Possibly, but not in this case.

Rather, making a claim to government health care means spending OPM that therefore becomes unavailable for other health needs--its a zero-sum game.

The finite health care resources means there will always be a need to ration health care, which is the real cause here.

Exactly. They must be zeroed out in your favor, like your wife should she become a burden.

Yeah, if we don't let Granny starve, we'll fall behind on all those erectile dysfunction, breast reduction and transgender treatments. Not to mention the counseling. Can you imagine where we'd be without the counselling?

OJ:

Regarding the comment about my wife, we have already established you are a filthy liar.

Now you are a serial filthy liar.

Peter:

Do you mean to say that if we were to eliminate all those things to which you object, there would be no need to ration health care?

Your sarcasm serves, like OJ's misdirection, to obscure the point at hand here.

Gee, Jeff, you always pride yourself on how utilitarianism yields perfectly good ethics for you, so: How much of the ration is she worth in your zero sum game? What's your wife's utility?

OJ:

I don't have time for liars or silly ad hominems.

Nor any coherent way to defend your amorality. Your sense of shame becomes you.

Jeff:

You seem to be having a harder and harder time posting without accusing those who disagree with you of lying. Pressure of work?

You may not like it, but your first post above is pure, 100% utilitarian eugenics. A lot of people around here aren't too big on eugenics. Bad eugenics!

Jeff:

If you believe rationing is "rational", then do (will) you trust the rationers? Explicitly and immediately and comprehensively?

jim:

Not only that, he believes there's a limit to his wife's ration.

The comment thread sure is lively, considering that the issue has already been resolved.
Private insurers cap the amount that they'll pay for any one patient.
State Medicaid funds are finite, and once they're gone, the patient waits for the next fiscal year.
Canada is the same way. The patient may preserve her "right" to treatment, but just because she hasn't been denied access doesn't mean that she'll receive treatment.
Which also means, of course, that Peter B has no reason whatsoever for sarcasm. His society and government already ration healthcare, but only for the poor.
Good job, Canada.

The issue is not what any of us would give up for our loved ones, but what we would give up for someone else's loved ones.

jim hamlen:

If you believe rationing is "rational", then do (will) you trust the rationers? Explicitly and immediately and comprehensively?

No need to do that. Challenges like this should be allowed, even if we were more rational about spending health care resources.
In fact, challenges like this would be essential to keep the system vital.

What rationing would do is let the patient know up front what won't be covered.

oj:

Not only that, [Jeff Guinn] believes there's a limit to his wife's ration.

Mainly because there is, as there is for most of us.

Michael:

Not in America there isn't.

The problem is that utility and convenience are always going to trump any other long-term care alternatives.

Michael: the problem with the 'up front' part is that the goal posts will keep changing, until we start treating our elderly shut-ins the way the French did a couple of years ago.

Michael:

You are missing the point, which is not the self-evident and ultimately banal one that there are only so many doctors and facilities at any one time and that choices must be made on priorities. If there are one doctor and two emergencies in a remote area, a tough and even heart-rending choice must be made. Always was, always will be.

The point here is that the medical profession wants complete control over such decisions in advance (rational planning). They want to ordain who has priority based upon modernist ideals (faith) of what is and is not a "life worth living". In their dreamworld, this would all be decided, not in response to actual exigencies as they occur, but in advance according to general policy and bureaucratic stricture. This means making general across-the-board judgments on what kinds of lives are more worthy---(i.e. playing God), and you can bet your last dollar that, whatever route they take, they will eventually arrive at the dependant and voiceless.

Canada is not anywhere near that yet, but that is the direction we're headed, to be sure. Maybe the U.S. will be different, but I wouldn't be all that sanguine. This is as much a function of modernist philosophy as of healthcare funding systems, and Pete Singer is not a Canadian.

oj:

Which America are you refering to ?
The mythical utopia alive in your fertile imagination ?

I do agree that some patients in America get any care they need, regardless of cost or ability to pay... But they are essentially winning a lottery. One cannot count, absolutely, on such.

Peter B:

Most of the rationing in America comes down to cost, not life quality of the patient.
When the state of Oregon started rationing their health care funds, they had a list of procedures that would not be covered, and it was based solely on a ratio of the cost of the care, against the perceived benefit to the patient.

ratbert:

[T]he problem with the 'up front' part is that the goal posts will keep changing, until we start treating our elderly shut-ins the way the French did a couple of years ago.

Unless we commit to paying much higher taxes, that is exactly what is going to happen.

Michael:

Go to the hospital and you'll get the care you need.