> We already have an extreme shortage of available healthcare workers. We don't need to stress them further because 20% of the population suddenly decides they need 80 elective surgeries to remove things that would've gone away or stayed benign on their own.

Strawman. No one is suggesting adding extra stress to healthcare workers. It's also not you or your doctors call to make: let's gatekeep this patients cancer because our hospital can't deal with the workload. What a truly wicked idea.

To help alleviate the extreme shortage of available healthcare workers we should instead allow those wanting to pay for these elective surgeries, to pay for them! Drive money into healthcare, scale up treatments, drive money into research. Let the system work.

Don't just turn off the lights and shut the door.

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kulahan 15 hours ago | parent [-]

It's significantly more wicked to pretend that tests, treatments, and more aren't done by healthcare workers (yes, even private ones), and to inundate them with unimportant medical procedures while truly sick people are dying.

Yes, this is true even if the person opting for the elective surgery has millions, potentially even billions of dollars to pay with. Having money doesn't make your illness more important.

Don't get all holier-than-thou on topics like this; it's already a difficult-enough topic.

	▲	Ajedi32 14 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I often wonder if people who make these kinds of statements simply don't know how market forces work, or if they know how market forces work but just choose to pretend they don't exist in certain contexts where that reality feels particularly unfair... Demand suppression doesn't work. "Having money doesn't make your illness more important" sounds like a noble sentiment, but by applying it in the real world you'd actually be reducing the total size of the pool of resources available to treat everyone. Talk about holier than thou...
	▲	jamesrom 13 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> It's significantly more wicked to pretend that tests, treatments, and more aren't done by healthcare workers (yes, even private ones), and to inundate them with unimportant medical procedures while truly sick people are dying. Strawman+ad hominem. No one is suggesting to pretend _anything_. Charge premiums for these tests based on how "unimportant" they are. Use market forces to move money from those willing to pay, to those who cannot.