I would say it is a fact that medical billing has little relationship to actual costs of care. You should do some research on it.
It's also a fact that the real cutting-edge R&D is invariably funded by taxpayers, while pharmaceutical companies spend their budgets creating patentable variants, often cherry-picking studies to show marginal improvements over existing drugs. You should do some research on that, too.
> but it really is the case that we should disabuse ourselves from the notion that one should be entitled to life-saving care.
I couldn't disagree more. If it truly is life-saving (as opposed to death-prolonging) care, we really should _dedicate_ ourselves to the notion that each of us should be entitled to life-saving care. That should be an explicit part of the social contract.
Oh, and btw, society was NOT paying ~100k to keep your dad alive. Assuming you're here in the U.S., if you were looking at medical bills to figure out that number, SURPRISE! those numbers are just made up. (Seriously, they're fiction)
That's not to say that you made the wrong choice with your dad, mind you. We do tend to prolong life way past the point of cruelty in this country.
And also traditionally female-dominated. At a base, cultural level, our society has a very real problem with seeing female-majority professions as actual professions.
> The researchers analyzed health data from 1,104 active male firefighters collected from 2000 to 2010.
Active male firefighters? You mean people whose entire job is predicated upon physical strength? People for whom pushups are essentially an aerobic exercise? People who are in no way representative of the population at large???
In practice, you would just replace the queue with a disorganized rabble of people standing around, where as soon as the person currently being served leaves, there is a mad dash at the one secure spot, which is at the very front.
I feel like I've been a part of a queue like this -- at the airport in San Jose, Costa Rica. It was asinine and infuriating, and just thinking about it makes my blood boil.
It's also a fact that the real cutting-edge R&D is invariably funded by taxpayers, while pharmaceutical companies spend their budgets creating patentable variants, often cherry-picking studies to show marginal improvements over existing drugs. You should do some research on that, too.