Health Care, Corporatism, and Privacy

Mama Liberty, from The Price of Liberty, forwarded me an entire article from the von Mises Institute, asking if I'd seen it. I don't generally visit that site (not because their material isn't good -- they often cover areas I'm less interested in, and tend to do so rather academically ... and there are only so many hours in each day), so I missed How Medical Boards Nationalized Health Care. It is an excellent piece that clearly explains the development of the complex fascism inherent in the AMA and state medical boards. A choice quote:

Attaining an MD degree represents a great deal of work and a considerable monetary investment. License revocation means not only loss of the doctor's livelihood, but a devastating blow both socially and professionally. Few physicians will go anywhere near that possibility. The ability of state medical boards to intimidate doctors into complying with their wishes is legendary. .... Accordingly, no outcry should be expected from within the profession. Health care in the United States has been nationalized—not by the government, but by a trade association.

The entire thing is well worth a read (although I don't agree with all the author's assertions). Although not a main focus, it also hints at the often too-subtle difference between corporatism and capitalism, which Freeman LC touched on a few days back. That's a distinction that's becoming increasingly important, and I hope to address it more formally sometime soon. [Snake waits for hysterical laughter to die down ...]

Tangentially related, I see in the news headlines this morning that the judge in the Terry Schiavo case has cleared the way for her feeding tube to be released. I haven't followed the case closely, not because of lack of interest, but because it brings back too many painful memories for me.

My mother had brain cancer; by the time it was diagnosed the tumor had so insinuated itself throughout her brain that the surgery to remove the bulk of the mass from her frontal lobe gave her relief from the severe pain, but also room for it to expand again, which it did in rapacious fashion. The outcome was inevitable ... the time frame only somewhat uncertain ... and the decisions facing us increasingly difficult.

Reluctantly, we put my mother in a nursing home, because my father couldn't care for her increasingly-complex needs while also working full-time and trying to raise his youngest daughter. We didn't want her to be cared for by strangers; and my then-husband (an MD) and I also knew that the move meant that our decisions regarding her care would be more open to scrutiny by others. Fortunately, we stumbled on to a very good physician to take over her care. He was careful to explain what was happening, and also to help us look forward regarding my mother's condition and to anticipate the care we might want for her.

Finally, a day we'd dreaded came -- my mother could no longer swallow, not even the milkshakes my father had been regularly buying (although his budget couldn't handle even that small addition) and feeding her. Did we want a feeding tube inserted? We declined ... it wouldn't give her body time to recover and heal; no healing was possible. A feeding tube would simply prolong whatever misery she was experiencing. It was a decision fraught with stress for my husband and myself; we knew what could happen if someone took exception to our decision and took it public. Fortunately, that never happened. No one second-guessed us, and turned our private hell into the public circus of never-ending horrors that Terry's poor parents are living through.

I know there are differing circumstances between Terry's situation and my mother's; for one thing, the little I've read indicates that there's plenty of evidence that her husband is that in name only -- indeed, it may be because of his actions that Terry's in the state she is. What's at issue is what kind of care is best for her. While their case is in the most vexing class -- that being how to decide among different interests who claim to love a person, when the person can't make his or her intentions and wishes known -- I'd like to think that a truly civilized society would nonetheless be much more respectful of the pain and grief that suffuse these kinds of situations, and of whatever desire for privacy the individuals involved might want.

But we don't have anything approaching a civilized society. Instead, we have medicrat do-gooders who do anything but good as they stomp into private, painful situations, often taking them public in the process; a legal system where it seems that almost anyone can make a claim to butt into private parties' disputes; and schools of media and political sharks that feed on the pain and misery of individuals caught in these systems in order to bolster sagging sales or polls, and to appear caring.

I don't remember the name of my mother's doctor, nor any of the nurses and other caregivers who helped us in the final months of her life. But I think of them often, and with gratitude for their help in keeping a very difficult, painful time from becoming much worse. It's a shame that their type seems to be disappearing.