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August 17, 2007
The Compassion of the Bureaucracy
There is a nice article in the August 15 issue of JAMA by Dr. Avery Tung, discussing the agony, doubt, and pain of deciding on the proper course of treatment---or nontreatment---for a loved one suffering from a terminal disease. It can be found here. In particular, he notes that "a world where intuition always agrees with statistical reality, and where convincing families to withdraw care is easy, may just be a little bit colder than the one we live in."
Yes, indeed: Families often know more than the professionals. And, particularly in a world in which they bear the cost of decisions in favor of expensive treatment (or the past cost of insurance covering such treatment), it is wholly appropriate that such care be given. And so let us ponder the future world that many wish for all of us, in which government picks up the tab and so calls the tunes. Can anyone believe that the preferences of families will count for much in that world? The question answers itself. And so yet again the nature of government compassion is not too difficult to predict.
Posted by Benjamin Zycher at August 17, 2007 08:36 PM
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