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 07:27 am (UTC)Last year, the doctors didn't let my mother leave the office before they forced a flu shot on her. [Yes, she qualifies under elderly.] While she won't outright refuse it if it is very convenient (i.e., bundled into some other doctor's appointment), she won't get one of her own accord. She refuses to both explicitly scheduling a doctor's visit for one, and using the free flu shot drives to get one.
So...I think they did "the right thing". Lundgren's empathic deficiency suggests he'd amorally disagree with that.
(My main issue with Medicare D, is not the intention — it's another example of insurance that people usually don't buy when they should, just like OASDI. But unlike OASDI, it does not appear sustainable.)