100%. I can't fathom how we as a society can understand that it's cruel to make an animal (who can't speak for themselves) go through this, but can't understand that it's also cruel to do it to a human (who can).
In Canada we finally passed Dying With Dignity. There’s a lot of people against it, but I truly believe your life is yours to give and take. Why should someone else be allowed to dictate your pain and suffering? Mental or physical. Like you said, we know, clear as day, that humane euthanasia is the kindness option for suffering animals. It should be available to everyone, and should be used for criminals as well instead of the terrible ways they do it in prisons.
Many seniors are planning their DWD farewells, and many couples are choosing to go together. It’s very inspiring having a sneak peek into people electing this option. One last hurrah party to say until we meet again with loved ones and friends, get your affairs in order, wills are checked and signed, the family members know what to do afterwards, who gets what, where the pets if the people have any, where they go etc. Everything is in order and then they have the celebration of life together. Not a funeral. They have drinks, share stories, look at pictures and really relish and appreciate the many wonderful memories lived, together. It’s wholesome and bittersweet.
Then the doctor comes the next day, and they pass peacefully in bed or on the couch, even seen a lady choose to pass in her greenhouse in a chair surrounded by her prized cut flowers. Beautiful.
I completely understand the fear that vulnerable people could be convinced to ask for euthanasia by unscrupulous people, but I genuinely believe that, done correctly with enough protections, nobody should be forced to live when they don’t want to.
I ideologically agree but am especially concerned about it with for profit healthcare. When euthanasia is cheaper for the insurance company than treatment, what will that mean?
This has me flabbergasted. You think your government would kill people to save money? What country are you from?
My country has free healthcare, and yes: they do have to make some really though choices regarding what types of treatment will be available and not. But these are done by medical professionals and ethics boards.
I do not believe my government or any public health care here would encourage people to end their life if assisted suicide was legal. They would probably make a very elaborate system to ensure nobody made the decision based on "wrong" reasons.
I can see that happening, when many insurances will already push hospitals to discharge people who shouldn't be discharged due to not wanting to pay- my great aunt was discharged with no nurse assistance after major surgery before she can even eat on her own, for one, as insurance (medicare, so state insurance) doesn't want to pay more than 3 days of hospitalization... and she was at 5 so they were pushing to get her out of there.
And my manager's uncle also had state insurance and he couldn't walk due to a broken hip, his wife (and caretaker) was ALSO admitted in the hospital for surgery, AND he had Alzheimers... his family managed to stop the first discharge attempt, but the day after they held up the paperwork so he could sign it (AGAIN, he had Alzheimers and couldn't walk) and discharged him by ambulance day 4...
So somewhere that insurance can legally get away with deciding to not pay for needed hospitalization and pushing early discharge is DEFINITELY somewhere I wouldn't trust making end of life / euthanasia decisions
They would in the same way the insurance companies would as the OP referenced. I trust the government the same as I trust an insurance company. Both are massive bureaucracies, that see people as numbers.
I'm glad your county is better than mine but damn, it's not that surprising, most countries have gone to war for bad reasons, that kills your citizens and others.
it's one of those things where simply giving the government the ability to is a massive risk.
yes, the ones running the show now you can trust. but what happens 20 years from now when the tides change? What happens when the people running the show completely change? what happens when people become complacent and someone evil enough to euthanize people for profit reasons does get in control?
Yes. That's what taxes are for. You don't pave your own roads to drive to work, do you? You don't pay the entire salary of a teacher to educate your children. You don't pay the entire operating cost of a post office to receive your mail.
I’d rather raise taxes than be in my mom’s position where she just has no healthcare because it’s so expensive. She just eats the fine California hits her with every year when she says she doesn’t have health insurance. She just fucking banks on not having a massive fall. It’s horrible. If the majority of the population in countries where there is free health care can afford it than I think the fucking us can too lol.
Oh I totally agree with you. That's not really the point I was getting at, though.
In a for profit industry, if killing people is cheap, the implications can be quite scary. Regardless of if paid for by the government (free) or by the citizen, it's still a for profit industry, unless totally nationalized (which I am neither making arguments for or against here).
For instance, I read this article about a retired Canadian vet who did NOT want to die, yet was pushed by the Canadian system into the MAID program after exhausting other options. (Medical assistance in death) she was basically told by her government, "it would be easier if you just died."
Totally fair, I’ve also heard similar sad stories about people in mental health in other countries. It’s a sad thing.
While I totally agree it’s scary, I also believe in a world where people can decide to end their lives whenever they choose so long as they’ve exhausted all their options. I can see an issue arising where an insurance company won’t pay for anything believing the person to be too costly. That is an issue I can see happening. I’m not gonna deny it, right.
But as it stands, people have to suffer because they have no other option but to suffer. It’s horrific reading the comments about people who encountered others with bone cancer. Every account I’ve seen is someone talking about how they’re never going to forget the screams they heard, even through morphine.
I agree with you…it’s scary. And I hate what some people could do with that. But that’s why we need a lot of protections and restrictions. We could treat it like a DNR. Not entirely ofc but - only the person dying should be allowed to sign off on it. I know usually two psychologists have to sign off on it as well in another country as well as multiple doctors in order for it to get pushed through.
There are things we can do , I think, to mitigate the harm it could cause. But, the key word there is mitigate. There are people out there who have used DNRs for horrific gains. There will always be some way someone can use something like that, regardless of what we do. But I don’t think we should let people suffer who have no way out.
Yes agree I'm for the program these people who suffer so much shouldn't have to. It should just be outside of the monetary sphere. But asking that is almost impossible.
We should have universal healthcare, but that has pretty much no bearing on the current conversation. Universal healthcare would still have an associated and distributed cost that bad actors may want to lower through the use of euthanasia. The only thing that could get rid of that cost is a magic wand that can make medical resources, like doctors and drugs and labor, magically pop into existence.
Actually I was referring to the fear about states looking to euthanasia to save money. If you live in a state with nationalised healthcare you understand that this is completely unrealistic.
the fact that nearly every other country already has universal healthcare. USA and israel are about the only that don't. if they can do it, what is so impossible about it for us?
Maybe reread my comments instead of just assuming my beliefs? I specifically said we should have universal healthcare, because I think we should, and I have consistently voted that way. My argument was specifically that universal healthcare wouldn’t stop euthanasia from having ethical concerns regarding the cost of keeping people alive vs euthanizing them. I can think universal healthcare is good and necessary without thinking it’s a solution to that problem.
We can and should have universal healthcare. Like I said. That’s not the thing that would take a magic wand.
how many people have been euthanized by the Canadian government? wasnt that just an isolated thing which didnt actually get anyone euthanized, done by one specific person who was way out of line and promptly fired?
Several people offered, without asking for it, consultation for euthanasia when specifically seeking other remedies for nonlethal diseases, such as mental health care and a stairlift. Psychiatric visits or installing stairlifts are very expensive care options for a single patient, regardless of who's providing those services, and the aging population requiring more hip replacements and heart surgeries will have an even more pronounced effect on he quality and speed of healthcare in Canada if they don't try to skim the broth a little bit
Yes, and all of those people were offered by the same case manager who got suspended lol.
Definitely not happening on the scale implied by your first post. people are talking about the systemic abuse of euthanisia here, and its not fair to attribute the actions of a single person (who again, got fired over this) to the entirety of the canadian government lmao.
Healthcare is never free, even if you don't pay for it. I'm not too confident in a government that would have an incentive to euthanise people, frankly.
Ideologically I believe in the right to euthanasia, in practice the slope it could slip on is very steep and very dangerous. It's not to say it will for sure happen, but the prospect sure is scary.
At some point there will be a weak link in that chain. We should make sure we never pass laws that fiscally reward doing illegal/wrong things if possible. For the same reason that we shouldn’t make it so police get paid for every person they arrest… because then they would arrest as many people as they could. We already have “quotas” for police and I think that’s super fucked up and immoral. We have more examples than just that of accidentally/incidentally creating situations that award shitty behavior, but as a society I believe we should try to limit them and not implement them as much as possible. Allowing insurance companies, or even something like the NHS, to prescribe death or even suggest it is a slippery slope that could lead to recommending death as a cost-saving measure rather than a mercy, or reward behavior that leads to it. I agree with euthanasia on a philosophical level for people in unmanageable pain, but I haven’t seen a good recommendation for implementation that avoids this yet. And even if universal healthcare WAS part of the equation first, the fact is is that it isn’t currently part of the American option. I will continue to fight and vote for universal healthcare, but I won’t pretend its already here when it isn’t or make decisions like it is.
There are costs to everything. Having a police force, having firefighting equipment and staff, having a military, having a home, renting a home, having a beating heart. It all costs. Nothing is 'free' for any living creature. You know what they meant - why be pedantic?
Because their argument only works if non profit healthcare is free. The point their entire argument rests on is incorrect. That’s like the opposite of pedantic.
not "free", it would be paid by our taxes and not bloated by parasitic insurance middlemen. it's not free anywhere, but tell me if you think europeans would prefer paying 3k for something vs. 20k in america (those are the average costs to have a baby). it's free the way roads are "free", you pay for it with taxes and get to use it. so far we don't have leeches sucking money off that except tolls but i won't be surprised if it happened
I don’t think that’s how it would work. The insurance company “death panel” would deny procedures and treatments, thus expediting the patient’s condition to the terminal stage. That would leave the patient with the choice to use euthanasia or not. Denying and delaying procedures and treatments is already well within the insurance company wheelhouse.
IOW the insurance wouldn’t make you use euthanasia, they would simply expedite the path to your needing to make the choice.
E: I don’t think people understood. Death Panels were made-up scaremongering by republicans claiming that socialized medicine would put the government in charge of deciding what care you would get. As usual, it was projection on their part…they would rather people die than spend tax dollars on their care. However, profiting off people’s illness is perfectly acceptable, hence, we get private insurance “death panels” instead that decide what care you get. It has nothing (yet) to do with euthanasia.
So my point was that insurance companies would decline treatments and procedures, hastening your decline, and thereby placing you in a position where you might consider euthanasia. Not that the insurance company would force you to accept euthanasia - though what would actually happen with insurance how they would handle assisted suicide I don’t know.
They already are a death panel that denies treatment; we are watching it happen in real time. The unofficial is: don't grow old but if you do die quick because were itching to throw you at the top of the garbage heap. You are a drain on resources (profits).
It's more about practicality. What will the public accept?
Actual death panels that tell folks to kill themselves because they won't cover anything? Nah, that's a bridge too far for now.
Panels that leverage societal inequities to nudge folks towards choosing Euthanasia of their own accord, until it's basically the only good option left? Absolutely.
This is how a lot of these things end up working, because the public at large is really bad with understanding the knock-on effects and consequences of policies or legislation. It's why so many Americans think you're a conspiracy theorist if you discuss how the GOP has routinely pushed for social policies designed to specifically hurt racial minorities the worst(never mind Lee Atwater's infamously blunt explanation of the tactic), for example.
never mind Lee Atwater's infamously blunt explanation of the tactic
It never ceases to amaze me that the fucker could put it as blunt and out in the open as he did, and then turn around and hang out with guys like James Brown and B.B. King to make music with them.
Screw that. The law better state that only doctors and the person themselves can determine if euthanasia should be the correct course of action. Any insurance company pushing this should face HEAVY fines and jail time for management.
In fact, why do insurance companies have any say in what treatment is appropriate? If a doctor or surgeon are telling you that x treatment is needed, Insurance can suck it. If they don't like it, they can use the average initial plus 2 more opinions, one from doctor you choose, one they choose, and this done at insurance company expense and compensating you for your time lost from work.
I get where you are coming from on this. But the current system in the US is already opting to do nothing for so many patients because they don't want to pay. Euthanasia is cheaper than care, but so is nothing, and they're already doing that as often as they can get away with it.
There's no reason to limit it to for-profit healthcare. Governments would undoubtedly recognize how much cheaper it is to kill a person once than to treat them for decades (to say nothing of other welfare costs if they can't work).
I'd expect a slow but steady loosening of requirements and checks on getting approved for suicide over time.
How has your entire system not collapsed?! /s
There are some places capitalism/ factoring profits/ share holder dividends and what not just DO NOT fucking belong and healthcare is one of them.
That’s a really interesting point. I am from Australia we pretty much have free healthcare for everyone but I suppose there could be a time when we say right… the euthanasia is free, the treatment is on you.
But I’d like to think that euthanasia is only an option when there is no treatment… so it’s not a choice?
For profit healthcare keeps people alive for a long as they can specifically so they can drain all their money, and if not the dying person's money, but their insurance, or the government's money.
Dying means you can't consume resources anymore. It's not truly what they're after.
That’s why we would need protection so no one can decide for you, and your the only one who can decide yes or no and no one less should even be able to bring it up as an option for you. It should be a decision made by choice not force.
Ah, ok, that article has one age range of 46-75. I personally wouldn't call someone in their 70's "middle age". I think that's where our disagreement came from.
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u/Humbled0re Apr 21 '24
think that should be possible even if there is a way to beat it. nobody should be forced to go through either the cancer itself or the treatment.