End-of-Life Care Dilemma: Who Gets Booted from the ICU?

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/09/17/Richard_Epstein_Breaking_Down_Healthcare_Reform

Hoover Institution senior fellow Richard Epstein discusses the ethical and financial quandary of costly end-of-life care. He argues that money commonly spent on those at or near their life expectancy would be more wisely spent on prolonging the lives of young people.

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Richard Epstein, professor of law at The University of Chicago, discusses the current proposal for healthcare reform.

He points out inconsistencies in what is been promised and what is in the bill, and makes suggestions for a more efficient health care system. - Columbia Law School

Richard A. Epstein, the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, is the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Epstein is also, as of 2007, a visiting professor of law at NYU Law School.

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• dying
• reform
• obama
• plan
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• congress
• end
• life
• kill
• granny
• grandma
• pull
• plug
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• fora.tv
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[TheEvolver311]

if your loved one is only alive because machines are preforming all of the needed functions (breathing,blood circulations,eating, waste removal,etc) then its probally just time to accept that they are going to die, because that is no kind of life. its unnatural, and i find it funny that for a nation which claims to be so strong of faith in god. that they would undermind his attempts to take the life of a loved one, doesn't "god" choose when people die.

[thpt]

2xtream: The argument is not killing grandpa VS being a decent human being. The question is: do we give grandpa enormous painmeds w/ a drug that will make him pee&poo himself constantly and make his eyes unable to focus so he'll live 3 more months in squalid agony and fear, VS do we use that money ($15/pill, 4 x day) to get our daughter treatments for her ear infections before she starts to have permanent hearing loss?

They're not easy questions. But looking at them rationally helps.

[streamofawareness]

@TheEvolver311 Or they say it's playing God to pull the plug and let someone die. We're also playing God when we hook a preemie up to machines to help it live when it would have died. That's playing God too and nobody ever looks twice. Funny isn't it?

[1swordpen]

This is a no brainer for people in healthcare, should we keeping comatose patients suspended from death, not prolonging life. Lawyers talking about this is ironic since the fear of lawsuit is what keeps so many futile care patients on a ventilator.

[dale3858]

@TheEvolver311 I'm pretty sure that most people don't really have THAT MUCH FAITH in god, or any for that matter, and it's a good thing too, because if they really felt that it's gods will that a person is sick and dying, we wouldn't get any medical help at all...

[Americaisgreat123]

You read the bill? Which bill? Obama's bill? What's on page 941?

Since when is being denied access to health insurance the same as being denied access to medical care?

[thpt]

"SO to act as if you are so humanitarian and act so loving in your hypothetical response. " It was not hypothetical. My grandmother died six feet from me, peacefully, after three years of in-home nursing. And my Dad died in a hospital bed, in agony, of three spinal dislocations, pulmonary edema, pneumonia complicated by chronic bronchitis, and diabetes. At the end, he asked to be let die in peace, it hurt too much to go on.

He'd lived like that, in hospital beds, for a month.

[thpt]

I have read the bill. How is it worse than allowing those few millions who can't afford health insurance to suffer and die for want of care? And can you quote me where it says "the government has all the power and will do my evil"?

[thpt]

"Lead by example": you're telling me to go kill myself?

The Oath says "do no harm". How is it OK to put down a dog who's in pain but to force your grandmother to live in agony as long as possible?

"GOD to chose who shall live": so you're arguing against modern medicine? Half of all women died in childbirth before modern medicine. You GOD doesn't have the best track record.

[stengevarsel]

I'm glad I live in a country where this is not an issue.

[LeGioNoFZioN]

you could avoid the death panel eventuality by doing what we do in Canada, just don't cover expensive treatments for anyone.

[bradlyely]

The situation Epstein described has nothing to do with what you are talking about. This guy is practically advocating the fictional "death panels" that we have heard about recently from the fringe right.

I take it from your comment you are one of those who disagree with taxes and anything else that creates a compulsory contribution to the betterment of society as a whole? You must have just read atlas shrugs...