrine that the doctors primary responsibility is to society at large.  Hence we have pediatricians pushing gun free homes, APA doctors openly using medicine to push a particular political agenda, and doctors advocating assisted suicide.

Bottom line is he who pays the piper calls the tune - in any nationalized health care system the government which pays for the care will get to decide who gets it, and who does not.  When you force doctors to be employees of the government, they will naturally protect the interests of their employer even at the expense of their patients.  The fact that the doctors in training right now are being ethically conditioned to make those choices, and our courts are paving the way to give their decisions force of law, provides the necessary grease for the skids.

After all, you don't honestly think people will want to actually pay the enormous money it will take to properly care for all those elderly boomers do you?

After all, you don't honestly think people will want to actually pay the enormous money it will take to properly care for all those elderly boomers do you?

Not without a lot of linguistic persuasion, and not without a considerable redefinition of the terms.  But incrementalism works -- it's proven, and it's working here.

The ethical question was the hospital/society able to pull the plug due to medical resources don't justify the continued existance of an incurable person.  Ventilator and feeding expenses are several thousand dollars a day and the child did suffer an incurrable and fatal disease.  Is it moral to do this?  I don't know, I don't know the costs and I don't know the life expectancy that child has left.  As much as it saddens me eventually we have to draw a line somewhere between medical treatment vs medical costs for we live in a world of limited resources.

Reminds me of the Tirhas Habtegris case that recently happened in the US:

Background info

http://www.cbs11tv.com/topstories/local_story_348124802.html

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa051214_lj
_african.bb0e76d.html

http://www.baylorhealth.com/articles/habtegiris.htm

http://www.slate.com/id/2133518/

human life, with a government stake in saving money you end up with a "compassionate" system of eugenics (ie compassionate in only that those who want to kill him argue that their method is to save the person to be killed from some horrible life).  

This is one slippery slope I think we have already started to slide down, and I just hope it isn't too late to apply the brakes.

I am glad the parents won in this case.

...but can you imagine being told to your face, as a parent with a seriously ill child but with whom you can share love and life, that said child ought to be killed because he/she is a waste of resources????

I know there are a lot of considerations in such a debate.  A balance must be struck, lines drawn and terms defined.  But the day our society goes back to the days of putting the ill and old out to die simply because they are considered to be "taking up space" is the day our society dies.

After all, his life with complete paralysis must be intolerable, right? And he should have died years ago, right? Because doctors say that no one with ALS lives to be over 60.

From the Independent's article on this:

The boy, known only as MB for legal reasons, was born with spinal muscular atrophy, an incurable and degenerative muscle wasting disease that eventually causes total paralysis. He is unable to make any sound, breathe or swallow on his own, is fed through a tube and has to undergo several painful procedures every day to keep him alive.

Doctors wanted the High Court to grant a declaration that they could withdraw ventilation because it was unethical to continue treating the boy when he had such a poor quality of life.

In older times, a child in this condition, requiring daily intensive medical care, would quite possibly be dead already, whether from folk euthanasia (opium on the breast was a method used in ancient times), abandonment to the elements, or simple neglect as food and care are given to the healthier children in the family. This decision would be a private, agonizing choice for parents, who would be forced to weigh quality of life and their ability to provide against the bonds of parenthood.

Perhaps Leon knows of a time when all babies were always kept alive to the utmost extent of medical ability, but I certainly don't. The weighing of the value of life versus the quality of life is as old as human history, and would have been just as wrenching 4000 years ago as today.

Two things are different today, however, as shown by this case:

• We live in a world which has the resources and the will to devote to full time intensive care for even the most vulnerable
  
• We live in a world where these fundamental questions about life and suffering have a public avenue for resolution.
  

This child's fate was not decided in secrecy, according to the conscience of a parent or physician, but was opened to the public and raised to a judge to decide based on the laws of the land and the norms of society. Moreover, the judge ruled in the way that anyone here should applaud, finding in favor of keeping this child alive and in favor of the value of life, saying:

"I do not think that the perceived advantage of a 'good death' can yet tip the scales so that the benefits of survival and life itself are outweighed."

The system worked, and surely worked better for this child than it would have in any other time.

We are not yet at the bottom of the sinkhole.  Here posts an American who doesn't want to waste money and resources caring for someone who is going to die anyway.

Instead of looking for treatments for cancers, this group of people will be looking for ways to alleviate their discomfort and divvying up their clothes.

Cogito ergo sum.

"I think, therefore I am."  The metaphysical and moral question of when an organism is a human life with attendent basic rights is different from the biological question of when "life" begins.  The best answer I've come up with is that the proverbial light bulb has to turn on.  The capacity for human thought distinguishes us from other animals, and that's what justifies fundamental rights that apply to humans but not to other animals.

But don't turn this into an abortion debate.  That wasn't the point of my post.  The point was that there are unintended consequences of supporting liberal abortion laws, and those unintended consequences provide a rationale for restricting abortion that goes beyond the debate over when life begins.

No abortion debate.

But I think you'd be hard pressed to prove that an unborn child at 12 weeks, or 29 weeks, or even a live birth at 1 month has consciousness, awareness of self or independent thought.

Which considering what what we pee away on medicaid and medicare doesn't seem to be much of a reason.  After all the guvmint has sign up drives on Kiddie Care, an extension of medicaid.

My understanding is that he still breathes on his own.

And you don't find it even a little appalling that this child's life was opened up to some sort of crap shoot where his parents had to beg for his continued existence to a randomly chosen judge... or where the people charged with treating him or at least ameliorating his treatable symptoms were hellbent on killing him?

In older times people died of a lot of things and they died quicker without treatment than they do today with treatment.

If we take this argument at face value then really what is the purpose of chemotherapy in the case of say pancreatic cancer where the survival rate is virtually nil? Why let those people with emphysema lug that oxygen bottle around?

Sorry, I don't care to live in a society that places that value on life.

What difference does that make? Note this from the article:

a conscious child with sensory awareness and assumed normal cognition and no reliable evidence of any significant brain damage

So what difference does it make if the breathing is assisted or not? We're talking about a human being with a fully functional brain whose doctors want to kill him. Their excuse hinges on quality of life issues, and I believe that Stephen Hawking has proved that a profoundly disabled person can still have a life worth living.

While I understand that you are in what I think is the right place on this, I want to point out a speck in your eye:

...and I believe that Stephen Hawking has proved that a profoundly disabled person can still have a life worth living.

The phrase "a life worth living" is redundant.  Accepting the use of that phrase is the trickle that breeches the levee.

All lives are worth living.  I do not accept the notion that anyone has the right to make a contrary determination for someone else.  Neither do I accept the idea that a person should be forced to go on living if they don't desire it, but I'd rather society err on the side of compelling someone to live rather than aiding in their death.

How many choose suicide or palliacide, are saved from it, and are later thankful?

with this:

The phrase "a life worth living" is redundant.

I would just say that "life worth living" is the phrase use in the article, and that my boss was walking into my cubicle as I typed that, so I had to post without proofreading.

I'm with you here as well:

I do not accept the notion that anyone has the right to make a contrary determination for someone else.  Neither do I accept the idea that a person should be forced to go on living if they don't desire it.

And you don't find it even a little appalling that this child's life was opened up to some sort of crap shoot where his parents had to beg for his continued existence to a randomly chosen judge

Who better than a judge to decide this? If you have laws protecting life, you have cases at the margins that need clarification, and that's what judges do. In this case, it turns out that this child, despite his woeful condition, has the same legal claim on life as the healthiest baby born. Isn't that what you would want?

Sorry, I don't care to live in a society that places that value on life.

Fortunately, you live in a society where we do go to heroic measures to treat patients in the end stages of cancer, we do give emphysema sufferers oxygen tanks and we affirm the worth of this child's life. As a society we don't value human life enough, but doesn't this case show how much we do value it?

because the child would have already been dead.  The only available ventilator 50 years ago was the iron lung and living at home with one of those was simply out of the question.

We are not all of a sudden treating death more cavalierly than we were in the past.  Medical technology is forcing us to make decisions that we simply didn't have to make in the past because we were incapable of extending life to the point where these types of decisions needed to be made.  The Terri Schiavo case is another instance of just this type of cunundrum.

And to pretend this type of thing doesn't happen in the U.S. is just ridiculous.  Insurance companies make these types of decisions every day when they refuse to cover a treatment or inform the family that they have reached the maximum benefit.  And for the 45 million people in this country have no insurance at all, their choice is even more stark.  If they can't afford the treatment out of pocket, they have to beg for charity or die.  

Complain about "socialized" medicine in Europe and Canada all you want.  But for all its faults, they achieve, at considerably less cost, with equal or better objective results than the U.S., something that this country doesn't even come close to doing.  Every single person who lives in Canada and Western Europe doesn't have to worry about paying for adequate medical care or losing their medical coverage if they lose their job.

and I am so glad that I aint in the parents shoes.

But eventually you have to draw a line somewhere for we live in a world of limited resources and greater needs.

I don't have a clue, and I don't think its morally right to say a human life is worth X amount.  For human worth is for more than money and cents, tell me how much a smile is worth, tell me how much a sunset is worth.  I do know that while we can not put a value on the smile, we can put a value on the cost associated with the creation of that smile, the cost associated with the creation of that sunset, the cost associated with continuing his baby's life/saving it for what life it has left.  This cost is what resources we gave up to save the child life, and the oppurtunity cost is where we could have spent the money somewhere else.

Eventually we are going to have to balance this undeterminable human worth with the human cost.  Would it be morally right to spend 1 billion dollars on this child to save its life six months or a year (that number is purposefully outrageous) when that 1 billion can be spent on something else?  Is it morally right for us to spend 720,000 dollars on this child so it can live another six months (assuming six months life expectancy since most SMA I children die before age 2 and its 18 months already.  The cost per day of a ICU with ventilator is about 4000 dollars per day in the US, I have no clue how much its costs in the UK.  6*30*4000=720,000 dollars).

I don't have the answer to this question I don't have the answer when society should draw the line.    I am glad though the parents made the decision instead of the doctors, for in my heart it makes more sense of the parents deciding their child fate instead of doctors.  But all hard decisions are balancing points, eventually you have to make a choice and deal with oppurtunity cost.  Eventually you have to give society some input in the decision since society is footing the bill.

I've never heard of a case where a hospital has taken someone off a ventilator or other life support "because their life insurance has run out." I think you may want to revisit your facts on that.

I think what might be more the reality is that patients and families can be driven into bankruptcy when their insurance benefits run out and they still need expensive care.

That is a problem but it is very different than saying that hospitals euthanize people when their insurance runs out.

It doesn't matter in this case, because the child is indeed enjoying a genuine quality of life. But as a general principle, artificial respiration is an extraordinary life-preserving measure; and therefore, in some cases, it may be reasonable to withhold it.

I am reminded of that child a few months ago who suffered from an extreme form of dwarfism whereby the supplying of artificial respiration to sustain the child's life would only come at the cost of continually increased discomfort and pain---and even that would eventually fail to be sufficient. In that case I think an honest defense of the withholding of life support could be credibly made.

I know it's really easy to claim the moral high ground by arguing that everything possible should be done to keep someone alive, with no exceptions. But heck, even the Catholic Church doesn't believe that.

I never said I wanted to kill this child for if we deny the continued forced ventilation of the baby it will die.  I was just pointing out there is costs associated with the decision, and like it or not you are making a decision where you are weight the value of human life vs the costs.  I don't know which way the see saw should land, I don't where to place the fulcrum, but to pretend that the see saw doesn't exist is to purposefully place your head in the sand because you don't like the decision.

I pointed out that there is a cost associated with continuing the child's life. This money can be spent on ventilation could have instead been put into cancer research, feeding the poor, investing in businessess that thus increase productivity which eventually gives society more money, etc.  That money could go to alot of places, that in the end can save lives or kill them.  Eventually we have to make an economic trade off, eventually we have to balance our personal system of ethics with economics.

The world isn't pretty and its full of hard decisions!

an unelected, unaccountable judge to decide a matter that has no business being in court to begin with. Yeah, buddy. That is the ticket.

No that isn't what I want. I fail to see why anyone, parents or otherwise, can vote to end this child's life, or the life of any other child. However, if we take a step on that hellbound escalator as agree that children can be killed because they are no longer convenient or that their medical care costs too much, then neither doctors nor judges should be involved.

As to your latter statement, all I can say is Huh? It doesn't make sense.

I know what kind of a society I live in. Fortunately it is not yet one in which the infirm and feeble are offed as a matter of policy. We crossed that Rubicon with the unwanted and inconvenient in 1973 and somehow we've managed to hold a line.

Actually this case shows how little life is worth. If that judge had a crappy breakfast or a terrible commute that kid could very well be dead. The doctors who tried to kill this youngster are still allowed to practice what passes for medicine in their hospital.

So no, I don't feel thankful at all nor do I feel sanguine about the future.

The penultimate example of the wages of making those kinds of equations; the Nazis knew to the pfennig the value and cost of a concentration camp prisoner.

It isn't a slippery slope if we simply resolve never to step over the edge and start down it.

horsepuckey.

If they can't afford the treatment out of pocket, they have to beg for charity or die.  

News flash here. It apparently escaped your notice that a hospital cannot refuse care because of inability to pay.

Yeah, socialized medicine is really wonderful. It also escaped your notice that this is where this little flashback to Auschwitz took place, in a country with socialized medicine.

and I can only think of the old saying about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Giordi LaForge was stranded on a planet with a Romulan, and they were forced to cooperate to survive. In one scene, the Romulan asks Giordi how he became blind:

Giordi: I was born that way.

Romulan (incredulous): And they let you live?

Sadly, it appears that the Star Trek writers were naive enough to have the roles reversed in that exchange.

We already live in a society where defective babies are not allowed to live, if the defect is detected before birth. I remember reading about a mother of a Down's syndrome child who was repeatedly asked that same incredulous question: You knew about her Down's before birth, and you let her live?

Apparently these doctors believe it is time to take that next logical step, to emulate that Romulan society, and start terminating defective babies after birth.

Appalling.

...of this issue but evoking Star Trek: TNG has to be commended. :-)

Who better than an unelected, unaccountable judge to decide a matter that has no business being in court to begin with.

I fail to see why anyone, parents or otherwise, can vote to end this child's life, or the life of any other child.

 Well, this is another great opportunity to discuss preferred policy.

 Personally, I'd have trouble supporting a policy that says a medical institution must continue providing care to any patient whose legal guardian demands it insofar as the government (and by extension, all taxpayers) continues to cover the costs directly or indirectly - it puts the spigot of public funds into the hands of relatively few people who I don't believe should be given the final say in every case. So the next logical step for someone working from that starting point is to ask what the proper process should be to render a decision in those borderline cases where evidently the hospital believes care is futile and unethical but guardians ask that it be continued indefinitely.

 What I gather from your reaction to the commentor is that there never should have even been a discussion at all - the parents wanted continued care and, even if they hadn't, that's what the child should have been given, regardless of any cost or any measure required by the hospital in sustaining the life. And the rest of us should just be very happy that we get to help pay for this. Isn't that idea part and parcel of the socialized medicine movement?  

 Further, how can we justify spending such sums of money on these few individuals in order that they recieve the best possible life extending care, while other persons may be unable to opt for the best possible care they could receive were the same funding offered to them?

 Now, IMO there is no good reason for a hospital to discontinue services when the patient/guardian is capable of paying for it themselves (or can raise funds through voluntary donation/charity, of which I'm certain there is plenty of willingness to give for cases such as this). But I forsee an interesting quasi-parallel to the objecting-pharmacist issue: what happens when the primary physician decides that they cannot support continued care of the patient on personal moral/ethical grounds and withdraws their efforts? Should we force them to continue providing (possibly tax-payer funded) care or should the physician/hospital merely refer the patient to another facility and/or provider and send them off?

 All in all, it's easy to feel terrible for these parents and for the child, as it is to understand their desire to spend as much time with their child as they possibly can. But it's evidently much more difficult to agree how the situation should have been handled.

 So the next time this scenario gets rolling, how would you rather see it unfold, as opposed to what happened in this case? Unlimited funding for those that petition for an indefinitely extended life?

...my grandmother has been very sick for several years. She suffers severe depression and most days just stays in bed. She was hospitalized last year and the doctor didn't even want to treat her for the conditions for which she was admitted.

My mother, also an RN, was enraged! Yes, her quality of life isn't what we prefer for ourselves, but she said herself that she didn't want to die! But this arrogant son of a you know what doctor thought he knew so much more that he should just let her die?!?!?!?!

It makes me sick. Thankfully my grandmother is still alive, and every once in awhile makes it to a family function, sits up, talks with us and visits. It's wonderful. She's still a human being after all.

So are you, or are you not, saying that unlimited sums of money should be spent to save and sustain a person's life if the medical expertise is present to do so? No matter how extraordinary the life-support measures may be?

Certainly, if someone is willing and able to foot their own bill, or the bill for their loved one, that's an easy yes.

But when their money runs out, does the responsibility fall to the state? So we are indeed, then, forcing a level of socialism onto our medical care system? Maybe we need to, I just want to make sure that the consequences of the principle are clear.

And what if it's not clear that the treament is life-preserving; i.e., because it is experimental and its efficacy is not yet known... does the state pick up that tab too?

I just want to make sure I understand where you are. I know it is easy to say we should never step onto the slippery slope. But I'm not so sure there is a plateau here; we're on the slope whether we want to be or not. That makes our job that much harder, indeed---to hold on tight and fight our way up the slope---but it just doesn't seem true to me that we can avoid it.

Where does the line between a cynic, a pessismist, pragmatic, and optimist begin and where does it end?  Is a person one of them in entirety or can they be more than one at the same time?

For me decisions such as this is always the hardest before you make the decision, when you are considering the thousands of possibilities.  After the decision is made I feel better and I don't fret on what could have been.  You make the world not the other way around, destiny is something you create not that you are a slave too.  We make our own providence, we make our own path to the god we are trying to find.  Hope is the lamp post that lights our path.

did their dirty deeds.

It's this fake compassion, the idea that euthanizing somebody is for the best, because it is putting them out of their misery etc.

Hospitals can refuse care, they just can't refuse emergency care by federal law.

Additionally hospitals can refuse care if the care will not produce any benefit.

have been so described and I don't think a cynic would of philosophical necessity support killing a living child.

As to decisions, I recently had to put down my dog, a companion of 11 years, I still don't know whether I did the right thing for her. I can't imagine doing that to my child. I futher can't imagine not being wracked by guilt for having made that decision for the rest of my life.

if anything this statement means.

If you are stating that a patient in a hospital can be evicted from the hospital because of non-payment then you are simply and grotesquely wrong.

If that isn't what you're talking about then it is a non sequitur.

As I said I could never imagine me actually making this decision and I am so glad I aint in the parents shoes (I also couldn't be in the doctors shoes).  It isn't any easy choice and it isn't going to go away after you make it.

Seems to me you say "After the decision is made I feel better and I don't fret on what could have been."

I've searched on google news, and nowhere do the doctors (who presumably know better than us what resources they have) argue that MB's conditions presents an unbearable (or great or even noticable) drain on resources, so I don't see why this argument is relevant here.

 What is worrying is that the doctors' argument reduces to a purely "quality of life" case, given the doctors do not know how much the baby was actually suffering (unlike, say, the case of Charlotte Wyatt).

P.S. If we follow Ramza's links, we can see that even in the Habtegris case, there appears to be no financial aspect to the case.

P.P.S. the reactions in BBC's Have your say are very interesting.

Though I think its safe to say in this type of situation isn't an normal situation.  Things like this just don't leave you, they stay with you till the day you die.

I was refering to see my above post that was a response to Trelaina.

It isn't a non sequitur

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00001395--dd000
-.html

Two highlights, the EMTALA pretty much says that hospitals can't deny treatment of an "emergency medical condition" when the treatment is needed to "stablize" the patient, regardless of factors such as inability to pay, race, etc.

It defines emergency medical condition as follows

(1) The term "emergency medical condition" means--

(A) a medical condition manifesting itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity (including severe pain) such that the absence of immediate medical attention could reasonably be expected to result in--

(i) placing the health of the individual (or, with respect to a pregnant woman, the health of the woman or her unborn child) in serious jeopardy,

(ii) serious impairment to bodily functions, or

(iii) serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part; or

(B) with respect to a pregnant woman who is having contractions--

(i) that there is inadequate time to effect a safe transfer to another hospital before delivery, or

(ii) that transfer may pose a threat to the health or safety of the woman or the unborn child.

Emergency pretty much definines time frame and has very little do so with severity.  Is it an imminent threat or is it a grave threat.  EMTALA only deals with imminent threats that can cause severe damage to a person health as its define.

Stabilize has this definition

(3)

(A) The term "to stabilize" means, with respect to an emergency medical condition described in paragraph (1)(A), to provide such medical treatment of the condition as may be necessary to assure, within reasonable medical probability, that no material deterioration of the condition is likely to result from or occur during the transfer of the individual from a facility, or, with respect to an emergency medical condition described in paragraph (1)(B), to deliver (including the placenta).

(B) The term "stabilized" means, with respect to an emergency medical condition described in paragraph (1)(A), that no material deterioration of the condition is likely, within reasonable medical probability, to result from or occur during the transfer of the individual from a facility, or, with respect to an emergency medical condition described in paragraph (1)(B), that the woman has delivered (including the placenta).

Becauses of these two definitions the hospital only has to provide emergency care, where any delay will result in a worsening health condition.  Certain things such as cancers, colds, or removing from ventilators if there is little or no more medical science can do, are not protected by law and thus can be decided based on the hospital, and thus is determined by the hospital's generosity, if the patient and the insurance can't pay.

Note I aint calling for socialized medicine just pointing out what our current system does.  Each state though is different and has additional laws and regulations.

My father-in-law has been an ER doctor for over 20 years (I don't know how he continues to put up with the crazy hours, but he still likes the job). They treat EVERYONE who walks into the ER. He has treated many a person with the common cold who has come in (knowing that they don't have insurance and the hospital will be eating the cost). Happens all the time. No one is denied care. I repeat, no one is denied care.

Emergency Room Closures Strain L.A.

Los Angeles County allows an overcrowded emergency room to close its doors to additional paramedic transports, a procedure known as "diversion."

Sounds like ER policy in LA is like U.S. Cuban immigration policy: if you make it in the door, they'll treat you, but they can and do stop you from making it in.

Source (pdf file)

Ramza was asking about though. Those ER rooms are closing precisely because of people being treated for non-emergency things at the ER. It costs a lot more to get checked out for the flu in an ER room than going to a clinic or regular doctor, but those 2 options require payment before treatment, ERs don't. The Hospital then eats the cost or rather disperses the cost to all the other patients (which adds to the ER being so expensive). Side note: my Father-in-law notes that most people who come in for non-emergency services tend to be hispanic (not saying legal or illegal, but most can't speak a word of english). You get to a point though, enough people come in and don't pay, the hospital/ER will close its doors.

that's not refusing treatment, that's routing people to a less crowded ER during transport (ambulance rides).

...who might not survive the longer ride.

But it is fair to say that diversion is not without risk to life and/or health. Nor for that matter is the closure of ERs.

The larger point being that anyone who says we don't assign monetary value to human life on a regular basis is fooling themselves.

Unlimited funding for those that petition for an indefinitely extended life?

YES. END.OF.STORY.

Nothing personal, but when we start dryly discussing life as another item on the budget, it makes me sick to my stomach. Humanity has been down this road before, with horrific consequences. Don't we ever learn?

We are not, as you put it, "dryly discussing life as another item on the budget." We are rather acknowledging the reality, whether you like it or not, that mankind does not place an infinite value on life. Nobody does, nobody ever has. And that includes you.

In 2002, in the heart disease took 700,000 lives in the US. Cancer took 560,000 lives. Stroke took 162,672 lives. Accidents took 106,000 lives. Diabetes took 73,000 lives. The flu took 65,681 lives. And so on, and so on. (Not to mention abortion!)

Why aren't we spending every last dime we have finding better treatments and cures for these diseases? Since you are obviously willing to dip into the public's pocketbook for the sake of keeping someone on life support indefinitely, then clearly you place limits on people's personal freedom. Therefore, are you willing to ban cigarettes? Force car manufacturers to install speed governors on cars? Pay for every person in the country to receive a flu shot?

So it's not a matter of going down that road; we are on the road, and it's a matter of deciding how far. It's not a matter of stepping onto a slippery slope; we're on it, and there is no plateau.

The corner cases are real, they matter, and they bear discussing. That the Brits here have clearly gone way too far with this doesn't change that.

Would it be morally right to spend 1 billion dollars on this child to save its life six months or a year (that number is purposefully outrageous) when that 1 billion can be spent on something else?

That would depend on what the "something else" is.

Eventually you have to give society some input in the decision since society is footing the bill.

There, IMHO, lies the whole problem.