Phatscotty wrote:OK FIRST OF ALL children, it's a well known and unarguable fact that the majority of health care cost come at the end of life. EVERYONE knows and it's unarguable that health care costs need to be cut. QUESTION, where are they gonna cut first??????????? Palin's premise has already thought out and understood my stated facts. She is simply speaking about what information is already known. no wonder you just can;t understand and these things make your head hurt.
Spoken as someone who has obviously never had to deal with these issues.
Bedub and I are more or less on the same page on this one, we just disagree about whether the bill will get us there. (seriously disagree, but not that the patient/family should be able to refuse care, should get some help from doctors in understanding everything, not getting extra tests).
More often than not "cutting care at the end of life" is about the
patient and family. You know who is MOST likely to object to things like not having complicated surgery (with painful and, in the elderly, often very long recovery times), tests and even removing life support (when the patient does die), its the family member who could not be bothered to visit when the patient was alive, the one who held a grudge and suddenly realizes there is no more time. THEY are the ones who, more often than not, come out of the woodwork and decide that they are going to be the savior. Its about guilt, not true care.
Are some elderly people abused? Absolutely! It is a crime, a crime punishable with jail time. Doctors are mandatory reporters if they even suspect such is happening (same with child abuse, etc.). However, too often it is doctors and medical staff, strapped in by rules and regulations or fears of lawsuits, that too often are a real cause of pain for dying patients. More and more hospitals and doctors are aware of, have good hospice programs, but they are not universal and not universally covered by insurance.