Life Question #4:

If a new medicine were developed that would cure arthritis but cause a fatal reaction in 0.1% of those who took it, would you want it to be released to the public?

Heck no!  As tempting as it would be to rid the world of arthritis, I don’t think it’s ethical to knowingly release medication that would certainly kill a set amount of people.  In some ways it’s a shame because arthritis affects one in five American adults. My own mom struggles with arthritis (she’s only 55, so it’s probably going to get worse), and I’ve seen pain and discomfort she deals with.  As a young person who has no serious health problems, it’s hard to imagine having pain in my hands and wrists.  I do have what’s known as Raynaud ’s phenomenon, a condition in which my hands are super cold due to a lack of blood flow.  So in some ways I can understand the discomfort that could be associated with early onset arthritis.  Regardless, I can’t imagine having 50,000 people die because of this medication. 

Life Question #2:

If you ran a hospital, what policy would you set for dealing with emergency patients who arrive without health insurance?

*Note:  This is one of the posts I will be making entitled "Life Questions".  Generally, these posts will be shorter than my regular posts.  These questions come from a book I have entitled The Book of Questions.  See it here.  The sole purpose of this book and my blog is to stimulate conversation.  Please feel free to write your comments in the section below, however short or long you'd like!  

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I would treat the patients because it is both my ethical and legal duty to do so.  A federal law passed in 1986 to prohibit a practice commonly known as "patient dumping" gives you the right to emergency care regardless of your ability to pay. The federal law applies to hospitals that participate in Medicare -- and that includes most hospitals in the United States. The federal patient-dumping law entitles you to do three things: screening, emergency care and appropriate transfers. A hospital must provide "stabilizing care" for a patient with an emergency medical condition. 

Although they dropped the idea of a single-payer system, the Obama Administration’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act goes far in helping those who are uninsured.  Now, the real issue with our health care system is its unbelievable cost.  Hopefully, future legislation can help to incentivize healthy life styles (the First Lady has tried to help move this along) and reduce health care costs. 

Government Doesn't Ruin Health Care (or your country)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/a-larger-welfare-state-can-mean-a-lower-deficit/2011/08/25/gIQAkL9ufO_blog.html

Most people believe that two things are proportional: the welfare state and deficits.  Is this true?

Not necessarily.  This is a classic example of oversimplification.  For example, Germany has a fairly large welfare state including pensions, health care, paid vacations and unemployment benefits. According to Ezra Klein, columnist for the Washington Post and his popular Wonkblog, Germany spends 25.2 percent of their GDP on the items listed above.  Greece spends 21.3 percent on the previously mentioned items. Yet, Germany has one of the strongest economies in the world (the strongest in Europe) and Greece is on the brink of default. 

Let’s think about this in the context of health care spending.  Look at the chart above.  In 1965, the cost of the U.S. and Canadian health care system was essentially the same.  Canada spent 5.9 percent of its GDP on health care.  The U.S. spent 5.7 percent. At that time, Canada was transitioning to its “socialized” system of health care – its single payer system. Over the course of the next four decades the cost of health care in the U.S. skyrocketed.  By 2009, Canada was spending 11 percent of its GDP on health care – and covering everyone.  The United States was spending 17.4 percent of its GDP and leaving 45 million uninsured.  That’s incredibly inefficient, resulting in the U.S. spending about $3,600 more per person, per year, than Canada. 

Critics of “socialized medicine” claim that it will bring larger deficits to the U.S.  If this were the case, wouldn’t Canada have bigger deficits than they do now?  They have a larger welfare state.  Clearly, this logic breaks down when one analyzes the data.