Compare, and contrast
Jan. 4th, 2006 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumTerri Schiavo
Tirhas Habtegiris
Never heard of the latter? I hadn't either untilpnh pointed at Ezra Klein about her.
Th nut of the argument is this, from the Slate column of Steven Landsburg, who seems to be a sad excuse for a human being (in that his definition of compassion doesn't rise to the level I would call adequate. His lack of empathy... there's that word again It's been bubbling in my head for a couple of days now... I'll have something to say about it in a bit, is revolting).
Here, if you don't want to read the whole thing, in all it's putrid wonder, is the nut, "Tirhas Habtegiris, a 27-year-old terminal cancer patient at Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano, Texas, was removed from her ventilator last month because she couldn't pay her medical bills. The hospital gave Ms. Habtegiris' family 10 days' notice, and then, with the bills still unpaid, withdrew her life support on the 11th day. It took Ms. Habtegiris about 15 minutes to die.
Bloggers, most prominently "YucatanMan" at Daily Kos, are appalled because "economic considerations," as opposed to what the bloggers call "compassion," drove the decision to unplug Ms. Habtegiris. I conclude that YucatanMan either doesn't understand what an economic consideration is or doesn't understand what compassion is, because in fact the two are not in conflict....
Now let me remind you what "compassion" means. According to Merriam-Webster Online (which, by virtue of being online, really ought to be easily accessible to bloggers), compassion is the "sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it." By that definition, there is nothing particularly compassionate about giving ventilator insurance to a person who really feels a more urgent need for milk or eggs. One might even say that choosing to ignore the major sources of others' distress is precisely the opposite of sympathetic consciousness.
There is room for a great deal of disagreement about how much assistance rich people should give to poor people, either voluntarily or through the tax system. But surely whatever we do spend should be spent in the ways that are most helpful.
Therefore there's no use arguing that the real tradeoff should not be ventilators versus milk but ventilators versus tax cuts, or ventilators versus foreign wars. It's one thing to say we should spend more to help the poor, but quite another to say that what we're currently spending should be spent ineffectively."
A real person died here. I don't know how aware she was, but this wasn't trivial... she drowned. That's a horrible way to go and his justification for it was that, if you asked her before she got sick, what she'd want to spend an extra $75 on (for a specious, a la carte, "ventilator insurance.") she deserved to die.
Tirhas Habtegris would probably have taken the cash. Then she'd have gotten sick and regretted her decision. And then we as a society would have been in exactly the same position we were in last weekâdeciding whether to foot the bill to keep Ms. Habtegris alive a little longer.
So there you have his idea of compassion, if they didn't plan for their economic disaster, fuck 'em.
Tirhas Habtegiris
Never heard of the latter? I hadn't either until
pnh pointed at Ezra Klein about her.Th nut of the argument is this, from the Slate column of Steven Landsburg, who seems to be a sad excuse for a human being (in that his definition of compassion doesn't rise to the level I would call adequate. His lack of empathy... there's that word again It's been bubbling in my head for a couple of days now... I'll have something to say about it in a bit, is revolting).
Here, if you don't want to read the whole thing, in all it's putrid wonder, is the nut, "Tirhas Habtegiris, a 27-year-old terminal cancer patient at Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano, Texas, was removed from her ventilator last month because she couldn't pay her medical bills. The hospital gave Ms. Habtegiris' family 10 days' notice, and then, with the bills still unpaid, withdrew her life support on the 11th day. It took Ms. Habtegiris about 15 minutes to die.
Bloggers, most prominently "YucatanMan" at Daily Kos, are appalled because "economic considerations," as opposed to what the bloggers call "compassion," drove the decision to unplug Ms. Habtegiris. I conclude that YucatanMan either doesn't understand what an economic consideration is or doesn't understand what compassion is, because in fact the two are not in conflict....
Now let me remind you what "compassion" means. According to Merriam-Webster Online (which, by virtue of being online, really ought to be easily accessible to bloggers), compassion is the "sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it." By that definition, there is nothing particularly compassionate about giving ventilator insurance to a person who really feels a more urgent need for milk or eggs. One might even say that choosing to ignore the major sources of others' distress is precisely the opposite of sympathetic consciousness.
There is room for a great deal of disagreement about how much assistance rich people should give to poor people, either voluntarily or through the tax system. But surely whatever we do spend should be spent in the ways that are most helpful.
Therefore there's no use arguing that the real tradeoff should not be ventilators versus milk but ventilators versus tax cuts, or ventilators versus foreign wars. It's one thing to say we should spend more to help the poor, but quite another to say that what we're currently spending should be spent ineffectively."
A real person died here. I don't know how aware she was, but this wasn't trivial... she drowned. That's a horrible way to go and his justification for it was that, if you asked her before she got sick, what she'd want to spend an extra $75 on (for a specious, a la carte, "ventilator insurance.") she deserved to die.
Tirhas Habtegris would probably have taken the cash. Then she'd have gotten sick and regretted her decision. And then we as a society would have been in exactly the same position we were in last weekâdeciding whether to foot the bill to keep Ms. Habtegris alive a little longer.
So there you have his idea of compassion, if they didn't plan for their economic disaster, fuck 'em.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 07:14 am (UTC)Also note that at least twelve transfers out of the hospital were considered. There are other minituæ not discussed here, about the use of the ventilator/respirator...the most important being the partial pressure of oxygen required to prevent asphyxiation.
I've been on a respirator before. And came very close to asphyxiating at 1 atm oxygen. A respirator will not keep a patient alive if some process is going to punch massively parallel holes in the alveoli. Intuitively, cancer metastatized to the lungs could do this. A partial pressure of oxygen above 0.5 atmospheres will do this eventually. Then the lungs are burning up faster than they can heal; it's very much an emergency move, you're hoping that the rest of the body will improve before the lungs collapse.
Annoyingly, Lundsberg's can't argue his own argument. It is most definitely possible, in the U.S., to obtain a major medical policy with a suitable huge deduction, without an employer. When I did the price quotes at a $5,000 deductible, it came in under $50/month.
Thing is, I shouldn't have known this — dumb luck/synchronicity/providence/etc. intervened. And anyone who doesn't know this, or know to look for this, doesn't have that choice.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 07:35 am (UTC)And that she was doomed, nor that she was awake and aware when the plug was pulled isn't the argument. The argument is that only those with money and foresight ought to live when they are that ill.
Which is reprehensible.
TK
no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 08:28 am (UTC)And if the diagnosis was correctly described as terminal and not even palliatively treatable, Texas legislators collectively are even more reprehensible: they voted that no one, even those with foresight and money, should live when they are that ill. That law is there specifically to cut off treatment for the insured.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-08 01:00 am (UTC)