About
When I was 46 I started writing essays on life, or the state of
the human condition as I once called it. Because I was halfway
between old enough to vote (21) and planned retirement (72) it
was known as the "Halfway Point" series of essays.
Later when I mentioned the essays in one context or another on USENET, I got requests for copies and eventually for future essays. Thus the mailing list was born, and it moved to the Internet when that became widely available. At that time I moved to writing on a schedule, the 1st, 11th, and 21st of the month.
Now the trend is to "blogs," and read on demand. I am therefore making this available as a blog, and we shall see if people read it here, or by mail, or not at all.
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Fri, 09 Oct 2009
Health rationing is here, like it or not (10:27)
The coming H1N1 (Swine Flu) season points out that there is already health care rationing in place, because there is not enough vaccine to protect everyone who wants it. So before anyone rants and raves about the things which could have been in a health care reform bill, let's look at what is actually happening with H1N1, and what might have been done.What policies should be considered?
There are several obvious ways to allocate the vaccine, other than the "sell it to the highest bidder" method, the benefits of each can be seen, and people should decide which they like, based on either "what's fair" or "what's best for the country as a whole?" Which of those you consider most important tells a lot about you. Clearly these are all "who gets it first" answers, in the long run everyone who wants it will probably be able to get it.Give it to those most likely to die from it
The rationale here is to give it to people who are likely to die if they get the flu. This approach protects the most vulnerable, sort of like "women and children first" as a rule for putting people in lifeboats on a sinking ship. The argument against this policy is that some of these people have terminal diseases or are very fragile, and are likely to die anyway, thus it's better to save the healthy at-risk first.Give it to those most likely to be exposed
The people most likely to be exposed are health workers and people who work with a large number of people, such as teachers, retail sales people, ticket takers, workers in the live entertainment field, etc. This policy is very close to a policy of giving the vaccine first to those most likely to spread the disease if they get it. Again the question of social worth is considered, some people have the option of staying home and being sick, if our health workers are home sick, who cares for the rest of us? This again raises the hot topic of social worth.Give it to the "worthy"
This is the most divisive, to give protection first to those most needed to keep society running. I'm sure the same politicians who dreamed up imaginary "death squads" would also feel that legislators were definitely needed to keep the country going, and their families and staff, because they can't run the country if they're worried. Personally I think they should be worried now...And the winner is...
Health care workers for sure, a few vital people like the President, then the groups most likely to have serious complications. That seems to be the consensus policy to address the problems caused by doing something else. Will some people not in those groups get treated early? Of course, someone always finds a way to game the system. But hopefully the public is aware of the problem, and there's no uprising of demand to do things another way, so let's all cross our fingers on this one (after washing our hands properly, of course).I'd really like to hear from people on this, click the comment link below.
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