I just returned from my very lovely vacation, and am catching up on my favorite blogs. And what do I find at
Junkfood Science, but a
review of Social Value Judgements, a report put out by Great Britain's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence for the purpose of shaping its National Health Service's policies and budgeting. Sandy Szwarc rightly declares this document dangerous:
The entire world should care about what this disturbing document forewarns. It is the most palpable document in recent history to bring the same bioethical dilemmas, on the moral claim of personhood and quality of life versus the interests of the state, that were raised in the 1920s.
Szwarc ends with a warning that this devaluing of individual personal judgment regarding one's quality of life is
the inevitable outgrowth of what happens, as history has taught, when health becomes public. When health is a measure of good citizenship. This is the foreseeable results when government foots the bill for healthcare: the state then assumes power to decide what happens to an individual’s body and to determine when a life is of insufficient quality or too costly to society to preserve.
I think that blaming government-run health systems is too limited a view. As we've seen in the US with insurance companies, the corporate board can be just as coldly utilitarian as any government bureaucracy, and will just as readily adopt bioethical reasoning in pursuit of limiting expenditures. The real caution is for us all, no matter what system is in place in our particular nations, to value human life so much that we refuse to allow the machinery of governments and corporations to treat any of us as no more than replacable cogs.
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4 comments:
I think you are wrongly criticizing her. If you read JFS regularly, you would know that she OFTEN discusses the influence of insurance companies and industry behind third party payer systems.
First, I linked to Junkfood Science because I agree with 95% of what she wrote, but I needed to point out that the 5% disagreement is important. She may think the same thing as I do, and simply not mentioned it this time, but still, she didn't mention it. Yes, Sandy Szwarc often discusses the influence of corporate power, but she didn't this time, even though it would have been pertinent. And that is important, because the conclusion she draws, that government-run health care leads to eugenics, is the wrong conclusion. Any entity with massive power over health care spending and a lack of strong countervailing public oversight, whether public or private, can develop utilitarian, inhumane policies. It is ultimately we, as individuals, who are responsible for the fight to keep eugenics and euthanasia from becoming public policy. Thinking that a private health care system provides a failsafe against such developments is a false security. Private businesses in the US, at least, operate with the power of government behind them. That is, they do what they are regulated to do. An active and concerned citizenry is fundamental to humanity everywhere in the world, and the free market is no failsafe.
Again, I think you're off base. Her last sentence clearly was intended to get her regular readers to think about exactly what you just said. She should not have to make each and every blog post a total thesis and should be able to assume her regular readers are following her points as she goes. She should not have to explain healthcare industry corruption 101 with every post. Maybe it's just me, but I'd like to think people are smart enough that they don't need every single point spelled out. I don't need to be hit over the head with it every single post. I'd stop reading.
Well, Anonymous, if that is your real name, I am a regular reader and I thought that it needed comment. Anything else you have to quibble about? Prefer baby blue to dark blue? American cheese to Velveeta? Or do you have something substantial you'd like to comment on?
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