Live data from Hacker News

No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

thenewatlantis.com

41–50 of 147 posts

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#41
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sympathetic to those who wish for assisted suicide to prevent pain for diseases or illnesses they've succumbed to. I agree with your thesis that death may be preferential to suffering, and should be available to those who seek it. On the other hand, there are articles like this[1], wherein the main factor for the requested euthanasia is income. "But until recently, he was able to live comfortably, sharing his mo…

When the state pays for your healthcare, your health will never be the top priority.

For most of your life, the state is best aligned with keeping you healthy. The state's top priority is making sure you will be working and paying taxes, and you can't do that as well when you are sick.

The state will stop caring once you dont have prospects for paying more taxes, but before then, the state has your health as a higher priority than even you do. Eg. The government doesn't like it when teens do risky behaviour, and tries to stop it, because it will have bad health, and thus tax results.

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#42
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are cases where people do want to live but are counseled into suicide.

Being counselled to suicide should be ineffective if they want to live, no? This isn’t a 30 hour police interrogation without food, water, or sleep. Options are presented, and in some cases living with the debilitating sickness is worse than suicide. I think if they want to live, it is likely they want to live if the debilitating illness wasn’t there, but given that fact they choose death.

No post body was provided.

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#43

Seems like a stretching propaganda hit piece from the anti-abortion crowd stretching into calling the "current" Canadian Government in power a "regime" that kills poor people by...get this...convincing doctors to convincingly get poor and unhealthy people to go past every fucking alarm bell and human instinct and literally kill themselves with their assistance to somehow be less of a burden on the state? Somehow a sm…

I suggest you do a little reading. I'm Canadian and it's alarming.

It's already apparently 2.5% of deaths in Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/medical-assi...

We have credible reports of a person aged 23 who was approved for medically assisted death because they were diabetic and depressed. https://www.thefp.com/p/scheduled-to-die-the-rise-of-canadas

The top 1% of patients use approximately 30% of the total cost of health care. https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/...

The Canadian health care system is extremely strained. We are already in an age of hallway medicine as there aren't enough staff to treat the people in rooms. https://www.cma.ca/news/canadas-health-care-crisis-what-we-n...

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#44

Seems like a stretching propaganda hit piece from the anti-abortion crowd stretching into calling the "current" Canadian Government in power a "regime" that kills poor people by...get this...convincing doctors to convincingly get poor and unhealthy people to go past every fucking alarm bell and human instinct and literally kill themselves with their assistance to somehow be less of a burden on the state? Somehow a sm…

I suggest you do a little reading. I'm Canadian and it's alarming. It's already apparently 2.5% of deaths in Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/medical-assi... We have credible reports of a person aged 23 who was approved for medically assisted death because they were diabetic and depressed. https://www.thefp.com/p/scheduled-to-die-the-rise-of-canadas The top 1% of patients use approximately 30%…

The breakdown of MAID by main condition is interesting, and suggests that the vast majority (~70%) are cancer patients avoiding a painful, prolonged and terrible death.

This would also suggest that once we get even better at cancer treatments, the rate of people dying to MAID will drop dramatically.

Later in the stats, ~80% of people have lost the ability to engage in activities of daily life (which IMO is a terrible place to be).

I don't think your reference supports your claim at all. In fact, it suggests that it's doing exactly what it is meant to do: ending unnecessary suffering for those who are dying of diseases we don't yet have a cure to.

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#45
>One of the greatest reasons for concern is the sheer scale of Canada’s euthanasia regime. California provides a useful point of comparison: It legalized medically assisted death the same year as Canada, 2016, and it has about the same population, just under forty million. In 2021 in California, 486 people died using the state’s assisted suicide program. In Canada in the same year, 10,064 people used MAID to die.

70% of the Canadians reported cancer as the reason for MAID. It sounds like thousands of Californians are experiencing unnecessary and extended end of life suffering.

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#46

Seems like a stretching propaganda hit piece from the anti-abortion crowd stretching into calling the "current" Canadian Government in power a "regime" that kills poor people by...get this...convincing doctors to convincingly get poor and unhealthy people to go past every fucking alarm bell and human instinct and literally kill themselves with their assistance to somehow be less of a burden on the state? Somehow a sm…

It's a real weird wedge issue for sure. Many stories portraying poor and disabled people resorting to MAID are being pushed by historically conservative and right leaning publications (ex. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11516989/Canadian-m...).

MAID didn't create or change the conditions these people are in and it's not like the Conservatives pushing this narrative are known for anything but outrage and cuts to social safety nets..

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the state pays for your healthcare, your health will never be the top priority.

Is privatization a better alternative then? In the US, private hospitals spent years cutting staff so they were entirely unable to deal with Covid numbers.

The US Healthcare system is shamelessly intertwined with the state to limit supply and extract rent.

Try to open a hospital and you will run into certificate of need laws who's primary objective flys in the face of supply and demand:

> A primary objective of state CON laws is to control health care costs by avoiding unnecessary expansion or duplicative services within an area.

Or simply try becoming a doctor in America; also known as assuming half a million dollars in debt and 8 years of college education and another 4 years of 'residency' a program where you work yourself to the bone for peanuts. All this courtesy of the professional organizations getting in bed with the state to limit competition and enrich themselves.

Let's not even discuss the pharma industry :).

Any discussion of bettering healthcare in the US that doesn't take on the rot at the core of the system is dead on arrival. Switching to a public solution tomorrow would just further enrich the cronies at the cost of the general public - and health outcomes would be largely unchanged.

https://www.ncsl.org/research/health/con-certificate-of-need...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/why-does-t...

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest you do a little reading. I'm Canadian and it's alarming. It's already apparently 2.5% of deaths in Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/medical-assi... We have credible reports of a person aged 23 who was approved for medically assisted death because they were diabetic and depressed. https://www.thefp.com/p/scheduled-to-die-the-rise-of-canadas The top 1% of patients use approximately 30%…

The breakdown of MAID by main condition is interesting, and suggests that the vast majority (~70%) are cancer patients avoiding a painful, prolonged and terrible death. This would also suggest that once we get even better at cancer treatments, the rate of people dying to MAID will drop dramatically. Later in the stats, ~80% of people have lost the ability to engage in activities of daily life (which IMO is a terrible…

There have also been many reports of people, mostly disabled, who are unable to work or afford rent in Ontario, who have applied to medically assisted death rather than face homelessness. This might be both brinksmanship and gamesmanship, but it's extremely distasteful that we are here as a society.

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are people forced to live if they don't want to? As with abortion, why must I cheerfully pay taxes for policy affecting individuals that's morally objectionable?

I have bad news for you. You will never gain the ability to pick and choose what your taxes fund, and the other people paying taxes have entirely different sets of important things that they wish to fund, and different sets of things that they are horrified that their taxes are supporting.

I'm actually kind of able to pick where my taxes are going. By moving to other countries. Surely, Canada is not going to be on the list.
Post reply on HN