What's next? Denying equal medical care to people who are overweight, or who have causal sex? Maybe we should have saved money and not mounted rescue operations for the James Kim family or those mountain climbers . After all, they were engaging in risky behaviors. That's what I was thinking, jklugman. The quote “Do patients have a general obligation to get healthy as a condition of receiving treatment? Patients are not required to visit fitness clubs for eight weeks, lose 25 pounds, or take drugs to lower blood pressure before surgery.” is not entirely accurate -- at least in the US. You can be required to lose weight before a doctor will perform certain surgeries where the persons excessive weight is an issue. FWIW, I agree with jklugman on the notion of not incurring excessive cost or risk to rescue personnel for people who knowingly and intentionally engage in activities that are dangerous. Send the Coast Guard out to save a fishing boat that happened to get caught in a storm? Of ... difficult questions , my friends, difficult questions.. free will is at stake, and society is not built for that..  @jklugman (and BNMousie): exactly what I was thinking as I read through the clip. When I'm working on someone's computer should I turn them away because they haven't kept their virus protection up to date? FWIW, I agree with jklugman on the notion of not incurring excessive cost or risk to rescue personnel for people who knowingly and intentionally engage in activities that are dangerous. Send the Coast Guard out to save a fishing boat that happened to get caught in a storm? Of course. Send rescue helicopters to the a known avalanche zone to rescue some thrill seeking snowboarders. I don't think so.Uh, I think you missed jklugman's point. Correct me if I'm wrong... l1wulf, you read me correctly. I was using the example of rescue missions to point out the bad logical outcomes of denying healthcare/health insurance to smokers. My apologies to jklugman, I did read that wrong. And my example isn't probably the best. While I don't advocate flatly denying care or services, I do think that an individuals dangerous, self destructive behaviors should or at least could reasonably limit the types of care and services they receive. Does anyone think that a chronic alcoholic (who refuses to quit drinking) is just as deserving of a liver transplant as someone who needs a liver transplant for non-self induced reasons? Maybe I'm nuts, but I think that is a no-brainer. I think UNOS takes you off the list if you drink with your new liver and ruin it. I could be wrong, as I get most of my medical info from tv dramas. “Smoking up to the time of any surgery increases cardiac and pulmonary complications, impairs tissue healing, and is associated with more infections and other complications at the surgical site.”Do we really want to be a society that denies all surgery to a person because he smokes and that is a risk? I think that equates nicely to jklugman's "should we deny rescue to those engaging in risky behavior?" No worries bigbob. You raise a good question about costs and benefits and how do we use incentives/penalties so people don't engage in risky behavior. I don't know what the exact answer is, but I do tend to favor using all reasonable means to help people in trouble, even if their behavior did help bring it on. jklugman - I think you captured it exactly - reasonable being the operative word. 100% agreement here. I hope I didn't come off hostile there bigb0b; certainly wasn't supposed to be.  Sometimes at work I just fire off quick responses without putting enough thought behind the possible perceived tones. I'll spank myself later. There are two clips here that are based on whether or not an insurance carrier has the right to deny us the right to our lifestyles......... Do smokers deserve equal medical care? and Health insurers deny policies based on occupations? What about free will, freedom of choice; reasonable??? what is reasonable??? When the U.S. government starts footing the insurance bill for all of us like in other countries then you can tell me what reasonable is and I will comply with reasonable.... Stop being so reasonable, You have no reason to be. House. Season 2, Episode 1. I just suddenly remembered the clip about an insurance co that refused to pay costs of anorexia. Does anyone have any updates on that? |
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