I have seen people hurt by our healthcare system.

[w8liftinglady]

As most of you know,I am a nurse who has worked with the most fragile of rehab patients-ventilator dependant,stroke,cardiac,multisystem organ failure.My unit is half empty right now because there aren't enough insurance patients.One of my docs told me he had 5 patients who would benefit from my unit,except they have no funding.They will linger-no PT,no speech therapy,no occupational therapy.People who might have been able to eventually care for themselves,eat,talk,walk-will be sent to a nursing home....if they can find one who takes medicaid.This ends up costing us so much more in the long run-not only in financial terms,but in productivity.What a crying shame.Watching Michael Moore gives me hope tham maybe someday,these folks will also get the care they need.What a travesty.

[Olney Blue]

1. Excellent post, lady. The entire field of rehabilitative medicine has exploded,

but it requires trained personnel and equipment. It's sad when it is not available to those who need it.

(I also ache for the families who are forced to watch the suffering)

[w8liftinglady]

2. thank you-it is cost-effective to rehab patients

why our system can't see this is beyond me.

[dflprincess]

3. Our for profit system won't pay for rehab because it will cost them money

they know that many patients who don't get rehab will wind up in nursing homes - and on Medicare or Medicaid when they've exhausted their assets - which won't cost the insurance company a dime.

[razors edge]

4. My GF has been working vents for the last two years.

DN of a nursing home for years before that. We go through this shit everyday as we vent to each other about our work to unwind.

We each have just silently agreed to let the other go off and get it out, then we go on with life, the only option we know of.

The stories I have heard over the last ten years would break any normal person's heart a thousand times over. I find myself thinking about them the next day, or longer, and we both have become somewhat used to it I guess. We both are the heads of our respective jobs for the corps we work for in a major US city, we are on our own to lead everyone else and make sure they show up to do their jobs and the shit doesn't get so thick in their heads they just give up and move on to an easier job where they don't have to deal with it anymore. We don't always succeed in that, and as such we are also processing new people in to fill the vacancies, but, unfortunately, we have somehow got good at it I guess.

She was a Dem long before I met her, and would actually like to see social med happen too, regardless of what that may or may not do to her pay. But one thing that really gets to her in her job is the people who insist on making gomers full code. (Keeping the Shiavo types alive at all costs) She is the nurse who sets with you and tells you all the options for your loved one, a job I know I couldn't do, and helps to get people over the fact their loved one is gone.

The whole system must be reevaluated and Americans will have a hard time with any system that says your loved one is not going to pull through, so we can only do comfort measures for them.

[alfredo]

5. We need Americans to drop their insurance. 10 million dropping their

insurance at once would send a clear message.