US breast cancer drug decision 'marks start of death panels'

[GRAY]

The FDA advisory panel Death Panel has now voted 12-1 to drop the endorsement for breast cancer treatment. The panel unusually cited "effectiveness" grounds for the decision. But it has been claimed that "cost effectiveness" was the real reason ahead of reforms in which the government will extend health insurance to the poorest.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7948878/US-breast-cancer-drug-decision-marks-start-of-death-panels.html

[NCVol]

I guess I keep hoping conservatives will just once honestly talk about health care and the choices we're going to have to make as a society.  I'll have to wait longer, it seems.

1) The story indicates the most recent studies indicate the drug has effectively no impact on longevity for breast cancer patients.  Not even a month. 
2) You must have noticed the change would affect private insurers, as well as presumably Medicare, although Medicare wasn't mentioned anywhere in the story.  Maybe you should take this up with Wellpoint, who already has a pretty extensive death panel on all kinds of procedures. 
3) Let's assume the drug extends life by TWO full months.  This is the kind of nearly impossible moral choice we'll be making more and more of in this country, or we'll go broke by paying out hundreds of thousands at the end of each of our lives.  We can pretend that funds to pay for end of life care are unlimited, and we don't have to make tough  choices, but that's ignorant and cowardly.  Instead, we'd be better off having an informed discussion about what kind of care is appropriate for a terminally ill patient. 

[Just Win]

Bottom line Gray,

the rationing will be based on the amount of future tax cash flows you can provide to Uncle Sam. If you are in your 20s and you have many future tax flows to the government ahead of you, you will get the best medical care. However, if you are in say your late 60s with a bad heart or diabetes and your time draweth nigh you simply will not get medical care. It is all about tax cash flows so you can service the debt service payment the National government must make. Once the national government controls your health care they own you lock stock and barrel.  I guess the death panels know better what treatment women need better than their attending physician. The rationing is on the way. Socialism always leads to rationing every time it is tried. 




The Dworkin's curve also known as the "Death Panel Curve" or the "PT Cruiser Death Curve"

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel's (the Obama Death Panel Czar and brother of Rhambo) infamous advocacy of death panels, under color of a "complete lives ethical system," results in a decision curve that the death panel would likely have in mind as they decide our health care rationing choices. Here is the lone figure from a recent article by Emanuel in the British journal The Lancet. It is a decision curve for the death panel, displaying their age-based priority for receiving scarce medical interventions under the complete lives system.



* We recommend an alternative system's complete lives system—which prioritises younger people who have not yet lived a complete life, and also incorporates prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value principles…

* Rather than saving the most lives, prognosis allocation aims to save the most life-years. This strategy has been used in disaster triage…

* We consider several important objections to the complete lives system.

The complete lives system discriminates against older people. Age-based allocation is ageism. Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years. Treating 65-year-olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not…

[Flummoxed Lummox]

There are NO DEATH PANELS. Period.

When you have to resort to outright fiction to support your far right, extremist positions it shows how intellectually bankrupt you are.

[GRAY]

"Instead, we'd be better off having an informed discussion about what kind of care is appropriate for a terminally ill patient."

The chilling lingo of a death panelist.

[LTC]

Do you, just blower and grey, really believe there is no rationing by the insurance industries?? Based on y'alls' posts, I believe you really are that stupid!

[GRAY]

When papaw govt starts making life or death decisions, we have reached the precipice of Nazi-ism.

[LTC]

Oh, WAIT I forgot just blowing is in this thread.....

Do you, just blower and grey, really believe there is no rationing by the insurance industries?? Based on y'alls' posts, I believe you really are that stupid!

And grey....you are a moron.....

[NCVol]

"Instead, we'd be better off having an informed discussion about what kind of care is appropriate for a terminally ill patient."

The chilling lingo of a death panelist.

No, it's really not. 

Do you believe, or not believe, that resources are limited?

Let's assume you believe that resources ARE in fact limited, then how we allocate those scarce resources has a real impact.  Resources directed to an apparently worthless drug for advanced, terminal cancer payments can either take resources away from another health care expenditure, or we have to increase taxes, in the case of Medicare, or premiums, in your case, to cover those costs.

Let's assume you have insurance with Wellpoint.  If Wellpoint decides to pay for that drug, there are two ways to pay for it.  Wellpoint can cut reimbursements for, say, treatment of diabetes or maybe hip replacements, you can pick the procedure.  OR, they can raise YOUR premiums to cover this new cost, with no impact on longevity, but a HUGE potential impact on costs which must be covered by your premiums. 

It's really ignorant and cowardly to pretend that this decision, whether to cover this ineffective treatment, doesn't, first, present a difficult moral choice, and, two, that as society we must have a conversation about this and many other treatments that balloon costs in the last six months of life. 

And JW, I've pointed out about a dozen times that your use of that graph is dishonest.  The paper deals with allocating limited resources like a liver.  There are not enough kidneys to go around, so we have to come up with some way to decide who gets that liver.  Should it be an 85 year old with an expected remaining life of a year, or a teenager, or a middle aged smoker, or a 60 year old drunk? 

Now, if you don't like the way Emmanuel came up with to allocate that liver/kidney/heart/bed in the case of natural disaster then tell us, how do YOU want to decide which member of our society gets that liver when the fact is 100 might need a liver or they'll die.  Who gets the ONE, and which 99 get denied? 

If you don't understand the question, it's best to stay off the topic, because you're revealing your ignorance, or are a liar, by peddling something that doesn't show what you pretend it shows.

[NCVol]

When papaw govt starts making life or death decisions, we have reached the precipice of Nazi-ism.

What about when papaw Wellpoint makes those decisions.  Your own article indicates it is INSURANCE companies, aka private bidnesses, who will stop covering the procedure.  Did gubment force them to?  NO.  They will do it if they do to save costs for the rest of their rate payers, and they'll have made a good choice for you if they cut costs where the huge expense has a negligible impact on longevity. 

This decision happens hundreds of times a day, in every major hospital.  What is beneficial, if there is a marginal benefit, is it worth the cost?  This IS in fact capitalism, where we make decisions about allocating scarce resources, based on cost and benefits. 

As I said, some day conservatives will at some point decide to have an honest discussion about healthcare.  I suppose for now, it serves the corporate interests to keep you guys ignorant and repeating silly talking points. 

[GRAY]

I am against THIS plan which is a thinly veiled bridge to universal coverage provided by uncle sam aka me and others who pay taxes for the deadbeats of society.

With "universal" (lmao 10 mil still won't have it), there will be fewer resources because we are going to assimilate an additional 20 mil people, some of whom choose NOT to have coverage (should they have the choice NC?) and another large % of whom are illegal aliens.  Despite democratic rhetoric to the contrary this $ will be used to cover illegals and will aslo cover abortion.  All this, in a best case scenario, is patterned after a program which you admit is 60 billion in the hole, and worst case will lead to socialized meds, an exploding IRS, and death panels deciding if Grandma can get those pills or be left to rot so some teenager can see a shrink, get an abortion or medicinal mara-hoochie. 

[Shimmy]

Yeah. Resources are limited, so let Pelosi decide who lives and dies.  It's in our best interest.