So will my family let me die

[Auntie Bush]

when I've used up all my vouchers due to a long illness or will they pay out of pocket for my life saving treatments? That's the question we'll all possibly experience if Romney wins the election and medicare becomes a voucher system.

Every republican should be asked that question...including Mitt and Paul on the campaign trail. I'd love to know their answer.

[Amak8]

1. Yeah!

[RedStateLiberal]

3. That crowd response...

...is everything people should need to know about Republicans. The crowd was responding truthfully. The politicians will dare not speak that brutal truth. Conservatism is based on pure selfishness.

[gollygee]

13. I wonder how many of the people shouting "YEAH" to letting him die are Christians

Because that is very contrary to the Christianity I know.

[TheMastersNemesis]

2. The Voucher Just Helps Pay For Insurance

You will have to buy private insurance with some of your own money with the voucher. It is likely older people will face huge copays like you paying the first $5,000 or $10,000 of your medical bills. If ACA is abolished you will face pre existing condition denial, payment caps on illnesses, and dropping of coverage if you get ill or have a chronic condition.

So if we go back to the US before ACA you will not have coverage or care. What Ryan and Romney propose will be de facto health care rationing. That is their death panel.

And if Ryan's plan to give Medicaid to the states is ever passed your children and grandchildren will have to pay your long term care bill because the removal of present federal mandates would allow the states to hold your family responsible.

[Raven]

5. The only answer for us seniors is

to hoard our pills and put them to good use when the $ runs out.

[RKP5637]

6. That's the message I'm getting from the republican party, they plan to thin the herb by

killing off millions of Americans, young, old and in between. The republican party should be called for what it is, the "Death Party."

[Voice for Peace]

27. thinning the herb, on top of everything else?

that would be the last straw.

[Auntie Bush]

7. I'm already committed to doing just that. In fact I've already sort of started.

They will to be used only when my funds run out or when the pain becomes unbearable or when further treatment is useless and expensive and just depletes the money my children could inherit. Of course that's easier said than done.

[Raven]

11. Interesting and depressing that you and I and

a number of other people my age are seriously considering this. I never thought I would see this in this country.

[snappyturtle]

26. Well, count me in too. It's depressing but truthful. nt

[Voice for Peace]

28. another option is commit a felony.. free health care & 3 square meals in prison

[Lebam in LA]

12. Sad but true

I have also put those plans in place. I do not want my children and grandchildren paying for my care

[bupkus]

29. God bless the child that's got his own.

A decidedly different take on the Billie Holiday classic.

I got my own.

[tularetom]

4. The medical profession won't let medicare become a voucher system

They've made tons of money under Medicare and they aren't about to give that up. They'll whine and bitch about tort reform but basically Medicare was a license for doctors to print money.

Health care costs would contract to fit the money available under the Ryan program and I don't believe that doctors, for profit hospitals, and the pharmaceutical industry are about to take such a hit to their bottom line.

[riderinthestorm]

18. I don't know any health care professionals who think they are "fairly" reimbursed under Medicare

They all tell me they aren't compensated nearly enough to even "cover their expenses", how they hate/won't/stopped taking Medicare patients....

I don't know a single doctor or health care professional (audiologists, nurse practitioners, oncologists etc) who think they are adequately compensated. Many docs have simply stopped taking any new Medicare patients - that seems to be more the norm.

[tularetom]

25. That's true but they won't have any elderly patients at all if Medicare goes away

The game they play now is pretty simple. They know Medicare will routinely cut 70-80% from the bllls they submit so they just inflate the bills enough so they will get what they need. It's kind of a wink wink nudge nudge thing with them and Medicare - everybody knows what's going on both parties accept it.

But if Medicare is reduced to a voucher program, the doctors won't have any patients at all because people will be going to emergency rooms once they have used up their vouchers.

I guess what I'm really getting at is that I wonder what medical practitioners consider adequate compensation. There is obviously a lot of overhead associated with running a medical office (salaries, utilities, rent, lease/purchase of equipment, even payback of student loans) but it seems to me that what they charge is sufficient to cover all that and still leave them with a decent profit. I've heard them whine too but I don't see any of them chucking it all to become greeters at Walmart.

[zbdent]

8. That's the difference between how the Repugs portray the "end of life" issues ...

At least, with Kevorkian, it was the dying person's choice ...

With Republicans, it's out of the involved's hands ...

[HopeHoops]

9. Will they have a choice?

[just1voice]

10. It's the question regarding the entire for-profit health care system

GOPigs would just make it happen faster.

[Texasgal]

14. I wonder if I will be able to end

my life with the Jack Kevorkian method?

I mean, shit if your going to take our ability to stay alive atleast let us die with dignity!

[jeff47]

15. No, that wouldn't be Christian (tm)!

[Egalitarian Thug]

17. +1

[Jack Sprat]

24. Aren't they amazing?

These people are sadistic. No we can't afford to give you healthcare. No you can't end your life with drugs. Yes you must lie there and suffer unless you can come up with some more money. Yeah, you can put it on your children's tab if their credit is good. Do they have some collateral, a house or assets? Really, is there some point where money ends and just people begin?

[Hydra]

32. "Really, is there some point where money ends and just people begin?"

That's our problem as a country, in a nutshell. Money comes first. It's desired, worshipped and can do no wrong. It can justify any atrocity, it can buy reputation and "holiness."

Life needs to come first- People, animals, nature, our world.

I'm not holding my breath.

[valerief]

16. I think their vouchers are one-way airline tickets to civilized countries.

You know, countries with universal healthcare.

[Freddie]

30. They don't want us

It's extremely difficult to emigrate to civilized nations. Canada requires you to have a job offer and the employer must prove that the job can't be filled by a Canadian.

[valerief]

33. I know, but the GOP doesn't care.

[Motown_Johnny]

19. You need to read riverwalker's post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021110735


^copy^



Ryan's plan and nursing home care

up to now, if 89 y.o. Aunt Millie breaks a hip and needs a nursing home, the family is not responsible for the cost, she spends down all her assets and then applies for Medicaid. Under Ryan's plan, that would change. She would no longer be eligible for Medicaid until YOUR assets are also depleted. You, dear nephew or grandson, would have a lien placed against YOUR home, to recover any costs for her care. Our nations elderly, who worked and fought for and built this nation, will be abandoned and left blowing in the wind. Think this will never effect you? Think again.

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/medicaid/153957-ryan-budget-under-attack-for-potential-cuts-to-nursing-home-care

[Freddie]

31. Truly frightening

And since us boomers will be left penniless from paying for our parents' care, guess where that leaves our kids. Trickle-down generational poverty.

[MrMickeysMom]

20. You and I and all the rest will curse the day this ever was allowed to happen

These people lie and then they lie more.

[cleduc]

21. Sorry for being repetitive but this issue really bothers me

I've linked this before:

Harvard study finds 44,000+ deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/september/harvard_study_finds_.php

Alan Grayson raised this on the floor of the House referring to above study.

If any of you haven't watched this, watch a couple of minutes. It's Alan Grayson reading the letters from family members who died because they didn't have health care on the floor of the House:
Part Seven: Rep. Alan Grayson On Health Care Deaths: These Are People

So it's not like the GOP didn't know about it.

This has already been happening for years. And the GOP has been stopping it for decades.

Obamacare reduces the problem by about 60-67% when it's implemented.

The Ryan budget for Medicare will add to that tally by roughly 18,000 deaths per year.

I think these GOP politicians are absolutely heartless and should be eviscerated for this travesty.

[Auntie Bush]

22. Thanks for the video. Alan Grayson is the best. He's the first

one I donated to and I sure hope he gets his seat back! You go Alan!!!!!!!
Alan will get us the help we need with medicare.

[cleduc]

23. I really, really like him and appreciate his efforts

Wish he was in the media more advocating in this debate.

[MADem]

34. In RepublicanWorld, they'll keep you alive until they can sell your organs to the highest bidder...

...assuming they are reasonably usable and your skin is of sufficient consistency and quality to make that disgusting collagen http://www.plasticsurgery.org/cosmetic-procedures/dermal-fillers-collagen.html that celebrities inject into their faces (GAAAAAAGHHHHH!!!) to look more youthful...talk about "I see dead people!!!" I see dead people in Collagina Jolie's LIPS!!!!!

Then, they will take the money they have earned from selling off your "parts" to pay off the part of your bill that wasn't covered by your lousy little vouchers. They'll probably have to liquidate all your worldly goods, too, to cover some of the costs.

With any luck they'll only have to take out a SMALL loan at usurious GOP interest rates to "get correct" with the collection man!

[WilliamPitt]

35. Not on my watch.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

36. "Eh....eh....we are respectful here and let people speak!"

"You need to learn that young man!"

Or some such bullshit.