Rationing medical care is being quietly employed as the realization take hold that medical expenses will continue to rise. More people living longer will have more problems needing treatment such as heart disease or asthma requiring more, better and more expensive medications to allow our patients to live in comfort. Many of the medical and social service expenses will be for quality of life problems in the elderly. Eventually as a society we need to decide how we will handle this conflict of interests between needs, desires and resources. Well maybe not cataracts.
Senior citizens vote.
Our neighbor to the north, the one symbolized by the maple leaf, officially does not ration care but by making it difficult to obtain non-emergency surgery or diagnostic testing in a timely fashion it achieves the goal of holding down expenditures by limiting access to care. It is the patient who pays, and the system does not seem to care if the patient deteriorates and ends up costing more in the long run. Even Republicans in Washington are hearing that message this election year. I know it is time to back off, regroup, and get my mind on other things. I will be in Guatemala with 125 orphans and 18 other workers from July 2 to 12 and will return refreshed and, with the rest of the Board of Directors, face these challenges.