Con

The National Right to Life Committee's Burke Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics Director J. Balch, JD, wrote on the organization's website in an article titled "Medicare Vote a Spectacular Victory in Pro-Life Fight Against Rationing," (accessed on Sep. 6, 2006):

“Americans as a whole can afford to obtain unrationed health care. It has become fashionable to deplore the ‘rising cost’ of health care. What too few people appreciate is that:

1) Adjusted for inflation, the cost of health care per year of life saved has actually been falling; what has been happening is that we are devoting a rising proportion of our resources to health care with resulting large increases in longevity and better health. In other words, we are not paying more for the same level of health care, but somewhat more for a much higher level of health care.

2) We have been able to devote more resources to health care because rising productivity in other areas has freed up those resources…

In short, we shouldn’t bemoan the fact that we are spending more and more on health care–we should be grateful that our country’s tremendous productivity enables us to spend more and more to save lives and improve health!…

Since its inception, the pro-life movement has fought just as hard to safeguard the lives of the vulnerable elderly and people with disabilities from euthanasia as to protect the lives of the unborn from abortion. We have long recognized that government-imposed rationing of medical treatment necessary to save life is a form of involuntary euthanasia.”

Sep. 6, 2006