X-Message-Number: 7583 Subject: Pick only one: A) Proper medical care B) Cryopreservation Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 19:52:55 -0600 From: Will Dye <> In the massive missive of Tuesday's Cryonet package, posting #7577 made an important point that I will repeat here, for fear that it was lost in the verbage. I invite comments on this topic. ----- begin excerpt ---------------------------------------- Dr. Harris and Mike Darwin both advised the patient that bowel obstruction by the rapidly growing tumor was imminent and that he should consider a palliative colostomy. The patient was resistant to doing this for several reasons. [...] Secondly, the anticipated cost of a colostomy and associated care would jeopardize the funding the patient had set aside from his savings for cryopreservation. [...] This was the first time BPI, CC, or, to our knowledge, any cryonics organization has been faced with a situation where a patient (and his cryonics organizations) was confronted with a choice between reasonable standard of care (avoiding a serious, life shortening, and definitely quality- of-life reducing complication of the illness), and being cryopreserved. This was deeply disturbing for all involved, and merits intense discussion in the immediate future, not just by CC and BPI, but by the cryonics community as a whole. While it is inappropriate to belabor this point here, this case points up that increasingly cryonics organizations will be dealing with both members and non-members who have no health insurance (not even HMO coverage), no access to government healthcare such Medicaid, Medicare or VA care, and/or who have limited access to health care with HMO, PSO, PPO or other care which forces them to make major quality of life or length of life decisions based on use of their non- healthcare allocated funds such as savings, property equity, and even accumulated cash value or resale value of life insurance policies--including those specifically earmarked for cryonics. Further, in some cases the state, acting through the courts, may appropriate these assets at the request of guardians or relatives. The issues raised by the inevitability of a massive restructuring of health care cost and availability in the United States which is occurring now, should be considered now. This case should serve as a sentinel in this respect. ----- begin excerpt ---------------------------------------- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7583