Category: Healthcare

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Should Euthanasia Be Legal?


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Harold and Patricia Tucker recently passed their 50th anniversary. There was no celebration.
 
Married a month after their high school graduation, Patricia worked as a secretary in a local law firm to help Harold attend law school. Harold went on to climb the corporate ladder, becoming the chief counsel of a major insurance company by age 44. Unable to get pregnant, they adopted two children: John and Elizabeth.
 
Disaster stuck when Harold was 58. After experiencing memory problems, speaking difficulties, and bouts of physical pain, doctors suggested a series of tests, culminating in a biopsy of the brain. He was diagnosed with Pick’s disease.
 
There is no known cure for Pick’s disease, which attacks the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. The symptoms include dementia, memory loss, and loss of motor control, typically leading to death within eight to ten years. Patients often spend their final days in an assisted living facility.
 
Pick’s disease intensified Harold’s constant pain. Relief only came from heavy drug usage and semi-consciousness.

The Dilemma of a Fatal Disease

Terminal conditions are devastating. Life turns upside down – even the values held for a lifetime can be questioned. Psychologists claim that no one copes with impending death in the same manner, although many go through a variation of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
 
As Harold’s symptoms increased, he was forced to resign from his job, relying on Patricia for his day-to-day care. Every movement sent spasms of pain through his body, necessitating a daily regiment of opioid pills and patches. The side effects of the medication were almost as bad as the pain itself, with bouts of severe constipation, stomach aches, and drowsiness. The need for Patricia to handle his most intimate hygiene needs confirmed his helplessness.
 
Rather than spend his last days in pain, using up the savings intended for his wife and family, Harold determined that his life would end on his terms – not at the whim of some disease.
 
What actions would you take if diagnosed with a fatal, debilitating disease such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Alzheimer’s disease? Many believe that they would prefer to die on their terms, rather than endure the ravages of disease. Others accept continued life, despite the emotional and financial costs for their survivors.
 
Few realize that they do not have a choice if the situation arises, especially if they live in 45 of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia, where assisted suicide is illegal. In the five remaining right-to-die states – California, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington – the right to control the circumstances of your death is strictly controlled.
 
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Vaccination Debate: Should Immunizations Be Mandatory for Children

Baby-Vaccines-175058_LChildhood immunizations have been controversial for centuries. To many, the idea that protection or immunity can be gained by deliberate exposure to a disease is counter-intuitive. That unease, coupled with the possibility that a child might have an allergic reaction to a vaccine’s ingredients, is enough to cause many parents to question the wisdom of inoculation.
 
Anti-vaccination sentiment began early, even prior to Dr. Edward Jenner’s creation of the first smallpox vaccine in 1796. In Boston in 1721, Reverend Edmund Massey published a paper titled “The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation,” which argued that diseases were sent by God to punish evildoers and that attempts to prevent them, therefore, were sinful.
 
By the late 1800s, anti-vaccine movements, present in both Great Britain and the United States, were active. The Anti-Vaccination Society of America was founded in 1879, and the protest against vaccinations continues today. Ironically, the movement expanded even as the number of smallpox outbreaks was reduced because of inoculation.
 
By 1900, many states—including New York, Massachusetts, California, and Pennsylvania—passed laws requiring vaccinations for any children attending public schools. Now, this is required by all 50 states—though all do provide some form of medical, religious, or philosophical exemption. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1905 that states have the right to enforce compulsory vaccination laws, a ruling subsequently confirmed in 1922 and most recently in 2014.
 
Despite the opposition, vaccines for smallpox, rabies, typhoid, cholera, diphtheria, tuberculosis, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, and rubella were in use by the 1970s. In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control estimated that vaccinations had prevented more than 21 million hospitalizations and 732,000 deaths among children since 1994.

The Andrew Wakefield Study

The controversy over mandatory vaccinations for children has intensified since the publication of a study in The Lancet in 1997 by British former physician Andrew Wakefield linking the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) immunization to autism.

Claims Within the Study

Wakefield’s study involved 12 patients treated at a London hospital. He and his colleagues reported that all 12 children had intestinal abnormalities and development regression beginning one to fourteen days after the MMR vaccination. The study went on to suggest that the vaccine caused a gastrointestinal syndrome in susceptible children that triggered autism.
 
Recognizing the profitability of a public controversy – fueled by all parents’ desire to protect their children – the popular press and fringe-favoring talk show hosts in the UK and U.S. immediately fanned the flames of public reaction and spread news of the study far and wide. According to a Salon article, U.S. newspapers mentioned the link 400 times in 2001 and more than 3,000 times in 2009 – and there were five times the number of television evening news stories on the link in 2010 than in 2001. As a consequence, vaccination rates in Great Britain decreased significantly.
 
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Lifetime Savings Plan – Principles for Every Age

save1Many Americans are now discovering that a comfortable retirement and adequate healthcare are beyond their means. As a consequence, we are working later in life, lowering our expectations, and going without not only luxuries, but essentials as well.
 
The decisions we make through our lives come with financial consequences. These choices include the careers we develop, the colleges we attend, the people we marry, the size of our family, and the lifestyles we adopt. While many of these choices may seem out of our control, it is possible to make adjustments along the way to minimize their worst financial consequences. The advantage available to everyone is time: The sooner we understand the long-term impact of our decisions and make the necessary changes, the more likely we are to reach our financial goals.

Major Lifetime Expenses

People incur common expense categories as they pass through different stages of life. However, the magnitude and timing of each vary from individual to individual. For example, one person may have $25,000 in student loan debt, while another has none. One person might get married at age 22 and have two children while another gets married at age 35 and has three children – another may not marry at all.
 
As a consequence, the following categories are necessarily broad, and a specific expense category may not apply to everyone. Nevertheless, a rough timeline projecting the cost of future expenses can enable you to save a portion of your income through each phase of life, helping you comfortably pay expenses when they occur, and ultimately leading to a substantial retirement fund.

1. Student Debt

According to a recent report by the Institute for College Access & Success, seven out of ten graduating college seniors in 2013 had student loans averaging $28,400. The median debt for those who earn post-graduate degrees is an additional $57,600, according to New America – one in ten graduate students owe $150,000 or more.
 
The cost of obtaining an undergraduate or graduate degree continues to escalate. While there are differences in everyone’s loan limits, interest rates, and repayment requirements, every borrower has to decide whether to focus on repayment as quickly as possible or make minimal payments and begin a savings program.
 
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Medical Tourism – Reasons, Risks & Potential Savings

medical tourismImagine having major surgery at an internationally accredited hospital, performed by a board-certified surgeon, and then recovering with your spouse in a four-star hotel on the beach in Costa Rica. Add daily nurse and physical therapist visits to the mix, and all for less than the cost of the surgery, hospital stay, and rehabilitation in your home city. This is medical tourism—and many Americans have recently discovered it.
 
According to the website Patients Beyond Borders, an estimated 1.2 million Americans will travel overseas in 2014 for medical and dental services. It’s also estimated that, globally, six million people will travel across international borders for less expensive (though comparable) care to save money or avoid long waits for treatment. According to the Huffington Post, British citizens are headed “to Switzerland for things like face lifts, Botox and liposuction; the Czech Republic for boob jobs, lip fillers, and nose jobs; and Thailand for teeth whitening.” The Economic Times reports that the Indian medical tourism business is growing 30% annually, with 3.2 million visitors projected to spend $2 billion U.S. in 2015.
 
Major health insurers such as Aetna, UnitedHealth, Humana, and WellPoint are experimenting with cross-border plans, according to the New Republic. Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina has contracted with foreign providers for its high-deductible, low-premium plans. While Medicare does not currently cover healthcare costs overseas, the nonpartisan group Center for Medicare Portability predicts that it’s just a matter of time—retired Americans living overseas who paid Medicare premiums during their working years are currently denied medical care or must pay out-of-pocket. In addition, there would be substantial savings in the Medicare programs since comparable services overseas cost around 60% to 70% of U.S. prices.
 
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