Lamm Calls Unlimited Spending on AIDS Victims Futile
Gov. Richard D. Lamm, whose outspoken comments have angered the elderly, the handicapped and some immigrants, now says it is futile to spend unlimited amounts of money on AIDS victims who have no chance of recovery.
“There are two types of AIDS patients,” the governor said Wednesday. “Either you’re dying or you’re dead.”
Lamm made the comment to doctors and nurses at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center during a wide-ranging discussion of rising health-care costs.
Lamm said Thursday that he made his comments in response to a doctor’s question on the appropriate level of care for AIDS patients.
“I said that with AIDS--like any other terminal disease--we would be much better off to spend money curing the disease rather than overtreating patients,” Lamm said.
“Because of the hysteria about AIDS, it is important to understand that this reflects my feeling on all terminally ill people, and I am not singling out AIDS patients. AIDS is, thus far, a terminal disease.”
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