Foxy

Your last post is excellent.

Yes; we are all taxpayers.

Yes; our tax is often squandered on spurious projects such as Foxy mentioned.

Yet, when our taxes are used for any of the 'caring' services, such as Aged Care, Disability support, Workplace Rehabilitation, many people raise questions as to its 'value'.

Very skewed priorities.

What is the dollar value of a further six months of life? Something for each individual and family to decide for themselves - not the bean counters.

Six months where a family has time to talk and say farewell to a loved one - priceless.

Don't we each answer this question whenever we spend money on anything beyond the basics of survival? When we pay for that movie ticket, take a drive to visit friends we are spending money that could potentially save a life.

The difference is those lives are so far away (mostly), there are so many of them and we we don't know them. If our $30 we spent to go and see the new Batman movie was the difference between life and death for someone close the decision would be easy, the further the person is from us (not just geographically) the harder it gets.

Would I sell my house to pay for a treatment to save the life of an immediate family member? - yes. For someone I knew but was not extremly close to? - unlikely. Would I skip a night out to save a couple of lives in a far off land - maybe but not always.

I doubt that many of us can live any other way, it would be almost unlivable not to be able to rest until every wrong was righted so we try and find a balance which works for us. We will sit at different places along a spectrum based on how responsible we feel towards "others" but I doubt any would give the same priority to another who we don't know as we would give to one of our own.

R0bert

I am disappointed with the response to this thread.

Foxy, Fractelle,

Let me deal with your points one by one.

--Let's lose the Melbourne Grand Prix. It's useless.

--So far as I know the Port of Melbourne was running up against capacity constraints. I am not in a position to know whether widening the shipping channel was the best approach.

--If it were my loved ones, say my children, I would not care if it cost 10 BILLION dollars to prolong their lives by 6 months.

All of this IGNORES THE POINT.

Even if we cut all wasteful government projects there would be unmet needs. Resources are FINITE. Hard decisions have to be made. The cold, hard-hearted bean counters have to be able to do calculations along the following lines.

The cost of, PERHAPS, prolonging the lives of cancer patients such as Amelia McDonald for six months could:

--wipe out the waiting list for hip replacements and transform the quality of life of thousands of people.

--enhance the pay of teachers and nurses.

--enhance Australia's old age pension improving the lives of tens of thousands

There are competing and WORTHY demands for every dollar.

Somebody has to make CHOICES.

NOT EVERY NEED CAN BE MET.

Fractelle,

Prolonging the lives of cancer patients for six months is NEVER priceless. It simply means that somebody else – perhaps a researcher working on better more affordable ways of treating cancer – does not get the dollars he needs.

So we need the cold-hearted bean counters to allocate our LIMITED funds in such a way that we get the best bang for the buck

That bean counter may make a different decision if his own loved ones were involved.

Does that make him a hypocrite?

Perhaps it just makes him a human being doing a tough job to the best of his ability.

So how much should governments be willing to spend to perhaps prolong the lives of people like Amelia McDonald for 6 months?

You are all EVADING the HARD question.

Give me a dollar figure

Steven;meyer” Give me a dollar figure”

OK, as a “bean counter” I feel qualified to respond.

The dollar figure is

Different for every single human being

Because

We are all individual

Just like finger prints and DNA , no two are the same.

As I bean counter, I know emotion carries more weight than reason.

As a bean counter, I agree with Robert “I doubt any would give the same priority to another who we don't know as we would give to one of our own.”

As a bean counter I know government, who we charge with administering such matters, will always be less emotionally committed to our individual needs and plights than our family.

When you get right down to it,

I believe that all people are individuals and we are not all equal.

Diversity of the combination chromosomes, genes, proteins and enzymes etc ensure we are all different.

Simply put - Some have lives worth more than others.

Therefore the worth of one person will be different to that of another.

But government, in administering medical aid and services cannot function that way, it is forced, by its own “objectivity” and the blindness of laws, to treat all the same, regardless of worth.

that is not "EVADING the HARD question."

It is qualifying the HARD answer with the caveats needed to ensure it is understandable.

Col Rouge,

You wrote:

'But government, in administering medical aid and services ….is forced, by its own “objectivity” and the blindness of laws, to treat all the same, regardless of worth.'

Precisely.

And as I made clear, I am asking you to put yourself in the shoes of the government minister responsible for administering health care.

So, as a minister, taking account of all circumstances, including other uses to which the money could be put, what is the maximum you would authorise to be spent in giving terminally ill patients a shot at about six more months of good quality life?

Choose from the following ranges:

(a) More than $1,000 but not exceeding $10,000

(b) More than $10,000 but not exceeding $100,000

(c) More than $100,000 but not exceeding $1,000,000

(d) More than $1,000,000 but not exceeding $10,000,000

(e) More than $10,000,000

Note that the median waiting time for hip replacements in Australia exceeds 100 days with about 10% of patients having to wait more than 300 days. This is one example of how long people requiring simple, relatively inexpensive but life-transforming procedures are having to wait in Australia. Dollars spent on prolonging the life of terminally ill patients are not available to make more surgical resources available for people requiring so-called 'elective' surgery.

Hard choices do have to be made.

Resources are not infinite.

There are competing demands for every dollar.

Stevenlmeyer

I will give this a go

OK as a member of government,

I would not be able to concern myself with the suffering of any single individual.

I would not be allowed to consider the mitigating circumstances of any ones life nor the comfort or quality of that life.

I would not be able to value a Mozart more than an assembly line worker.

Such is the heartless role of government.

For someone terminally ill and with other competing demands of a limited resource budget-

To extend the life of the terminally ill would not be worth spending a dollar on.

Partly because, being terminal, they are unlikely to contribute further to the tax-coffers of the state and as a member of government, my first duty is to the state, not the individual.

And that is why I think government holds too much sway over our lives.

If we were not taxed and would have greater discretionary income, as a result, it would be a personal choice to deploy that extra discretionary income on extending our life or leaving more for our heirs or for our children to use their extra discretionary income to keep us alive.

But those are personal, emotional reasons. They are the stuff which government can never be drawn into considering when government is supposed to deal, indifferently, unemotionally, equally and blindly with everyone.