Texas Futile Care Law Bill Fails

I am not happy: But my ire was raised before the ultimate failure of the bill to outlaw futile care theory in Texas. The "good" bill, which would have required hospitals to maintain treatment pending a transfer to another hospital would have breezed to passage, and in the process given a body blow to Futile Care Theory. Then, inexplicably, the Catholic Bishops (I believe at the behest of the organization representing Catholic hospitals) opposed the bill and threw its considerable heft behind a bill extending the 10-day cut off to 21-days. That sounds impressive, until you realize that the extra time would have been meaningless, since it appears that Texas hospitals are honoring each other's futile care determinations and refusing transfers! Remember, Andrea Clark's family desperately searched as far as Illinois to find a hospital to accept her. (I spoke to one person on the ground, who told me that advocates are now looking to Mexican hospitals to take these patients!) The one good provision in the alternative bill, declaring tube supplied food and fluids to be ordinary care, should be passed anyway.

So, now it will be up to the courts. And we have to get other states to pass laws requiring continued care pending transfer in futility disputes. Otherwise, we are on the road to explicit health care rationing and an implicit duty to die.

Baby Emilio Dies

While I was in Europe, Baby Emilio Gonzales died. The case stimulated much discussion of Futile Care Theory, in which Texas law allows ethics committees to refuse wanted life-sustaining treatment--not because the treatment won't extend life but because it will. The Texas Legislature is in the process of amending the law, but as I will write later, it looks like it is going to punt rather than really prevent people from being forced to die for want of desired medical treatment.