Canada Asks, Should Doctors Be Paid Extra To Kill Costly Patients

They are actually debating the merits:

Originally, health authorities in B.C. told providers there wasn’t enough money to substantially fund a new service. But the argument is moot in light of findings that outline the potential cost-savings of offering MAID to qualified patients who want it, rather than continuing life-saving treatments and care. According to the Canadian Medical Association, assisted dying could cut health care costs by at least $34.7 million and up to $138.8 million a year in Canada. Both Green and Daws now can’t help but wonder whether the decision to set fees so low was a politically or ethically motivated one. “I would hate to think that was the intention,” adds Shanaaz Gokool, CEO of Dying with Dignity, an end-of-life rights organization. “But ultimately it doesn’t matter,” she adds. “Intentionally or not, the outcome is the same: you’re putting up barriers to access, and now that [policy-makers] know, it’s their responsibility to make changes ASAP. If they don’t, then they are intentionally obstructing access with that decisions.”

Indeed, if the provinces and territories are serious about giving Canadians access to assisted dying, they need to do more to encourage doctors, most of whom—money aside—are hesitant to offer the service to begin with. According to a 2015 survey by the Canadian Medical Association, only 29 per cent of doctors would consider providing the service, and that was before they knew doing so could be financially detrimental. “[Assisted dying] is only a right, it’s only a choice, if you have meaning access to it,” Gokool points out. “Otherwise, it’s just something we say.”

Traditionally, health authorities have tackled other access problems with initiatives like return-for-service programs, where medical trainees get bursaries for committing to work a stint in rural or remote areas. In B.C., doctors are also paid a premium to do monthly visits to rural communities through the province’s Northern and Isolation Travel Assistance Outreach Program. Similarly, Daws says that paying a premium, hourly rate for MAID work could be one way to incentivize doctors to participate and improve access for patients.

Alternatively, physicians could be paid a comprehensive fee that’s generous enough to incentive the work. In the Netherlands, for example, where physician-assisted dying has been legal since 2002, providers are paid a flat rate of about 1,500 euros. That’s $2,200 Canadian dollars and at least five times more than what MAID providers can earn in Canada. On top of that, Dutch physicians are given a paid day off after assisting a death to take care of themselves emotionally.

They want more people dying. Notice how easy it is to get a dementia patient to say they want something, just by telling them how great it is. Very often they are just mirroring what you say and how you act back to you. Imagine what would happen if the government was offering bounties on assisted suicides doctors sold.

Notice how when K-selection comes, the rabbit’s biggest fear is everyone free, and the chips falling where they may. They want that mortality controlled, standardized, and randomized, and fully outside the control of the individual being killed.

If you picture rabbits in a woods, with the hawk periodically swooping down and carrying off “Dave,” you see that kind of mortality. It is interesting the r-strategists seem to have a deep rooted, natural affinity for it. It feels right to them.

It is interesting especially given how that drive to control who dies, and prevent someone from fighting valiantly themselves or having a hand in their fate, is so repulsive to the K-strategists.

We are rabbits and wolves.

Spread r/K Theory, because rabbits and wolves cannot lie down together