A matter of life and death

According to certain statistics, a person causes a disproportionate share of healthcare costs during the final weeks of their life. Naturally, they require significantly more medical services than usual. It makes sense; when a life is on the line, massive amounts of effort are poured into saving it or extending it.

A topic for those who find it acceptable to withdraw treatment in hopeless cases—for instance, patients in an ICU kept alive solely by a cluster of machines. The question is: at what point should care be discontinued? When are the chances of recovery too slim to justify exhausting such vast resources? Would you leave that decision to a doctor, a medical board, or perhaps a computer program that uses physiological parameters and survival probability statistics to determine the end of treatment? An algorithm offers objectivity, ensuring no individual has to shoulder the direct weight of the decision. On the other hand, leaving such a choice to a machine feels inhuman.

I refuse to believe what’s written up there... Seriously. Where did I put that bottle of Cabernet I keep specifically for when people let me down...

So what’s the plan for people who drain the healthcare system their entire lives just because they were born with nothing? Euthanasia?
And what about those who bleed the community dry without ever giving a damn back—not even sick, just elite parasites and political scammers? If we're already deciding death is an option for the sick because they're a burden on the taxpayers, we need something way worse for those vultures. I'm running out of ideas...😁

Roger Morris3 said:What about those who strain the healthcare system their entire lives because they were born sick? Euthanasia?
And what of those who drain the community without ever giving anything back—not even if they aren't sick? Just elite parasites, political looters, and frauds? If we've already decided death is the answer for the infirm because they burden the state, shouldn't we find something even worse for them? I'm out of ideas...😁

You're a dark one, Roger Morris3... 😉
Should we just leave them to God?

Pandora said:You're being a real piece of work here... 😉
Should we just leave them to God?

Yeah. Or maybe go by what that one saint said: I'll kill them all, then God will know who belongs to Him.

More zemlja vino said:I don't believe a word of what's written above... Honestly, where is that bottle of wine I keep specifically for when people disappoint me?

Fine. If you don't believe it, then read it again.

We aren't advocating for euthanasia or anything like that here. The issue concerns critically ill patients where survival is highly uncertain despite intensive care. At what point does further treatment simply lose its purpose? The alternative is the extreme: keeping everyone on dialysis, ventilators, and blood filtration until brain death finally occurs. Remember Reagan? That’s the mindset I’m talking about. Now tell me we should treat every terminal patient that way. We'd need enough ICU beds just to accommodate the waste. And all of this while dealing with the massive budget deficits at Medicare.

Euthanasia—that’s exactly what you're getting at. But here’s the kicker: you can't just hand people the power to decide where the line is drawn. Once you let them set those boundaries, someone else is always going to come along and push them further. Before you know it, we'll be in a spot where having a bad case of the flu means you're basically headed for the grave, just because these new vaccines and modern drugs have become so ridiculously expensive that they're worth more than an actual human life.

And honestly, that whole idea about the machine? It strikes me as such a ridiculous absurdity. When you really think about it, the very thing that makes us human—what truly sets us apart from animals—is our subjectivity. It's our feelings and our inner world.

If I had to answer your question, I'd put it this way: in a country driven by pure capitalism, if you've got the cash, you can keep your grandma on life support until she hits 115. But if you're broke? Well, then you just die when it's your time.

In different social settings, though, things look a little different...

I am of the opinion that this decision, which seems to cause little public outcry, should be left entirely to the patient's family, as they are the only ones truly capable of recognizing when that final moment has arrived. Physicians should merely serve to guide and support them through such a heavy choice. Such an approach would also mitigate the risk of families pursuing legal action against hospitals.

Regarding the notion of implementing a program to make these decisions on their behalf, I find it to be a flawed concept, given that patients can sometimes achieve recovery even when the odds appear overwhelmingly slim.

But what happens if the family actually hates the person and wants them gone, or if there’s no family at all? Or even worse, what if after everything is done, the relatives claim—or genuinely believe—that the doctor didn't give them enough information? It's a messy situation, isn't it?

This is precisely why bureaucracy exists. Relatives sign documentation that releases the hospital and the physicians from all liability, which serves to prevent lawsuits and shifts the burden of responsibility onto the family.

Furthermore, if a family truly lacks affection for the patient, that remains their own moral failing; they will be held accountable for the death if that individual actually had a chance at survival. Naturally, doctors would recognize this and inform the family, ensuring they wouldn't be eligible to request euthanasia.

stormylynx14 said:... assuming that sick man even had a chance at survival.

That’s precisely the dilemma. Usually, there is a chance for the patient to survive, but it's slim. How slim does it have to be before we decide further treatment is futile? If you take a group of patients with a specific status—defined by certain physiological parameters—you can calculate their probability of survival. But what if only three out of a thousand survive? Do we keep treating them or pull the plug? And who gets to make that call?

Let's look back at the case of Ronald Reagan, which everyone knows. He was critically ill, lost consciousness, and spent days on life support. Any doctor would have seen there was no hope, but because of his prominence—and perhaps a desperate wish for a miracle—they kept him alive.

If we apply that logic to everyone, then according to stormylynx14's suggestion, every loved one will be kept on life support until brain death is officially declared (just like it was with Ronald Reagan). First of all, it makes no sense. Second—call it brutal if you want, but it’s a fact—healthcare resources are finite. Currently, doctors decide when to stop treatment. There's no point in burying our heads in the sand; that's just how it works. The question is whether an algorithm could handle this more effectively and objectively, and if such a method would be more acceptable since no single individual would bear the direct responsibility for the decision to end life support.