Alberto Monteiro schreef:
> Dan Minette wrote:
> >
> >> <serious>
> >> I believe you can't treat health care - and everything
> >> related to Life & Death - by the cool methods of
> >> economical [ok, ok] science. Or maybe you can - if
> >> you add *a very important long term*: the fact that
> >> treating human lifes as numbers will add a callousness
> >> to *all* relations in the society that will possibly
> >> be disruptive of the social order in the future.
> >
> > Well, I'm trying to use numbers to show that we are
> > facing very difficult decisions.
> >
> Ok, and I am just pointing that ==maybe== using numbers
> in the subject of human life may have hidden costs that
> should be computed. Namely: that by using numbers in
> this subject the society may become more callous.
I do have one problem with this. Let's take two oposite and
hypothetical cases:
Subject A: A very wealthy old person needing a very complicated and
expensive treatment to live maybe 1 or 2 years longer, gets this
treatment because this person can pay for it. So a lot of resources
are put into this person because of his/her money. Resources that
cannot be used elsewhere.
Subject B: A child needs a simple treatment that will result in a
perfectly normal lifespan for this child that could die otherwise, but
won't get that treatment because the no one can pay for it.
And now please explain to me ethics and cost again in relation to
death....
Sonja
