Die with Dignity on the Taxpayer's Dime

I was browsing through the Hartford Courant's website at www.courant.com, and this story by Ann Marie Somma caught my eye. The basic gist of the article is that,

"Every year, hundreds of low-income, terminally ill patients insured by the state's Medicaid program have little option but to greet death alone in sterile hospital rooms because the state doesn't offer them a hospice benefit."

Hospice care is a type of palliative care provided at the end of life, that strives to reduce suffering as opposed to finding a cure. The two page Courant article details the necessity of Hospice care, how it would potentially save the state $15.8 million a year if it gave Hospice Care as a state funded health care option, and how State Rep. Claudia Powers, R-Greenwich, has proposed state legislation to include hospice under Medicaid.

Reading the article I had several thoughts. My first reactions was to the media presentation of the story. I mean take a look at the way it begins:

"If it was left to the state of Connecticut, Michael "Hawk" Hector would have died in a hospital room, battling the last ravages of lung cancer.

Instead, Hector died in an easy chair at home, with the love and attention of his family, because the hospice volunteers who cared for him believe he deserved to live out his life with respect and dignity.

Hector was one of the lucky ones."

When a story starts with an anecdotal story like this that tugs at the heart strings, my immediate reaction is to ask "What are they trying to sell me now...?" Typical of the Courant, the article at its heart is just another sob story about the state's poor, how miserable they are, and how taxpayer funded big government is the solution. Perhaps the Courant could sell more newspapers if their liberal agenda was not so obvious and transparent. Ms. Somma, next time stick to the facts and leave out the emotional guilt-mongering.

Now, to the actual substance of the article. Should hospice care be covered by the state? From a purely capitalistic standpoint, no. Healthcare is not a right, it is a product. Corporations and make investments in selling healthcare and their employees work to provide it to you. To demand that you be given free healthcare is to demand that you be given the property of the healthcare companies and the labor of their employees for free. No one has a right to someone else's property or their labor, that is called theft and slavery.

But, David... It's not going to be given for free, it is going to be paid for by the state. So, because the state does such a good job running the schools and building roads, we should let them run our hospitals? Hmmm, I think not. The state does not produce health care like the private industry. It confiscates people's money through taxation, purchases health care for you, and then rations it back to you. What if you are provided more health care than you need (ie. providing 2 doctor's visits a year, when you only really needed 1)? Well, then the government has wasted taxpayer dollars. And what if you need more than the government can provide to you? Then we end up with a situation like this story, where well intentioned state officials propose larger government in order to meet the demands of more and more people who have become dependent on the public dole. Sure expanding care options to include hospice care could save the state an estimated $15.8 million in the short run, but removing government encroachment into the health care industry would reduce state costs even more, and reduce the cost of health care overall. That is my point here, that we should not even be debating whether to include hospice care in state health coverage, since the state should not even be involved in paying for or providing health care.

Now I realize that this program is intended to help the poor, via Medicaid. But why should we think they are entitled to hospice care when everyone else is required to pay for it privately or through their health insurance? A dignified death is possible in a "sterile" hospital as well in hospice care.

This brings me to the usual slippery slope argument. For now it is for "the poor." (Notice also that we will be expanding the state into the health care industry further for only a few hundred people.) This will undoubtedly increase the costs of hospice care for everyone else, leading to an outcry from the middle class to be covered by state funded hospice care. So, politicians will respond with universal hospice benefits. And once the state is funding a type of health care that provides "death with dignity," is it such a far stretch to imagine publicly funded euthanasia coming next?

I'm sure my arguments seem cold and heartless in the face of stories from people like Michael "Hawk" Hector. Having experienced the death of loved ones in hospice care, I do think it is the preferable way to approach the final stages of a terminal illness. However, that does not make it a right, and it does not entitle people to what does not belong to them. If people like State Rep. Claudia Powers are so concerned about the poor receiving a dignified death, let them start private charities to provide hospice care to the poor. In this way the problem could be addressed and people would be able to give money voluntarily. I would happily give to that cause, as opposed to being forced into giving by the state.