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| Jesus Heals Lepers (Monreale Cathedral, Sicily, Italy; 12th Century) |
How do you think medical care should be apportioned? Should it only be provided on the basis of an individual’s ability to pay for it? Or should some basic degree of medical care be provided for all on the basis of their need for it? What role should merit play in determining someone’s access to health care?
Click here to listen to an Oxford-style debate on the 2008 question of whether universal health care should be the government's responsibility.
I've heard several cases like this(work at a hotel you can't afford to stay at, or a restaurant you can't eat at). I think whether it was luck of the draw, or a Devine entity, it doesn't matter. If you donate a hospital a wing simply because you're a trust fund (luck of the draw) baby, then you can do whatever you want in any branch of that hospital as long as your blood line lives on. So is it not fair to say given Henrietta's donation that has brought so much good, her blood line deserves the same treatment? I think the cure for polio is a bigger contribution then another 50 rooms at one hospital. As for universal health care... I honestly can't decide my opinion.
ReplyDeleteIt seems as though having a bank full of funds is the easiest way to achieve most goals in life. With money you can feed a family, buy a house, and afford an education for yourself and your children. Most people will agree you earn your money for performing a task you are good at, a football player doesn't make millions by flipping burgers. In the same way an all-state high school player can earn a college education, considerably the best payment for a child out of high school, is it outrageous to believe someone who could aid so much in the development of medical science receive some sort of payment? Along with this I believe that health care should be paid for by the one seeking the care, but as a percentage of what they make as opposed to the procedure itself. For instance, having chemotherapy would cost fifteen percent a family's income. This system would cause many upsets for the upper class, but would allow for a doctor and hospital to make what they need as well as allow everyone to seek medical care as they should be able to.
ReplyDelete- Michael Womack
This is a question that really eats my chips. My personal belief is if a person can be helped, they should be helped regardless of money, gender, or race. On the other had I believe people should work hard for their "benefits". Free handouts don't encourage people to support themselves consistently; they mostly become crutches for people to become dependent on and never fully heal. But that could also be a generalization..
ReplyDeleteI believe that regardless of any contribution made to an organization or science, a person or there family should not be entitled to anything. If a "generous" donor decides to add fifty rooms to a hospital, they should be rewarded with a firm shake of the hand and a thank you. However if a contract is made between the donor and the hospital that in return of the donation, the family gets free benefits or extra care through that hospital, so be it. With the situation with the Lacks' family, I believe the hospital was wrong for not informing Henrietta about taking and using her cells. I think that, because of that mistake, John Hopkins should have offered here family free treatment or reduced cost treatment to make amends for their mistake, not necessarily because of Henrietta Lacks' contribution to science.
ReplyDeleteCaleb Savage
I believe anyone who needs it should be given medical attention. Merit, race, religion and everything else aside. If you need it, you need it! And you cant controll if you happen to need heart surgery (unless you eat about 500 Oreos a day, then you're asking for it) and don't quite have the funds to cover the costly operation. Then what? do we tell doctors to sit back and let you or me die over money? I hope not.
ReplyDeleteI belive that this will forever be an enduring question for society. How could someone say that because of a one time donation to a hospital that someone should be allowed to receive free care when really that someone is more than capable of paying for their own health care by proof in the donation. Yet someone who works all of their life, does what they can to stay healthy, and still end up in the hospital with illness, cannot be helped because they lack the money? Somehow this never seems to make sense in my mind, yet I do believe that everyone who needs medical attention should get it. Maybe a donation to help cover the funds of those who can't afford medical help would be more beneficial to a hospital than a new wing.
ReplyDeleteIn the theater business, once a song or play is copyrighted and published, the composer then has “royalty rights” to their work. If I had a theater group and wanted to put on a production of the Broadway musical “Wicked” I would have to pay a certain amount of money to a publishing company who would in turn pay the writers. Each time it is preformed, the writers and their families receive a large sum of money from ticket sales and other profit. Once the writer dies, the royalty rights are still kept by the family unless it is specified that the work is to become a part of the public domain. If this was true in the medical field, the Lacks family would have no trouble whatsoever paying medical bills. If someone is to profit from HeLa, part of the profit should go to the Lacks family. On the subject of universal health care, I agree that if someone is in desperate need, they should not be denied.
ReplyDeleteMelody, the case of Henrietta Lacks's contribution to the medical field is different than the contribution made by Gregory Maguire (the author of the book on which the musical "Wicked" is based) to the world of musical theater, though, isn't it? Couldn't some argue that it isn't the HeLa cells themselves, but the work that was done on them, the analysis of those cells by experts, that has proved so beneficial to the medical community? Would it be fair to compare that to a situation in which a writer hands someone a bag full of words and asks to be rewarded when those words are later reconfigured into work of art? What do you think?
ReplyDeleteMichael, your suggestion that someone ought to be asked to pay a fixed percentage of their income for the medical procedures they need is intriguing, but what would you say to the person who claims that they make more money because they work harder, and it is unfair to penalize them for this? If the price of everything were calculated as a percentage of a person's income, wouldn't that remove the incentive to do hard work?
ReplyDeleteThe idea of someone slacking off had not occurred to me when I first responded. Maybe a good answer to this would be to have a fixed percentage based on what it is safe to consider one could make. So for example someone who can provide evidence they are working all the hours deemed reasonable for someone to work, but yet still find themselves short of money could then pay the fixed percentage instead. This way the man who does work hard can pay for the procedure like we would consider "fair" while the slacking man would have to work longer to pay it off.
DeleteZach, "need" is a relative term, don't you think? What if someone can only see out of one eye or hear out of one ear? How much money should be spent on surgery to meet fix the problem? Responsibility is also relative. The case of someone who eats 500 Oreos may seem clear cut, but much of our health is a function of our diet and our exercise routines. The Hippocratic Oath requires that doctors, first of all, do no harm. It does not require them to spare no expense in extending the life of every patient. The case of the boy in John Q was made easy for us, in a way, because the patient, as a child, was innocent and had a long life ahead of him, and the parents were doing all they could to pay for the surgery. I imagine that most hospitals have to deal with more nuanced scenarios all the time. If you were writing a policy guideline for hospitals to use when dealing with patients and their bills, how would you account for these factors? Defining terms like "need" and "responsibility"--or deciding who would get to define those terms-- would be of paramount importance to such a policy, I think.
ReplyDeleteKelsea, what are the pros and cons of universal health care, in your opinion?
ReplyDeleteCaleb, if taking and using Henrietta Lacks's cells was not illegal but a "mistake" (as you put it) or an injustice, how should we calculate the price the hospital must pay with respect to the health care provided to Henrietta Lacks's spouse, children and grandchildren? What would you say to a hospital representative who claimed that the hospital provided treatment for Ms. Lacks when no other hospital would, that the hospital's researchers contributed to the advance of medical science in a way that helps millions (the HeLa cells couldn't analyze themselves), and that they should be congratulated not punished for their work?
ReplyDeleteI believe that the time has passed for any need for John Hopkins to repay the family with medical treatment. However, if placed in a similar situation were to happen now or if this case took place in the 90's and information had just recently been released on it, I believe the type of health care offered to the family could be limited to free yearly check-ups and exams. It would tie closely back to the story about Henrietta needing better testing and exams and would provide a service to her family without financially crumbling the hospital. In response to the hospital representative, I would note that the hospital was the only one to treat her because she was low-income and black. It had nothing to do with her or her medical condition specifically, just the fact that she was a poor minority in segragated society. I believe John Hopkins should have helped the family in some way after everything hit the fan because of two reasons. First, saying that they shouldn't be punished because of all the advancements they made to science is like telling Americans we should praise Hitler because without him, a lot of innovations and advancements that were made in science, politics and military strategy may have never occurred.
DeleteDid you really just play the Hitler card on Johns Hopkins?!
ReplyDeleteWhen you say "John Hopkins should have helped the family in some way after everything hit the fan because of two reasons," what specifically do you mean by "after everything hit the fan"? After HeLa cells led to medical advancements? Why would we characterize that as "hitting the fan"?
And what was your second reason?