Intelligence Squared Debates @ CIW
Ration End-of-Life Care
Just because we can extend life, should we? The U.S. is expected to spend $2.8 trillion on health care in 2012. Medicare alone will cost taxpayers $590 billion, with over 25% going toward patients in their last year of life. If health care is a scarce resource, limited by its availability and our ability to pay for it, should government step in to ration care, deciding whose life is worth saving? In other words, how much is an extra month of life worth?
Reception from 5:30pm - 6:15pm; Debate from 6:30pm - 8:15pm
For the Motion:
Dr. Art Kellermann: Director, RAND Health
Peter Singer: Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University
Against the Motion:
Sally Pipes: President and Chief Executive Officer, Pacific Research Institute
Ken Connor: Chairman, Center for a Just Society