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.  

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     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. 

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