Help me debunk a Con; Britain's "death panels"?

[DaveinJapan]

Okay, so this guy I know is arguing about the "dangers" of socialist health care, and he throws these two articles at me. I'm assuming the sources are bogus, but in any case I'm looking for suggestions and advice for debunking this guy. Any help would be greatly appreciated, his entire email with his selected quotes and links provided below. Thanks.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...mit.html

"Doctors left a premature baby to die because he was born two days too early, his devastated mother claimed yesterday.
Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy - almost four months early.
They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment.


Miss Capewell, 23, said doctors refused to even see her son Jayden, who lived for almost two hours without any medical support.
She said he was breathing unaided, had a strong heartbeat and was even moving his arms and legs, but medics refused to admit him to a special care baby unit.

Miss Capewell is now fighting for a review of the medical guidelines."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/hea...eme.html

"Rosemary Munkenbeck says her father Eric Troake, who entered hospital after suffering a stroke, had fluid and drugs withdrawn and she claims doctors wanted to put him on morphine until he passed away under a scheme for dying patients called the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP).

Mrs Munkenbeck, 56, from Bracknell, said her father, who previously said he wanted to live until he was 100, has now said he wants to die after being deprived of fluids for five days.

Along with her sister Jocelyn Troake, 60, who lived in Bermuda until recently moving to Frimley, Surrey, to care full time for her father and her mother Edna, 93, they are convinced their father is a victim of the system.

Last week The Daily Telegraph reported a warning from experts that some patients with terminal illnesses were being wrongly put on the NHS scheme and allowed to die prematurely if they ticked “the right boxes". "

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Well, the Daily Mail is a tabloid, and the Telegraph is the British

equivalent of Fox News, if that's any help.

[DaveinJapan]

3. Certainly is helpful, thanks. nt

[grasswire]

2. my dittohead sister said something to me...

....about how people of a certain age and infirmity are "put on the path" to the bonehouse in England. My aunt here in the U.S.last year was near death but recovered and was taken off hospice care. Sis says Auntie would have been put "on the path"in UK and never had a chance to get better.

I don't know what is going on with the wingnuttery.

[PDJane]

4. Well.............

http://www.boiseweekly.com/boise/defending-britains-national-health-system/Content?oid=1138657

http://messageboards.aol.com/aol/en_us/articles.php?boardId=211276&articleId=672488&func=6&channel=People+Connection

There are more in my files, but my reserves of energy to look are falling.

The insanity is just outrageous....and we're going to have to fight here, again, for a single-tier, single payer system; Dr. Day is fighting for the right to charge whatever he wants whenever he wants in his 'clinics'.

The whole damn world is going nuts.

[LynnTheDem]

5. George W. bUsh and the Texas Death Panel

In 1999, then-Gov. Bush signed the Advance Directives Act, which lets a patient's surrogate make life-ending decisions on his or her behalf. The measure also allows Texas hospitals to disconnect patients from life-sustaining systems if a physician, in consultation with a hospital bioethics committee, concludes that the patient's condition is hopeless.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002215324_texaslaw22.html

[anigbrowl]

6. Jeez...

You don't know anything about the UK, so you are wasting your time. Neither does your conservative interlocutor, so all that is going to result is an argument between two ignorant people. I don't know why people post such stupid threads as this. If you don't know anything about a topic, either use google to learn about it or admit your ignorance.

Here's a suggestion. You are in Japan. Write back and say 'I know nothing about the UK's health system because I have never been to the UK. Let me tell you about the Japanese health system, which I know something about because I live in Japan'.

[DaveinJapan]

7. I know a little something about it, a friend of mine works in the Health Care Industry in London...

I started the thread to get some more opinions and maybe a link or two I'd not yet found, sue me.

And you can drop the insults, who are you to be calling anyone ignorant (it's ignorant to make gigantic assumptions about a person you don't even know, you realize that right?)?

[LeftishBrit]

8. The Daily Mail is totally untrustworthy

There are no death panels here.

Cost-cutting governments can underspend on the NHS; and there has occasionally been controversy about NICE's slowness in approving certain expensive drugs for general use. But this does not involve decisions about individual patients.

As anywhere, prognosis may be taken into account in treatment decisions. In the case of the premature baby, the right decision was probably made. A baby born at 21 weeks and 5 days is not in a 'grey area': so far as I know, no baby born before 22 weeks, and very few born before 23 weeks, has ever survived, and all you could do would be to prolong the baby's suffering.

It may be that a few people are diagnosed as terminally ill prematurely, when treatment would still be possible - but that can happen everywhere, and the opposite often happens. I have known a number of elderly people who were treated and kept alive beyond the stage when they would have wished to die. An elderly relative is in process of changing doctors because she feels that her current one would be less likely to accept her wishes to be allowed to die if her quality of life became too poor - quite the opposite of the stereotype.

Also: just because we have an NHS doesn't mean you CAN'T go private if you choose and have the money or the insurance. Some people do - usually to get seen sooner; to have a private room in hospital; or to see a particular doctor of their choice. Many people purchase private insurance, or get it through their employer. But you don't need to in order to get healthcare, and the majority don't find it necessary/

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. Good point--21 weeks is a little over five months

Six months is considered the limit of viability, and even six-month babies require a lot of intervention to survive.

[Robber M]

9. Bull!

Already stated in another thread: I have Brit & Canuck friends who laugh at the likes of Palin. The BS is just that, bullshit!

[zbdent]

10. simple ... "they were following national guidelines" ...

have your RW nutjob produce the "national guidelines" ...

he won't be able to ...

[rebecca_herman]

12. Even if the article is 100% true...

It wouldn't have mattered what they did, there is no medical help for a premature baby that young.
The youngest surviving child was born at I believe 22 weeks and a few days. Even then the survival rate at 22 weeks is less than 10%.
So if they had given medical care the poor baby would have just died miserably after painful medival interventions that would have done nothing to help him survive.

[marshall]

13. Yes, you have to look at the bigger picture

In any system there are going to be gray area incidents. Perhaps, on a long shot, that child could have survived after millions of pounds in medical care, but with lifelong infirmities that would require more costly care. In a system where everyone is paid for, think of all the benefit those millions of pounds would have when scattered to hundreds of not thousands of other children rather than focused on one costly gamble.

[rebecca_herman]

14. even in a scenario with infinite resouces/money for everyone who needs them

it would still be pointless and cruel to force invasive and probably painful medical treatments on a child with a less than 1% chance of survival.
you don't even need to use the money/resources argument on this one, assuming the person in question objects to "rationing" because it doesn't matter what would have been done, it is an almost absolute certainty that this baby would have died.
There were sextuplets born in the US a couple years back a week later then this baby, at 22 weeks 5 days, and they pretty much received the most expensive care available. 5 of them died. It was considered a miracle that the one survivor even lived, and with very few resulting medical problems or disabilities.

[marshall]

18. I wouldn't call it pointless

Just not cost effective. Infants have survived under such circumstances, but not often.

[excess_3]

15. who chose 22 weeks as the cuttoff?

the Death Panel
Parliament

somebody else?

[LeftishBrit]

17. Nature, basically

In the state of current medical science, babies born at 24 weeks have a reasonable chance of survival if given intensive care, though they often have significant permanent health problems and disabilities. Babies born at 23 weeks have some chance of survival, especially if they are girls. There are known, but very rare, cases of survival at 22 weeks. I don't think that there are any proven cases of long-term survival in babies born before 22 weeks.

Many countries, including the UK, set the age of viability at 24 weeks (i.e. abortion is legal up to that time).

[rucky]

16. Sounds like NHS leaves the decisions to doctors.

who misuse or misread NHS guidelines.

From the doctors I know, there are mostly great people and quite a few psychopaths thrown into the profession, as well.

[spanone]

19. don't waste your time.