I think I've been looking at vaccine passports all wrong.

[hamsterjill]

Instead of using them to get into concerts, go on trips, etc., I think they need to be used more in terms of getting hospital care.

I think it needs to come down to either you have a vaccine card showing you are vaccinated, or you have a card showing you were offered a vaccine and refused it - with an acknowledgement that refusal of the vaccine means that you may be denied medical care when available care is limited because of a facility being overwhelmed.

This is a horrible way to think, but after hearing and seeing the effects of this pandemic now for two years basically, I’m ready for some drastic steps to get it behind us. This “treading water” is killing all of us. I watched a segment over the weekend on a cable news cast which was comparing case numbers on that date versus one year ago. In almost every instance, we are worse off today than a year ago.

We are not moving in the right direction and something decisive needs to be done to change that.

[JustAnotherGen]

1. I'm hearing in face to face conversations

Saving for example - 20% of ICU and MCU beds for Covid Patients - so that others in need are not being turned away.

[SheltieLover]

61. If I had a vote, I would treat willfully unvaxed covid in field hospitals

Delta is exceptionally contagious.

Why should, for instance, expectant parents be subjected to the cesspool of covid?

[SheltieLover]

2. Friend had heart attack last week. Waited EIGHT HRS for care

Due to willfully unvaxed.

Docs sent her home with rxs to protect her from magats who have overrun the hospital with covid!

Palliative tents outside for willfully unvaxed!

N. Idaho hospitals announced they will ration care, but NOT to protect vaxed! On the basis of likely survival!

[FBaggins]

5. Your friend may be an excellent example of why this is a bad idea

Shall we debate why he had a heart attack? Was it his diet? Perhaps there were blood pressure medications that were never taken.

And once we've decided that bad decisions in his life are sufficient to deny him emergency medical services... who has to make the call?

[SheltieLover]

6. None of the above

Are you suggesting it is a good idea for willfully unvaxed to break our healthcare system? That is precisely what they are doing.

Docs & nurses suiciding & quitting in record numbers.

[FBaggins]

8. Does it matter?

The point is that it isn't moral to speculate that someone should be standing in the door of the hospital deciding whether someone's choices should keep them from receiving care. You say "none of the above" but you can't possibly know (as HE possibly doesn't know). The vast majority of people with heart attacks DID "do it to themselves" based on their choices in life.

Are you suggesting it is a good idea for willfully unvaxed to break our healthcare system?

Of course not.

[ProfessorGAC]

17. Doesn't The Contagious Aspect...

...create a pretty clear distinction?
Obesity isn't contagious. Neither are heart attacks.
But a choice to not participate in mitigating a virulent contagion isn't much like earning too much junk food.
I'm not in agreement that the morality is that clearcut.

[FBaggins]

18. Nope

No more so than someone who is contagious despite not making the same choices.

Medical care isn't rationed by poor life decisions. Nor should it be. Rationing is based on the medical need (and in the extreme, things like life expectancy and quality of life), not on what caused the need.

[SheltieLover]

62. Absolutely, Professor!

[SheltieLover]

21. Willfully unvaxed should not be allowed to break our healthcare system, imo

[FBaggins]

26. The good news is... it doesn't really matter what your opinion is

Medical ethics isn't driven by mob rule.

The rationing of medical services is sometimes necessary and can be ethically complex - but it's driven by things like utilitarianism, egalitarianism, egalitarianism... but never by an estimation of the worth of the individual based on bad choices.

[SheltieLover]

27. Mob rule? Really?

You have a great sense of humor.

Protecting the environment of healthcare workers, newborns & their parents, & non covid is not mob rule.

[FBaggins]

31. Ok... "public opinion"

Happy now?

[SheltieLover]

32. I'd be happy if magats, unwillfully unvaxed, were not allowed to break healthcare, schools, & govt

systems.

[FBaggins]

34. And those magats would love to determine whether you were worthy of receiving healthcare

Fortunately for all of us... neither opinion matters in the slightest.

But go ahead... tell me again how your ruling on who lives and who dies will always be the moral one so the normal rule doesn't apply tin this specific case.

[SheltieLover]

36. It should be willfully unvaxed housed & treated outside hospitals

[Lurker Deluxe]

47. So ...

Ambulance pulls up, 4 gunshot wounds to the chest.

Check vaccination status ...

Does not matter now, dead.

Brilliant.

[SheltieLover]

64. Apparently, many doctors agree with not cloggong healthcare facilities

Pls read:

https://www.statnews.com/2021/08/13/elective-surgeries-delayed-again-doctors-response/

Note: Elective does not mean cosmetic enhancement! It means any surgery that is scheduled.

[FBaggins]

89. You've let your imagination run away with you

Nothing in that article dealt with rejecting unvaccinated patients. They’re saying that it was a mistake (last year) to block some procedures for fear of exposing those patients.

[marble falls]

55. Public opinion doesn't drive policy? Are you serious? Do you think the public opinion regarding ...

... willfully refusing to be vaxxed or masked has no bearing on how health service is being rendered right now???

Because my cateract surgery is being held up, and a friend of mine is sitting right in the ER now for six hours with a partial heart blockage because the Covid infected non vaxxers are taking up all beds.

[SheltieLover]

63. N. Idaho rationing care now

Dependent upon the most likely to survive. 10 facilities!

[fescuerescue]

94. That's every hospital in the US

It's triaging. It's been debated and refined for many decades.

Triaging however, does not account for prior past decisions.

It accounts for medical status as presented.

2 years ago, if you went to an inner city hospital with a cold, you were triaged and made to wait while gang members for their gunshot wounds treated.

Triaging isn't new. It's quite common.

[marble falls]

37. You do realize, the sane is true for you, right?

[FBaggins]

39. Yes and no

My opinion carries zero weight... but happens to align perfectly with how things are done. So it's the same results as though my opinion mattered.

[AkFemDem]

33. I agree with you- it's a dangerous slippery slope. Look at who tends to get sickest from covid-

Some of the highest risk groups for severe illness are the obese, people with diabetes and heart disease, smokers… if beds get scarce enough should we filter out anyone who has lifestyle choices that led to them getting severe Covid? Putting a cigarette in my mouth or eating 2000 calorie meals are willful choices too.

I think increased insurance prices for unvaxxed people is a reasonable tactic from the medical community to increase pressure, but witholding care is not.

[Phoenix61]

9. Except it's not heart attack patients or accident victims

that are breaking our health care system. It’s the willfully unvaxed that are doing it. Do you think that’s ok? That they should, as a group, deny medical care to everyone else? That their refusal to care about anyone else is causing medical providers to quit because they just can’t deal with them any longer.

[FBaggins]

11. Only on the worse days of the pandemic...

... were there more people dying from COVID than from heart disease.

The vast majority of which were from willful lifestyle decisions.

Do you think that’s ok?

Nope. But I don't think that my judgment on that should determine who gets medical care.

[Phoenix61]

12. It's not about how many are dying. It's about

how many hospital beds they are filling.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/wireStory/idaho-enacts-crisis-hospital-care-standards-amid-covid-79872485

[FBaggins]

14. I have no trouble with necessary rationing by severity of illness

But not by the cause of the illness or injury.

[marble falls]

44. That's just dumb. What if the main driver of the break down care service is, I don't know ...

... say, Covid numbers rocketing over refusal to vax and mask????

[SheltieLover]

65. +1,000!

[FBaggins]

90. You may find it "just dumb"

But it’s every medical ethicist that your calling dumb… not me.

[SheltieLover]

22. Not only are docs & nurses quitting, but suiciding and being abused by magats seeking care!

I've read reports of people in FL taking guns into ERs. Not sure if they were arrested.

I've heard same is happening in OH.

Hospitals warning staff to wear street clothes & hide nane badges due to physical attacks!

[SheltieLover]

28. This!👆

[treestar]

19. I see, but isn't it on a scale

from an obvious thing like a vaccine to an area where genetics may be mixed in with personal habits and there is no clear way to blame the patient?

[FBaggins]

20. It's the "blame the patient" part that is a problem

We also provide care for people who shoot themselves or jump off a building or run their car into a wall.

All are even easier to assign blame than whether we think that someone has been vaccinated.

[SheltieLover]

23. Yes, but not to the point of rationing care for non covid patients

[SheltieLover]

41. Apparently, many Drs. Feel this needs to be handled differently as well.

What about the patients awaiting "elective" (anything scheduled!) Surgeries?

Pls read:

https://www.statnews.com/2021/08/13/elective-surgeries-delayed-again-doctors-response/

[roamer65]

45. I will definitely blame the anti-vaxxer patient when the preventative is two shots...

to quell a major communicable disease.

[FBaggins]

51. You can blame whoever you want

You just can't deny medical treatment on that basis.

This really isn't complicated.

[roamer65]

53. Yes we can.

It’s called triage.

Unvaxxed have worse outcomes, therefore they will be a large part of the triaged.

They will be the majority in the palliative care areas that are coming.

[FBaggins]

57. Nope

Triage has nothing at all to do with moral decisions on who deserves care.

Unvaxxed have worse outcomes


Which actually makes them more likely to get services. You're hurting your own case.

Want someone standing at the door saying "Oh... you're vaccinated? Then you're probably fine. Just take two aspirin and check with us tomorrow" ?

[roamer65]

69. I'm enhancing the argument for triage.

Based on outcomes.

[FBaggins]

73. That's clear from the OP on down

But it ain't happening any time soon.

A couple of hospitals have asked the question... but the answer is always "no" and there isn't any indication that this will ever change. That slope is far too slipery.

[SheltieLover]

68. In field hospitals!

[SheltieLover]

56. Absolutely!

[SheltieLover]

66. This!👆

[marble falls]

46. When the asshole pateint refused to be vaxxed or masked, it's not his or her fault????? How do ...

... figure???

[FBaggins]

50. Who said that it isn't his or her fault?

It's just that "fault" isn't part of rationing medical services.

[SheltieLover]

58. ...

[democrattotheend]

84. Well said

I agree 100%. Democrats are the ones who fought to make care available and at least somewhat affordable for everyone, even those who don't take optimal care of themselves. It's really disturbing to see some of those same people now call for rationing care to the "undeserving."

[FBaggins]

85. They don't realize that's what they're doing. But it's morally unacceptable

The slope is far too slippery and they are temporarily incapable of seeing beyond the first step.

[SheltieLover]

29. Yup. When docs & nurses are quitting & suiciding, obviously something is very wrong

[roamer65]

38. Heart disease isn't a major communicable disease.

[FBaggins]

52. So?

It isn't as though there have never been major communicable diseases before.

[roamer65]

54. They triaged in 1918.

Influenza field hospitals.

[FBaggins]

59. You misunderstand the concept of triage

It has nothing to do with whether or not you caused your own health issue

[roamer65]

67. Times change, circumstances change.

That’s just life.

A widely available vaccine makes the difference now.

[SheltieLover]

70. Willfully unvaxed are breaking our healthcare system, schools, & govt.

This needs to stop!

[roamer65]

72. At this point, all we can do is just sit back and watch the coming shitshow.

Natural selection at work.

[SheltieLover]

76. I suppose

It is infuriating, though!

[roamer65]

77. I hear ya.

Makes me mad, too.

But this country really is full of very selfish spoiled brats who only care about themselves.

Maybe this will be the epiphany it needs…

[SheltieLover]

79. Mayve so...

[SheltieLover]

74. Not like delta, not in our lifetime!

[hamsterjill]

13. This is a real concern.

I’m hearing more and more about emergencies not being seen for hours because of the fact that ER’s are just crushed with COVID patients. Broken bones, gallbladders, heart attacks, appendicitis, etc. Treatable issues having to be pushed back because there is no room and no staff.

None of us have control over when our appendix bursts. We do have control over getting the vaccine. I’m proposing that everyone have a card. Either a vaccination confirmation card, or a card indicating vaccine refusal and acknowledging that care may be unavailable or take longer for those who have chosen not to be vaccinated.

I don’t know the answer! But I know we are not where we should be and that we are going to need drastic measures to get this under control

[lagomorph777]

15. Obviously, nobody would carry the "I'm a COVIDIOT" card.

But lack of a valid vax card should be grounds for refusal of treatment.

[SheltieLover]

30. Absolutely!

[roamer65]

40. +1000000

[SheltieLover]

24. Yup

Triage willfully unvaxed to tents or off site.

They should not be allowed to break our healthcare system.

Send them home with rxs for whatever is appropriate.

[hamsterjill]

96. This is happening and there are also compounding issues.

I'm hearing stories of people going to the ER with treatable conditions who, because they are forced to wait longer than normal for care and a bed, wind up having more difficult recoveries and incurring much more cost. These people need to have some degree of recourse.

Someone goes to the ER with an appendicitis. They aren't taken to triage and/or surgery as quickly as they should be. The appendix bursts causing sepsis. This person will be in the hospital for recovery much longer than had that person gotten the care they needed before their condition exacerbated. They will be out of work longer and their loss of income will be greater. Their hospital bill will be much higher than for a regular recovery. Their insurance company will incur more cost. And so on...and so on...

There are very real consequences happening right NOW because the unvaccinated are clogging up the hospital system. It's truly frightening and something needs to be done to get it under control. If palliative tents outside are an option, then I'm on board.

[JarOCats]

3. More stick, less carrot.

And no more "vaccine lotteries."

[LakeArenal]

4. Republican death panels come to life.

Their own supporters are dying. I don’t quite get their logic. Of course there is none. Still......

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. I have no trouble with denying medical care to TFG supporters who refuse vaccination

This should be part of triage so that these idiots have to wait until sane and responsible patients are treated first

[SheltieLover]

25. Triage them to tents or off site locations

Why should those needing non covid care & those treating those folks lives be endangered by immersion in the cesspool of magat covid.

Think if new parents. They go to hospitals, too.

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

10. What about those hospital staff not vacc? Reports of 20% of heath care workers still not vaccinated

[lagomorph777]

16. Obviously, fire them and pull their licenses permanently.

[Zeitghost]

35. Our hospitals have always been full of people...

Who make poor health decisions despite the availability of mountains of evidence that those choices will lead to poor health outcomes. Refusing vaccines, using drugs, smoking, excessive drinking, excessive eating, no exercise, etc.

Where do you draw the line?

[hamsterjill]

48. I just see a pandemic out of control.

If someone is smoking, I can walk away. If someone is overweight, they pose no risk to me. So I guess that’s where the line would be drawn - posing a risk to others by being in the same air space and having willfully refused an available vaccine that might have kept that person from needing a hospital bed.

As I said upthread, I don’t have the answer. But we are not gaining ground on this pandemic after two years - one almost with vaccines having been available.

Do you have any better ideas? That’s not snark. Maybe someone else has some valid reasoning.

[Zeitghost]

60. The topic is the lack of hospital beds

The majority of people needlessly taking up hospital beds are not unvaccinated covidiots. They certainly take up more than they should, but a casual look at cause of death/hospitalization stats will show that it's not the #1 preventable issue.


It's a dangerously slippery slope to start denying healthcare to those who make poor health decisions. It's easy for many here to tell anti-vaxers who they assume are right wingers to step to the back of the line, but how many of those doing so would find themselves getting denied care it their bad choices were being targeted for wasting health care resources?


As for answers, i don't have many and to be honest, I don't think there are any, at least none we would all like.

[Jetheels]

75. The vaccine takes one minute to get.

Those other things are habits that took years to develop and could be difficult to change and stick to. There’s just no comparing getting a vaccine with changing diet, getting off drugs, getting more exercise.

[SheltieLover]

78. And are not contagipus!

Accidents, heart attacks, strokes, etc. all happen with little to no warning.

Willfully unvaxed need to be treated outside of hospitals, perhaps in field hospitals, so as to not endanger others more than they do daily.

[Zeitghost]

81. The comparison is valid

Nobody alive today was unaware that drugs/smoking/obesity were deadly, costly to society and a drain on healthcare resources when they started down their road of continual bad choices.

[Jetheels]

82. Maybe so, the unvacced may have a more difficult time changing their diet of right wing hate

Radio, Fox newz, qanon, than an obese person changing their diet and getting exercise.

[Mr.Bill]

91. And that's just the employees...

[SYFROYH]

42. Nope.

[Lurker Deluxe]

43. Foolish, on all fronts

So, undocumented immigrant, no vaccine card (how can you identify who is who) ... so no health care. Uhhh ... no.

Minutes to save a person who is not able to respond because their head is hanging on by a tendon ... no healthcare. Uhhh ... no.

Perosn/s traveling who have been involved in a serious crime and have no means of identifying themselves at all ... no healthcare. Uhhh ... no.

Clerical error by CVS (or whomever) which does not show accurate information, no healthcare. Uhhh ... no.

When lives are on the line hospitals do what they do ... save people, long before they even think of verification of identity or ability to pay. Adding something this foolish at a emergency room will get people killed.

So ... no. Dumb ass idea.

[hamsterjill]

49. Okay, smartass.

What’s your resolution since this is such a “dumb ass” idea?

[Lurker Deluxe]

71. public pressure

It is all we ever have to control health issues.

Cannot make someone stop smoking. You can not allow people who smoke to do so inside.

Cannot make someone stop drinking. You can penalize them for doing so inside you business or while driving.

Cannot force someone to take various other vaccines. You can not let them travel, or in the case of children not let them into school.

Remember, freedom is what it is. There are countless things we can discriminate, or be discriminated, against. Do people of color have more hesitancy of taking this because they were experimented on with drugs? Maybe ...

It has just been approved by the FDA. Vaccination numbers are on the rise. Telling people you are going to discriminate against them for not doing something creates resistance, not the other way around.

All politicians need to be united in pushing the agenda. Those who do not need to be actively and aggressively made to be known that they will be run against on the issue, by their own party.

TFG came out and said he encourages the vaccine ... he was booed. He needs to continue that message. We all do; hourly, daily, weekly, monthly.

Barring people from health service will get us unelected ... and quick.

Sporting events, mandatory. Concerts, mandatory. Skating rinks, mandatory. Hotels, mandatory. Sit down dining, mandatory. Pressure those who refuse to assist in the furthering of the agenda into furthering the agenda.

Deny health care ... under no circumstance. Ever.

[hamsterjill]

80. So in a year from now

We will basically be in the same, dangerous spot.

I’m not making fun of your post. I understand the concept and until today, pretty much shared your ideals. But I’ve had the realization that, while I might be passive if it were ME who needed medical care and couldn’t get it because of unvaccinated COVID patients, I would not be okay were it my child who needed care and couldn’t get it.

I’m tired and weary of this dragging on. It’s time for another approach. A federal mask mandate? I don’t know.

It was hard for me to get vaccinated due to a phobia I have. It took a therapist and medical doctor to get me through it. But I did it. Because I needed to be responsible for everyone around me.

[Lurker Deluxe]

87. nice

It was hard for me to get vaccinated due to a phobia I have. It took a therapist and medical doctor to get me through it. But I did it. Because I needed to be responsible for everyone around me.

Would not it be wonderful if everyone had access to that ...

Not everyone does.

Shame.

[hamsterjill]

88. I had ACA coverage.

n/t

[malaise]

83. It is not a horrible way to think

Why should vaccinated cancer patients, heart patients, and do on not be able to find a bed at the expense of these effing careless people.

I had an OP here earlier in the year making it clear what would be going on were I in charge of a hospital. Choices have consequences.

[fescuerescue]

86. So "universal" health care

Isn’t that universal if we feel the person made a prior bad decision.

Lack of exercise causes lots of problems.

Maybe we need exercise passports too. Also good eating passports. And good driver passports. So many possibilities!

but I don’t support this, because the poor will have just as much trouble getting these passports as they do IDs and we know how huge that problem is.

Health passports are a form of healthcare suppression.

[StarryNite]

92. Veteran unable to get treatment due to hospital's COVID-19 crowding dies from gallstones

It's already happening. That man should not have died from gallstones. But he did because too many people who are unvaccinated by choice are clogging up the hospitals. Choices are being made. Choices have consequences. Everybody cannot have health care when there are not enough people or beds to go around.

Veteran unable to get treatment due to hospital’s COVID-19 crowding dies from gallstones

[link:https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-covid-veteran-dies-gallstone-covid-crowding-houston-texas-20210827-g4nl2q6ihbgdhkf3cu2yj3x2ly-story.html|

[fescuerescue]

93. rationed care isn't new.

It happens all the time in ER's. The medical term for it is triage. The guy with blood shooting out his leg gets care before the guy with a bleeding hand, etc. But it based on conditions at the time. Not Decisions.

Even if the guy with the blood shooting out his leg was in a gang leader in gun fight and the guy with the hand was saving puppies and got bite.


What is now being proposed, and not by the right, is triaging based on prior decisions.

"Oh you rode a motorcycle and got hurt? oh were working a dangerous job? Or you were a soldier, went to a dangerous place and got shot".

You all have to wait for these folks that didn't make those decisions.


90% of the people in the hospital are there at ANY time because they made a decision that eventually led them there. The other 10% is purely bad luck and genetics.


Fortunately, Hospitals aren't listening to message boards and they are using their existing triage rules that have been debated and worked on for Decades.

[StarryNite]

99. Apples and oranges...

The examples you gave aren't contagious.

[fescuerescue]

100. It all mixed into the same bowl.

if you like I can give you contagious examples. Let's start with AIDS.

Did you known that the RIGHT wanted to keep aids patients out of regular hospitals because "they did it to themselves" and that they "shouldn't be taking up hospital rooms from responsible people"


We don't have hospitals for Apples and different hospitals for Oranges.

Unless of course you get your way. Which hospital system do you think that Republicans would want to put you in?

[area51]

95. I wish we had universal healthcare but we don't. n/t

[fescuerescue]

98. And the left and right both have their reasons to stop it

The right don't want to be taxed.

The left wants to withhold it from some for behavior reasons.

So we'll never get it.

[Devil Child]

97. "This is a horrible way to think..."

100% agreement!