End of Life Care Confused by Government Healthcare

Posted: Tuesday, March 22nd, 2016

We should rightfully fear death panels. To have a group of bureaucrats decide whether it is in their (not your) best interest to give you life-saving treatment violates the sacredness of life itself. To add to this, the bad news is that, to a limited extent, we already have death panels - and the blame lies on Americans themselves, who in general have called for them long ago.

Having government pay for the healthcare of the elderly through Medicare necessitates someone other than the patient or their next of kin play a part in whether a treatment is needed or not.

Healthcare is not an unlimited resource. It costs money for the equipment, materials, and labor that others have to provide for your health. And while we have a right to pursue the happiness of being healthy (or not dying), we do not have the right to force others to give us or pay for our healthcare. It is only through government force that the elderly are able to have access to free or discounted end-of-life care.

But government-provided healthcare still does not make it an unlimited resource. This is why an approval process for all treatments is by default necessary.

Here are two anecdotal examples in my own life. I had an elderly relative near eighty years of age who needed a life-saving treatment. Her Medicare provider, for various reasons, refused to pay for this treatment. She eventually passed away, essentially at the hands of a death panel.

Another relative of similar age and circumstances decided on her own that her children should not go through the financial hardships of treating her ailment. She also passed away.

But was the latter her own death panel with her children acting as consulting board-members? In a simple way, yes. They, like the former example, considered the financial (and other) circumstances and decided that it was not worth the cost. Both panels ruled in favor of death.

I am not condoning government death panels, but they by default must exist if one chooses to have the government pay for his healthcare. And the more involved government gets in healthcare, the more power will be given to them. Unless you pay your own way, it will be something you will have to live, and die, with.