Kindness Gone Awry

On Friday, PJ Media posted an article detailing the plight of a homeless man in Canada. The story is an example of what happens when well-meaning people forget that all life has value.

The article reports:

Amir Farsoud — whose sad story I shared with you in 2022 — won’t have to choose between going homeless or being euthanized by the Canadian government. This is what passes for good news some days.

A CityNews video report from November of that year covered Farsood’s financial troubles and was headlined, “MAID As an Alternative to Poverty,” and that pretty much sums it up. Farsood had been homeless before and, while only just disabled enough to qualify for the “Medical Assistance in Dying” law’s tender mercies, he considered a homeless winter to be a death sentence worse than euthanasia.

“I don’t want to die,” Farsood said, “but I don’t want to be homeless more than I want to die.” He had put himself on the 90-day dying waiting list — Ontario’s list for housing assistance is 10 years long — when his story got people to donate enough money to get him back on his feet.

Recently, Farsood was featured on a BBC documentary called “Better Off Dead?” He said in the documentary that he made it clear to medical professionals that the only reason he was choosing MAID was due to his housing situation.

“I did tell my doctor right off the bat that while I qualify for medical reasons, the reason I’m asking is my socio-economic position at the moment.”

They put him on the death list anyway. He wasn’t suffering from a terminal illness. He wasn’t a quadriplegic, trapped in a hospital bed for years. He didn’t suffer from “grievous and irremediable medical conditions,” as the law originally required. He was just suffering from chronic back pain and he was broke.

The article notes:

As I wrote back then, Canada’s MAID law had just been expanded to cover euthanasia for almost anyone who wanted it. In force only since 2016, MAID originally provided the option of suicide to terminally ill adults. Since then, the law has been amended to allow those suffering from mental illnesses to have the government shove them off this mortal coil, starting in 2024.

Euthanasia is not healthcare just as abortion is not healthcare. Ending a life is not healthcare. Deciding to help someone end their life is not helping them. We have overstepped our bounds as people and are trying to play god. That never ends well.

A Small Step Forward For Americans Filling Prescriptions

Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air today about the new initiative rolled out by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.

The article reports:

Democrats ate the GOP’s lunch on health-care messaging in 2018’s midterms. The Trump administration might be preparing better for the 2020 election. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar rolled out a new initiative today that would allow for prescription purchases from Canada, addressing a key Democratic talking point on the cost of health care:

“President Trump has been clear: for too long American patients have been paying exorbitantly high prices for prescription drugs that are made available to other countries at lower prices. When we released the President’s drug pricing blueprint – PDF for putting American patients first, we said we are open to all potential solutions to combat high drug prices that protect patient safety, are effective at delivering lower prices, and respect choice, innovation and access,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. “Today’s announcement outlines the pathways the Administration intends to explore to allow safe importation of certain prescription drugs to lower prices and reduce out of pocket costs for American patients. This is the next important step in the Administration’s work to end foreign freeloading and put American patients first.”

The article lists some of the details of the plan. Please follow the link above for more information.

The article also lists some of the problems with the plan:

The question of pharmaceutical importation has its complexities, and it might not be a great idea in terms of long-term policy outcomes. For one thing, drug prices in Canada are artificially low thanks to intervention by the Canadian government, which will be tougher to maintain if demand increases exponentially via re-importation into the US. (Canadians in particular might not be very happy about what happens to their drug prices.) It doesn’t solve the major problems in pharmaceutical production costs, which are consolidation in the industry, copyright issues, and bureaucratic delays in FDA approvals, among others. It’s a Band-Aid over a gaping wound.

However, it’s going to be a very popular Band-Aid in the short run. The new HHS effort also lends itself to a slow rollout, which will play right into Trump’s need to pre-empt Democrats on health care in this cycle…

The article takes a rather cynical view regarding the motive for this action, but at least temporarily many Americans will appreciate the savings. On a personal note, one of the maintenance drugs my husband takes for heart problems sells for $600 a month. With the help of our health insurance, we have managed to get that price down to $70 a month, but the idea of having to pay $600 a month out-of-pocket for a drug is more than a little frightening.

This is a small step in the right direction. I understand that high drug prices are the result of the procedures for the invention, development, and selling of a new drug, but Americans shouldn’t have to pay for all of the research while other people reap the rewards of that research without paying for it.

Sometimes Things Just Get Ridiculous

Yesterday CNS News reported that the Iran‘s Foreign Ministry has warned Iranians traveling in Canada to be alert to danger.

The article reports:

“Foreign Ministry said in a statement that based on current evidences, Islamphobia and Iranphobia have not stopped in Canada, rather escalated over the past few days,” reads a report from the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), which also quoted the ministry as stating,  “Such a trend has influenced behavior of the governmental and non-governmental authorities in the country.”

The “Canadian government’s double-standard about human rights has been the focus of the world and Canadian public opinion,” said the Foreign Ministry.

Last month the Canadian government issued a statement warning Canadians not to travel to Iran. The educated guess is that this statement from Iran is a response to that statement.

The unfortunate part of this is that many people in Iran who do not have access to foreign media will believe this nonsense.

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