''... you don't get health insurance unless you sign a living will or directive.''

By Anonymous -
In an AP article today, Dean expands on a new theme that he started to develop at the Iowa forum. Thoughts on this?
Dean, a doctor and former governor of Vermont, has proposed an $88 billion plan to provide health insurance coverage for all Americans under age 25 and expand coverage for uninsured adults.

In exchange, he wants Americans to take more responsibility for their health care.

Pharmaceutical companies, insurers and lawyers deserve some of the blame for rising health care costs, he said, but so do individuals who don't take care of themselves or don't make realistic decisions about their medical care.

''Most politicians treat voters as children: 'Elect me, and I'll solve all your problems,''' he said during a forum at which he explained his plan and answered questions from voters. ''When are we going to talk about our own responsibilities?''

''If we're going to have health insurance for everyone, you don't get health insurance unless you sign a living will or directive,'' he said.

Dean, an internist who left his medical practice in 1991, described how he used to sit down with relatives of seriously ill patients to discuss treatment options. But he said that connection between families and physicians has been lost due to the ''corporatization'' of medicine.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A fair solution to Jerusalem

By Aziz P. -
I remember reading one of the books by Tom Clancy in which Jack Ryan was credited with coming up with a solution for Middle East peace which was pointedly never actually detailed in the novel. It was just a way to give his character some foreign policy cred, but ended up like that mysterious suitcase in Pulp Fiction. I couldn't help but be reminded of that, though, when I read former New York mayor Ed Koch's innovative solution to resolving the status of Jerusalem . Instead of putting the hot-button issue of Jerusalem last on the agenda, the issue should be addressed first. If the Jerusalem question is solved, everything else should fall into place more easily. I believe there is a way to keep Jerusalem unified. I am talking not only of the old walled city, which is a very small part of the city of Jerusalem, but the whole city, east, west, north and south. [...] My suggestion is to situate the new Palestinian capital in that part of East Jerusalem that is occupied overwhelming
Read more

Conservatism's shari'a, liberalism's ijtihad

By Aziz P. -
An interesting meta-debate by intellectual conservatives over conservatism's future is playing out. It started with David Frum's Waterloo essay, which led to his political excommunication. Julian Sanchez observed that this represented an epistemic closing of the conservative mind , a thesis that was validated by the retribution visited upon Jim Manzi for daring to suggest that conservatives will achieve more persuasion by using honest, strong arguments instead of weak, emotional ones. All of this has led John Quiggin at Crooked Timber to argue most wisely that as conservatism implodes, liberalism needs to find its own rationale that is more than just "not conservatism". Quiggin has a list of priorities for the liberal movement to address, and closes with the general plea, ...the left has to stand for something more than keeping the existing order afloat with incremental improvements. We need to offer the hope of a better world as an alternative to the angry tribali
Read more