Prostitutes for the Disabled, the Benefits of Palliative Care, and Whooping Cough is Back
UK is way ahead of U.S. on allowing the elderly and the disabled more control over their health care money: “Exotic holidays, internet dating subscriptions and adventure breaks, as well as visits to sex workers and lap dancing clubs have been permitted under the system.”
Palliative care adds 3 months of life for terminal lung cancer patients. Also, there is more happiness and mobility and less pain.
An eye for an eye: A Saudi judge has asked several hospitals in the country whether they could damage a man’s spinal cord as punishment after he was convicted of attacking another man with a cleaver and paralyzing him.
This is the Cost of Government Day: The average American has now earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of this year’s spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government at the federal, state, and local levels.
Whooping cough is back. “Highly contagious, spread by coughs and sneezes, pertussis is now epidemic in California.”
Hey guys, which of you is going to say the palliative care study is just another government effort to ration care and impose death panels.
It’s strange that Britain, the home of one of the world’s most famous instances of socialized medicine, is one of the countries on the leading edge of epowering patients (at least some patients) and letting them do whatever they want to do with their health care money.
Lap dancing? Prostitutes? You’re applauding this?
It’s hard for me to believe that in the 21st century a judge can get away with even considering something so barbaric.
Hey guys, when will artk say that because of the study everyone should be forced into pallative care becasue it is better and other choices options and control of our healthcare dollars should be suppressed by government intervention and control.
Vicki, not exactly. But what we should applaud is the idea of allowing people to freely choose between health care and other uses of money. Think how different this approach is from the one that says you shouldn’t have any choices because big brother knows what is good for you.
When I first saw the story about the Saudi judge, I thought it was a joke. But it appears to be serious. Unbelievable.
When you stop to think about it, if you really wanted eye-for-an-eye justice, you would need the medical profession in on almost every case involving personal injury.
For example, retribution for a black eye would have to be carried out very carefully (not too little, not too much) in order to exact the appropriate revenge. And who but trained doctors would be able to do that sort of thing?
Who would have guessed that sitting back and forgoing aggressive treatment could add several months to a lung cancer patient’s life? The cost per life year saved using cutting edge cancer therapies might reach $250,000! This suggests that some of the aggressive therapies are nearly as bad on a smoker’s health as the cancer itself.
Everyone in the lung cancer study received standard oncologic care. In addition, some received “early palliative care.” The median survival length was 11.6 months versus 8.9 months.
So, at first glance this study suggests that more care equals longer life.
It’s ironic that here in the United States, we’ll take a criminal that’s botched an attempt to commit suicide following a massive church/stadium/college/military base shooting and spend millions of dollars bringing him back to life only to spend millions more trying to kill him via death row.
The Saudi’s just skip all of that. Frankly, I’m shocked they even called a hospital.