Health Care for America - a rational question.

[Left Below]

I favor a single payer system.

But with the extraordinary rise in health care costs, something has to give.


Like in Oregon several years ago - we will face rationing. All those in true need will not receive health care. There is too much demand.

Like the Dem Richard Lamm (CO), I see no reason why 80% of our costs go to people dying with no hope of life - cancer, fatal disease, etc.

Recently, my poor mother was diagnosed with inoperable bone/lung cancer (she did smoke) and we all were told she had months to live.

Despite that, she underwent chemotherapy daily, scans, etc etc etc., with the costs running close to $80,000 for the last few weeks of her life. Medicare paid for all of it. We had no decision to make.

I would prefer that that money have been spent on a sick child I did not know.

Am I cold and heartless? I don't know. We knew she would die yet we all went through the motions.

Medicare is in deep trouble.

Think about it.

[Redstone]

1. That's a helluva tough decision to make. I don't have an answer.

But you raise a good point.

Redstone

[OzarkDem]

2. Your mother had a choice

doctors don't force treatment on cancer patients. It was her or your choice to refuse treatment in favor of palliative care, as many patients often do.

[Bobbieo]

3. Patients and treatment

One of the major problems is that patients and their famlies are afraid to speak up to their doctor - like he/she is God. That is a often a costly mistake. I'm about as popular as a snowball in hell in hospitals!!!

[Left Below]

4. Cost was no issue. She wanted a long-shots chance of living.

Would I advise her otherwise? No Way!

My family was fully supportive. The problem was - she had no chance.



And the fundies hate the thought that "decision-makers/actuaries" are involved rather than the almighty goat-herder.

Medicare has its own disease - cost inflation WAY past the normative spectrum.


Just a heads-up.

From a realist with no agenda.

[Joe Fields]

5. I cannot say what I would like to say to you.

But I can tell you it wouldn't be positive.

[Left Below]

6. Be honest. My mother died, her bills were paid (an actuariry

difficulty - no big deal).

I was never lord and overseer, or I might have directed the funds to one younger who could have benefitted.


She got her 'assistance' --per the law. No problem so far....


But this system cannot run into perpetuity.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. We face rationing already--rationing by access to insurance

In some countries that have single-payer systems, the type of rationing that you say you're in favor of (don't spend much trying to cure people who are sure to die anyway) is practiced.

Here rationing comes in the form. of not getting checkups or diagnostic tests or early treatment for curable conditions until they're incurable.

[depakid]

8. and it's irrational rationing

that favors acute care over primary and preventative medicine. Diabetes management clinics are closing down because can't be adequately reimbursed- and people often can't afford the proper treatment.

Yet insurers will pay big money for amputations and end stage renal failure- gambling that their current diabetics will be someone else's problem down the line. The way their bean counters look at it- if you provide decent benefits for chronic care, that will attract more diabetics to the plan- and the executives don't want that!

[FlaGranny]

9. We're all going

to die someday, sooner or later, aren't we? You said: In some countries that have single-payer systems, the type of rationing that you say you're in favor of (don't spend much trying to cure people who are sure to die anyway) is practiced."

The OP's premise, if taken to its natural end would withhold treatment from the elderly because they're all going to die very soon anyway. A fairly healthy 80-year-old, therefore, should not be given any treatment for any disease or condition, because he has already lived past his expected age of death and so he shouldn't have money spent for his treatment. I don't think I want to go there. My mom also had bone marrow cancer and lived 10 years after diagnosis with chemotherapy. She lived a full, productive, and happy 10 years, right up to the last two or three months, when the doctor decided she could no longer be helped by chemo and we had to let her go at age 94 (she was diagnosed at age 84).

I wonder if the OP read the thread yesterday in Breaking News (I think) that explained that British people were healthier than Americans and spent one half the amount on health care.

There sure has been a lot of strange postings lately.

[me b zola]

10. Interesting

Sounds like you would be in favor of bush*s Texas law that allows the medical facilities to pull the plug on patients who don't have the ability to pay.

So what if someone knowingly pro-created with a person whom had a chronic neurological genetic disease in their family history? Should we kill them in favor of a child? What if two children needed medical care for the same long term disease--one of them wealthy enough to pay the bills, the other child from a family living at the poverty level & no ability to cover hospital bills?? Who should get medical care then???

Medicare is in deep trouble because we live in a culture that celebrates wealth and devalues it's citizens.

[Moderator]

11. locking...

The author is no longer with us.