We already let people die slowly; we just don’t let they drop dead in front of us.
Plenty of people have chronic problems that go untreated. Then when things become very grave, they shop up a the hospital emergency. And after they get patched up, they’re sent away with no follow up or ongoing treatment. Eventually they show up at the emergency again.
[quote=walterwhite]I’m not sure there are local laws requiring hospitals to treat emergency cases. Maybe there are.
Doctors have independent ethical duties.
Certainly seems like a fertile ground for lawsuits when hospitals let corpses start to pile up at the emergency room door while the doctors are inside busily doing nose jobs.[/quote]
Certainly. Although one can argue the constitution does not guarantee health care. And if the individual mandate is thrown out, then the government can’t force doctors to save lives instead of working on nose jobs.
Recently a lower court just used the “corporation are people” argument in the tobacco companies’ favor. Ruling that it is against the tobacco companies’ freedom of speech to force them to place labels that warn people of cancer risks.
That carried forward, then hospitals are people too, and the government can not force someone to save someone’s life when that person has no ability to pay.
Before EMTALA their were charity hospitals that were funded by donations and volunteers that would treat people that had no ability to pay. The treatment was likely of lower quality and you couldn’t guarantee that there was one close enough that you wouldn’t die in transport, but you theoretically had access to affordable treatment.
The bottom line for in nearly every country whether it’s single payer, cash only, or what we have there’s no way to afford the best available treatment option for everybody. Ration care which is what happens in Single Payer countries or best care goes to the highest bidder China, Mexico, etc.
Insurance should cover the freak cancer case (40 and otherwise healthy) or the broken leg in a accident. Truly one off events that don’t happen all that often and for many people never happen. Insurance can’t cover the cost of just getting old. We all need to save for that.
