Bioethics writer Wesley J. Smith notes some Europeans are growing worried their rationed health care programs might devolve into excuses for euthanasia by governments that want to avoid caring for the most vulnerable – and expensive – patients:
Soon euthanasia might be the price the solidarity principle of the welfare state imposes on those people whose health care is costing society the most. Politicians in Belgium and the Netherlands have already granted their citizens a “right to die” by means of a lethal (and cheap) euthanasia injection. Is this a new “freedom” that the state, which is constantly restricting every other aspect of our lives, generously bestows on us? Or does it boil down to “economic euthanasia,” which enables governments to save money by eliminating those that cost the welfare state too much?
Smith warns it might not be long before the economic impulse crosses the pond:
The Bioethics Movement is hot to impose health care rationing. If assisted suicide/euthanasia is ever legalized widely here in the U.S., it too could quickly become about money.
Think about it: The drugs for killing cost less than $100. It might cost $100,000 to give patients proper care so they don’t want euthanasia. … This is one reason I have often asserted that I that if assisted suicide/euthanasia is ever legalized here, Wall Street investors in for-profit HMOs will be dancing in the streets.
Enterprising Republicans and Democrats would do well to capitalize on the unpopularity of HMOs and warn them to never encourage sick patients to end it all under the guise of “death with dignity.”
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