The Terri Schiavo National Health Care Plan
A guest blog from Alan Meisel at Pitt, who has found one, really twisted positive spin on the Congressional effort to keep Terri Schiavo alive:If states begin to enact statutes that make a written advance directivenecessary to forgo artificial nutrition and hydration (or any other
form
of life support), it could lead to a system of universal health care!If we have 10-15,000 people in a PVS now (all being kept alive by artificial nutrition and hydration),
we will have a lot more if a written advance directive is required. If
1/3 of our nursing home population is now on feeding tubes, we will
have
a lot more on feed tubes if an written advance difrective is required.The costs will skyrocket. This will put further strain on Medicare and
Medicaid -- perhaps to the breaking point. We will then be forced to
confront head on whether it makes sense to be expending even huger
amounts of resources on medical care than we are now for people who
will
never benefit from it when we have 40-50 million uninsured,
skyrocketing
costs for the rest of us, and a seriously medically underserved
Medicaid
population. This could put so much stress on the system that we will
finally get meaningful reform -- a single payer system available to
all.
This won't happen soon. But hope springs eternal.
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The current standard of care for people unable to eat and drink by natural means (other than those forbidden such by Florida judges, of course) is to initiate feeding by artificial means unless there are specific directions by the patient or his proxy against such and intervention.
In that case, there's no reason to believe that the incidence of tube feeding will increase.
People with PEGs are not necessarily unable to work. Those who are unable to work qualify for Medicare and/or Medicaid.
- by Beverly on Apr 6, 2005 at 4:15 AM | link