Currently, my mother is dying of lung cancer.
She has asked me if I would support her getting a transplant, and I had to tell her no. As much as I love her.
For a transplant to take place, another person must die.
My mother has smoked 3 packs a day her whole life, and continues to now, even though she is on oxygen.
I know she wouldn't quit, even after a transplant. I told her that it would be a huge disrespect to continue smoking after someone had to die so she could live on, and that I think a lung transplant would be better served for someone who never smoked, and perhaps developed cancer from vocation or something else that they didn't knowingly contribute to themselves.
So you can see, it'd have to be an innocent victim for me to participate or support.
As far as treatment costs in the US, Iam sure ours are just as high, maybe higher. However, the patient doesn't see the amount on the bill, so Dr's are almost free to bill OHIP whatever they want. Not enough checks and balances for me.
As an example, my wife and I, when conceiving, had to attend a specialist a number of times, and a 3D ultrasound was performed and it's results were on a DVD, and to be FedEx ed to the specialist's office half hr from the ultrasound machine's location. Our appointment was booked for one month away so the specialist would have time to review the DVD and come up with a game plan. When we arrived for our appointment, the specialist asked us what we were here for. I told him we were anious to know his prognosis on the 3D scans. He had never seen them. We waited 2 hrs there while he and his staff searched and called the ultrasound office....millions of dollars worth of annual staff salary between both offices, and not one could find any trace of the DVD or it's contents. Basically the few grand the scans cost OHIP was totally wasted, as was this appointments costs. I was irate. I work for myself and now lost a day's wage as well as $50 in fuel, and all for nothing. I yelled that if they had entrusted the DVD with me, I could very well have brought it with me today. So they then made it look like they wanted to see us for another reason, and insisted on takeing blood from the both of us, for no reason. It was just a backpedal to try to hide their incompetence. I rolled up my sleeve and told them to go ahead and take our blood and scan it, and charge OHIP a couple grand more for unneccessary bloodwork (as it had no bearing on why we were there to begin with). The Dr's were freely wasting taxpayers money on 100% unnecessary things, to try to hid the fact that they had dropped the ball and brought us in for no reason.
At least in the US< I would be a paying customer that the Dr's would have to face. I would refuse to pay for the service of the scan , since none of the results were available, they may as well not have been performed at all. The US system holds the Dr more accountable. Customers don't pay for services not rendered. Here they just bill OHIP, regardless of whether the work was done, or done correctly. You wouldn't pay someone for car repairs that didn't happen would you?
