Death Panels, Revisited

When it comes to doling out medical care, especially life-preserving care, we all begin to get a little squeamish. No one wants to be the one who says no. We don’t even want to acknowledge that it is happening.

I saw a play the other day in which the playwright tries to induce the audience to consider a deep problem of health care and medical insurance. A brave undertaking, I concede, but unfortunately with a poor result.
The story revolved around an insurance company’s refusal to pay for a liver transplant for one of its clients, on the argument that she had concealed one of those famous “pre-existing conditions,” namely alcoholism. The scene was Thanksgiving Day at the home of the company’s CEO, and the characters included his two sons, one a doctor and chief medical officer of the company (and also an alcoholic) and the other the firm’s general counsel. Dad is a bully — in fact, he is a cartoonish monster — who has browbeaten the doctor son into denying the woman’s request. Others in the family are browbeaten, too, just because that’s what Dad does.

Read more: http://www.american.com/archive/2012/december/death-panels-revisited