Should my insurer kill me?
Some of you may suspect that there is something wrong, almost Kafkaesque in nature to the above question.
Well, according to the Economist, a recent study by the good folk at University of Liege coma science group has discovered that doctors routinely mistake the level of vegetative state of comatose patients. Doctors make mistakes. Scrub. Doctors routinely make mistakes.
How many? Out of 103 patients, the doctors diagnosed 44 as vegetative. However, tests showed that only 18 were vegetative. the rest were in minimally conscience state. 4 out of the 40 diagnosed as minimally coscience were actually out of that state and able to communicate (just imagine the horror of being ignored after sleeping for years…).
Now here is the issue: Insurance companies prefer vegetative state patients because:
1. They can be disconnected (cheap)
2. They have no need for expensive rehabilitation
So, ahem, these same guys (dolts) who figured they should insure deadbeat (and temporary) homeowners on the assumtions that price will ALWAYS go up, created vehicles of investment to hide the risk which they said “will never happen” are now incented to keep those of us unlucky enough to be comatose as vegetative?
Suddenly, state owned healthcare begins to look nice (er).
On the bright side, same Economist has a story of cheaper solar cells and the successful cloning of mice.