Threads
Warlock
- Jul 13, 2018
- 721
hey, i'mma move this to off topic, because I think it's better suited there.
kthx
kthx
I feel like I want to kill myself multiple times now to prove I'm not worth it and I don't take shit from this cruel bloody world anymore especially people making a profit for keeping me alive
Misanthrope
Mage
- Oct 23, 2018
- 557
The inferences you arrive at from these studies just seem illogical to me.
These measures of cost don't demonstrate anything other than various bodies measure the cost of things for a variety of reasons. We live in a capitalist society that puts emphasis on economics, so it is not surprising there are data sets that measure the burden of the cost of absolutely everything and use dry academic language to do it! Sad to say human life often gets reduced down to balance sheets, we all exist as numbers somewhere and numbers don't scream.
We also measure the cost of lost productivity due to pregnancy. However, it doesn't follow nefarious legislation using that economic reasoning is then arrived at to deny people the right to have children just so they can keep working.
None of these studies is using their burden of cost findings to conclude we should deny people the right to die either. The very sources you cite don't reflect your conclusion. They actually call for improved continuity of care. Better access to community-based programs that can alleviate things from getting to a crisis point resulting in suicide in the first place. More attention paid to toxic work environments and how to reduce those stressors from occurring. All good things in my opinion. These studies seem to all be attempting to demonstrate the false economy of mental health provision not having parity of esteem resulting in greater costs in the long run to the state.
Sure it is unsavoury to use such economic reasoning to promote better access to care, but unfortunately, it is what governments listen to above much else.
Who also is this mysterious 'They' you are talking about?
If it is the government, you are giving them way too much credit. Politics by its very nature is divided and for the most part self-interested. Caught up in its tribalist bubbles inured to the ill-thought out policies they make that are rarely backed by evidence or backgrounds in the very things they preside over or meddle with. It comes down to ideology informing policy. Which I will touch on later as a more likely culprit, than cost burden as the reason for the denial of policies on the right to die.
However, if it does come down to economic reasoning. You could make a far more compelling argument for assisted suicide.
This is the social security budget of the UK from 2016.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/gove...rticles/howisthewelfarebudgetspent/2016-03-16
The elderly draw state pensions. Which takes up a good proportion of the social security budget. The elderly are also more statistically likely to require multiple medical interventions creating a secondary cost to the state. As well as rely on costly palliative care in their final years. The elderly are also a demographic that is quite focused on their right to die with dignity and so if provided the options would likely take it. The dead don't claim pensions or use up medical resources. Thus a significant cost saving could be made both in the short and long term. This same reasoning could be applied to the disabled. Resulting in a significant reduction in cost burden.
I am not pursuing this mentality any further as it leaves me with the compulsion to douse myself in vinegar and want to scrub myself vigorously with wire wool until I have no skin left.
If the, 'they' you refer to is your employers. Then that also makes little sense to me. Because businesses suffer vacancies all the time and have contingencies in mind to fill the gap. Be it from pregnancy, suicide or heart attack, or letting someone go for sleeping on the job. They don't just sit idly and accrue lost productivity. They simply hire someone new and get on with things. On an individualistic basis countless business don't conspire, or even care to keep people alive against their will. Why would they when there is a readily accessible pool of equally disposable people desperate for work?
My personal opinion, the blame more rests on entrenched ideologies in political systems. In the UK, the people that wind up in the corridors of power and get to weigh in on legislation often have some religious background. Often elected because they mirror that same religious standard to the electorate and make a public point to do so. Eton for instance, still holds on to the importance of faith and instills that on its students. So they end up with those imprinted moral values. You only have to look at the front bench and how many of the politicians come from there or espouse religious sentiment. This is further worsened by the lords being home to ex archbishops and various priests and other faiths with similar absolutist moral stances on suicide.
All of this creates an environment where rational discussion on the right to die gets lost to ideology, and faith groups have pretty potent lobbyist with some powerful influence and campaign donations to withhold. I am curious if the USA has similar parallels?
If you look at the various countries that have active euthanasia legislation in place. They are generally countries with more secularist views both politically and culturally.
FreeSisyphus
Automaton
- Nov 2, 2018
- 5
@Misanthrope Great post, I'm glad we can get a diversity of opinions here. While I definitely agree that existing non-secular ideologies and religions play a large role in enforcing the anti-suicide position on a national scale, and also that lost productivity is not the primary motivator for anti-suicide policies, I still think there are plenty of valid profit-oriented economic reasons for anti-suicide rhetoric and policymaking.
For example, in the United States, palliative end-of-life care is a highly profitable business. In 2017 a very sizeable percentage of Medicaid assistance in the U.S. was spent on long-term care (which includes palliative end-of-life care), to the tune of approximately $119,000,000,000 https://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-...g&sortModel={"colId":"Location","sort":"asc"}
It is fairly obvious that there is no industry that would stand to lose more profit from legalization of assisted suicide than the palliative care industry, which is huge and continues to grow along with the aging trends of the population. The percentage of hospitals in the United States with palliative care programs increased almost 50% between 2000 and 2010. https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-032013-182406
The mental health industry makes a very healthy profit from treating potentially suicidal patients as well. In many states in the U.S., police are allowed to detain people who are deemed a threat to themselves and a psychiatrist can forcefully hospitalize them without due process. My source on this particular fact is that this precise thing happened to me.
My father called the police on me after a particularly suicidal episode I was going through, and I was detained and sent to a psych ward for 4 days against my will. At the end of my stay, my will to live was the same as before, only now I had a $2500 medical bill which I had no way of getting out of. Keep in mind that this was only the insurance deductible; the entire bill was over $10,000 for a 4 day hospital stay where I was essentially imprisoned and was forced to miss school, which contributed to me failing my class. They then prescribed me medicine which I had no desire to take and referred my to another psychiatrist for a follow-up. At no point during this process were my rights as a consumer and as a rational human being taken into account. Essentially, the mental health industry has found a way to profit from misery by forcing suicidal people to use their services through legal coercion.
Additionally, you can make a very solid argument that healthcare policy-making, which most certainly includes discretion over the realm of assisted suicide, is the victim of regulatory capture: the healthcare industry in the United States contributed approximately 8.3 billion dollars worth of campaign contributions in 2018, the second-highest amount by industry: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=c&showYear=a
Suffice it to say, there are plenty of economic influences working against us in this regard. Which, incidentally, does include religious lobbying as well: according to Pew Research Center, religious lobbying amounts to around $350,000,000 annually. http://www.pewforum.org/2011/11/21/lobbying-for-the-faithful-exec/
I believe it is accurate to claim that there are numerous secular and non-secular economic forces which are in opposition to assisted suicide in addition to the moral stigmatization.
For example, in the United States, palliative end-of-life care is a highly profitable business. In 2017 a very sizeable percentage of Medicaid assistance in the U.S. was spent on long-term care (which includes palliative end-of-life care), to the tune of approximately $119,000,000,000 https://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-...g&sortModel={"colId":"Location","sort":"asc"}
It is fairly obvious that there is no industry that would stand to lose more profit from legalization of assisted suicide than the palliative care industry, which is huge and continues to grow along with the aging trends of the population. The percentage of hospitals in the United States with palliative care programs increased almost 50% between 2000 and 2010. https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-032013-182406
The mental health industry makes a very healthy profit from treating potentially suicidal patients as well. In many states in the U.S., police are allowed to detain people who are deemed a threat to themselves and a psychiatrist can forcefully hospitalize them without due process. My source on this particular fact is that this precise thing happened to me.
My father called the police on me after a particularly suicidal episode I was going through, and I was detained and sent to a psych ward for 4 days against my will. At the end of my stay, my will to live was the same as before, only now I had a $2500 medical bill which I had no way of getting out of. Keep in mind that this was only the insurance deductible; the entire bill was over $10,000 for a 4 day hospital stay where I was essentially imprisoned and was forced to miss school, which contributed to me failing my class. They then prescribed me medicine which I had no desire to take and referred my to another psychiatrist for a follow-up. At no point during this process were my rights as a consumer and as a rational human being taken into account. Essentially, the mental health industry has found a way to profit from misery by forcing suicidal people to use their services through legal coercion.
Additionally, you can make a very solid argument that healthcare policy-making, which most certainly includes discretion over the realm of assisted suicide, is the victim of regulatory capture: the healthcare industry in the United States contributed approximately 8.3 billion dollars worth of campaign contributions in 2018, the second-highest amount by industry: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=c&showYear=a
Suffice it to say, there are plenty of economic influences working against us in this regard. Which, incidentally, does include religious lobbying as well: according to Pew Research Center, religious lobbying amounts to around $350,000,000 annually. http://www.pewforum.org/2011/11/21/lobbying-for-the-faithful-exec/
I believe it is accurate to claim that there are numerous secular and non-secular economic forces which are in opposition to assisted suicide in addition to the moral stigmatization.
FreeSisyphus
Automaton
- Nov 2, 2018
- 5
With respect to this, I'd also like to point out that all of these countries have universal healthcare systems. While assisted suicide would certainly reduce the budgetary burden significantly in those countries, in the U.S. those who can't pay don't get treatment in many cases.
Misanthrope
Mage
- Oct 23, 2018
- 557
Hi Freesissyphus I enjoyed reading your response although I found your personal experiences to be disturbing, especially as you had to pay for the privilege. Makes me wonder what your mental health act consists of over there. I don't disagree with anything you have said. It was quite informative and leaves me with questions. If I seem embittered though, it is because I am.
I agree entirely with this conclusion. It is various groups enacting their ideological stances for self invested reason of profit motive, or traditionalist faith based ideologies. Ultimately all of it is a barrier to reasonable evidence based policy making. From an American perspective Threads conclusion may well have more validity. Seeing those stats laid out was grim reading. It still seems more like a disparate groups of agendas though, than a universal 'They.'
In an ideal world we would look at lobbying like this for what it is. Both an open door to corruption and legal bribery that circumvents democratic process, as a means to buy policy. We don't live in an ideal world though so this behavior will continue to govern over us and make collateral of many of us.
As a Brit every time I hear about American health care I generally find myself horrified and disgusted. It is not a healthcare model that makes an iota of sense to me. As a non American I don't understand it at all. It is not even a good model if you look at where it ranks within the world health organisation.
http://thepatientfactor.com/canadia...zations-ranking-of-the-worlds-health-systems/
37th, only slightly above Slovenia! Whilst at the same time you are paying a greater percentage of GDP than the top rated countries towards healthcare provision. So it does not even make economic sense.
https://interactives.commonwealthfund.org/2017/july/mirror-mirror/
Where is all that money going? That seems bat shit insane to me. Especially if as you say people who can't pay are not getting treated. As well as my American friend can't get access to a specific anti-psychotic because its not covered by her insurance. So she is having to take something half as effective and suffering for it.
I also don't understand what framework of law exists over there that allows you to be denied care with no capacity to seek legal redress for the the harm to yourself that would inevitably lead to? It also seems ridiculously short sighted because a sicker populace is less likely to be working, so isn't going to be strengthening GDP in the first place.
This will sound very anti American, and I apologies for that, but you seem really behind in every area that matters. From education, employment rights, and health care provision.
I thought there were efforts though to get a universal healthcare system there? Did that not work out? I don't really follow American politics. The politics here is enough of a circus as it is.
The health industry and profit motive in America seem very intertwined and entrenched. The care industry in the UK has similar parallels in the private sector but it is not nearly as strong. Hospices generally get statutory government funding of around 40% the rest comes from fundraising efforts with some residents also having to pay a contribution.
However over the last twelve years that same poison of the American insurance and healthcare industry is busy carving up the NHS here. I am watching it steadily get privatised and our access to universal health care get increasingly undermined. Something most Brits are entirely opposed to and never voted for. It is just the full scale of it is not well reported. The various marches and protests barely get mainstream media attention either.
Various MP's across parties making these decisions have ties with various private health care and insurance providers as well as shares in those companies, or lucrative prospects of being on their board of consultants once they leave politics. This sort of thing should be criminal or at least provoke a conflict of interest but it doesn't.
I don't have much further to add seems we are in agreement really. I would be interested in your or other Americans perspective on the questions I raised.
ReadyasEver
Elementalist
- Dec 6, 2018
- 828
Misanthrope, hopefully I can enlighten you. With the technological advances that really began to roll in 1930's and 1940's, the free market system in the United States saw healthcare as an emerging profit center. Drug companies, device makers, medical supply companies saw record growth in the 20th century generating billions every year for stockholders. Most of the hospitals and hospital systems in the US are not for profit, but not all. Then let's throw in the private insurance companies which a majority of individuals use between the ages of 22 and 65, they are for profit also.
Now top that off, specialists( surgeons, oncology, and others ) make between 1/2 to a million a year. Beginning to understand. The US healthcare system is basically a pay to play system.
Recently, I had a friend go to Sloan Kettering Medical Institute in New York. This is one of the finest cancer facilities anywhere in the world along with MD Anderson in Houston and the Mayo Clinic. He told me that when he was there, the vast majority of patients but Middle Eastern, European, and Asian. They were there because they were wealthy, and paying full price for cutting edge new treatments.
The US has absolutely fantastic care, as long as you have the means with wealth and outstanding insurance. Now many people with lesser means still receive some great care and new treatments. There are foundations and charities that donate billions every year, many owned by hospital systems themselves, to help treat the average citizen. It's not nearly enough.
It is a badly broken system, the hospitals are bearing the brunt of the costs. Medicaid and Medicare are badly managed and very inefficient, and also in financially in dire straits. Private insurance companies are getting to be absolute pains to deal with on a daily basis for private citizens.
American business sees healthcare as a right, as long as you can afford the services. Sorry for the vent, but this absolutely disgusts me.
Now top that off, specialists( surgeons, oncology, and others ) make between 1/2 to a million a year. Beginning to understand. The US healthcare system is basically a pay to play system.
Recently, I had a friend go to Sloan Kettering Medical Institute in New York. This is one of the finest cancer facilities anywhere in the world along with MD Anderson in Houston and the Mayo Clinic. He told me that when he was there, the vast majority of patients but Middle Eastern, European, and Asian. They were there because they were wealthy, and paying full price for cutting edge new treatments.
The US has absolutely fantastic care, as long as you have the means with wealth and outstanding insurance. Now many people with lesser means still receive some great care and new treatments. There are foundations and charities that donate billions every year, many owned by hospital systems themselves, to help treat the average citizen. It's not nearly enough.
It is a badly broken system, the hospitals are bearing the brunt of the costs. Medicaid and Medicare are badly managed and very inefficient, and also in financially in dire straits. Private insurance companies are getting to be absolute pains to deal with on a daily basis for private citizens.
American business sees healthcare as a right, as long as you can afford the services. Sorry for the vent, but this absolutely disgusts me.
I find myself thinking repeatedly that the main disadvantage is that thousands of years ago, unless you lived near a cliff, there weren't really many somewhat painless means of killing yourself
Hemlock I hear mixed things about on top of the fact that there's more than one poison called hemlock
Wolfsbane and belladonna don't seem very painless either
Although there's always the chance some plant (or combination of plants) was a pretty accessible, painless means of suicide but its abilities were very greatly quieted
Hemlock I hear mixed things about on top of the fact that there's more than one poison called hemlock
Wolfsbane and belladonna don't seem very painless either
Although there's always the chance some plant (or combination of plants) was a pretty accessible, painless means of suicide but its abilities were very greatly quieted
I'm realizing also upon reading more about it that as far as Nembutal, you pretty much need anti-emetics for it (it doesn't seem to kill you even if you vomit like sodium nitrite is supposed to,--or you die by choking on your vomit), so anti-emetics are a pretty crucial part of this whole thing and if you get rid of access them it creates a huge rift in the entire process of committing a peaceful suicide
I guess if Nembutal was super cheap and available still you could probably just take more if you vomited
I guess if Nembutal was super cheap and available still you could probably just take more if you vomited
Hypergang2018
Member
- Jan 16, 2020
- 30
The government will spend $100000000 on computerized missiles to kill some random poor people in the Middle East but apparently WE are the ones costing them money
Finis Autem Spero
- Dec 30, 2019
- 259
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