Ethics committee or death panel?

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2016/01/16211/

A Texas man was taken off life support despite his objections and the objections of his family according to this article. It was all done because a hospital ethics committee decided to do it.

Is this right? Did this really happen? if so, it is just?

Originally posted by @whodey
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2016/01/16211/

A Texas man was taken off life support despite his objections and the objections of his family according to this article. It was all done because a hospital ethics committee decided to do it.

Is this right? Did this really happen? if so, it is just?

Only Texas has such a law in the United States; "
No other state gives such power to doctors and hospitals, a fact that has drawn national attention. " https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Judge-lets-one-of-a-kind-futile-care-law-stand-12222399.php

You'd have to ask the right wingers down there why they want such a law and haven't repealed it.

Originally posted by @whodey
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2016/01/16211/

A Texas man was taken off life support despite his objections and the objections of his family according to this article. It was all done because a hospital ethics committee decided to do it.

Is this right? Did this really happen? if so, it is just?

Of course it is right. When you can't pay for your own medical treatment you rely on others to pay for you. Since money is not unlimited, someone has to make a determination of at what point further treatment is futile or best spent elsewhere.

Originally posted by @quackquack
Of course it is right. When you can't pay for your own medical treatment you rely on others to pay for you. Since money is not unlimited, someone has to make a determination of at what point further treatment is futile or best spent elsewhere.

Sure, it's perfectly reasonable and moral for "someone" to decide if A dies based on how much money A has. If A doesn't like it, he should have earned or been born with more money.

Originally posted by @no1marauder
Sure, it's perfectly reasonable and moral for "someone" to decide if A dies based on how much money A has. If A doesn't like it, he should have earned or been born with more money.

It is certainly not reasonable for society to pay infinite amounts of money to keep people alive. As we can perform more complex operation or create new synthetic medicine or change thing operations could cost millions of dollars. At some point, even you realize that if an individual can't afford a certain medical procedure then they cannot take all of society's resources to pay for it.

“[The Ethics] Committee has decided that life-sustaining care is medically inappropriate for Chris.”

Yikes.

Originally posted by @quackquack
It is certainly not reasonable for society to pay infinite amounts of money to keep people alive. As we can perform more complex operation or create new synthetic medicine or change thing operations could cost millions of dollars. At some point, even you realize that if an individual can't afford a certain medical procedure then they cannot take all of society's resources to pay for it.

But if they can pay for it, they can take all of society's resources?

Originally posted by @kazetnagorra
But if they can pay for it, they can take all of society's resources?

They are using their personal resources and contributing it to society's economy.

Originally posted by @quackquack
They are using their personal resources and contributing it to society's economy.

Doctors, hospitals, etc. aren't someone's "personal resources."

Being treated in a hospital doesn't add value and isn't a "contribution" to the economy.

Originally posted by @quackquack
Of course it is right. When you can't pay for your own medical treatment you rely on others to pay for you. Since money is not unlimited, someone has to make a determination of at what point further treatment is futile or best spent elsewhere.

Kinda like the secret death lists at the Arizona VA.


Interesting.

Originally posted by @no1marauder
Sure, it's perfectly reasonable and moral for "someone" to decide if A dies based on how much money A has. If A doesn't like it, he should have earned or been born with more money.

But....but....but....Obamacare.

Originally posted by @no1marauder
Only Texas has such a law in the United States; "
No other state gives such power to doctors and hospitals, a fact that has drawn national attention. " https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Judge-lets-one-of-a-kind-futile-care-law-stand-12222399.php

You'd have to ask the right wingers down there why they want such a law and haven't repealed it.

So you would call these death panels?

So, the pro-life lobby is only pro-life when people can afford it?

I would the presume that if a woman argues she’ll have to receive state benefits to look after her baby, that abortion is back on the table then?

Gotta love those financial loop holes!

Originally posted by @quackquack
It is certainly not reasonable for society to pay infinite amounts of money to keep people alive. As we can perform more complex operation or create new synthetic medicine or change thing operations could cost millions of dollars. At some point, even you realize that if an individual can't afford a certain medical procedure then they cannot take all of society's resources to pay for it.

Society creates a system where doctors are trained to provide medical care for the members of that society. What care is provided to an individual should be that which is medically necessary. Of course, care has to be rationed in some ultimate sense, but it should be rationed based on a patient's need and medical judgment not based on how many pieces of paper are in someone's wallet.

Originally posted by @whodey
So you would call these death panels?

Ethic committees are a standard feature of hospitals throughout the United States.http://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/2016/05/mhst1-1605.html

Yet Texas alone has a law with these type of provisions:

The law gives doctors the authority to remove life support in cases doctors deem futile as long as a hospital ethics committee agrees with the recommendation and loved ones are given 10 days to find a facility to which to transfer the patient.

No other state gives such power to doctors and hospitals, a fact that has drawn national attention.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Judge-lets-one-of-a-kind-futile-care-law-stand-12222399.php

Granted the law is better that the UK law (mis?)interpreted in the Gard case which allowed doctors to block life sustaining treatment at any hospital, even ones willing to provide it, if the doctors determined death was in the patient's "best interests", Still, I'm kinda shocked that such a law exists in the US.