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If it was intended to be serious, it is frightening, as it implies that the only value a human being has in an economic one. 'If you can still work, we'll keep you around a little longer. Else, off to the Soylent factory.'
It was not meant to be sarcastic. Frightening? Maybe, but it is reality. As in so many other areas, we are now wanting what we were not willing to pay for. The old people voted and lobbied against higher taxes during their lives in the amount needed to cover their medical expenses. They failed to save for their own care. It is illogical to borrow trillions to care for old people who have neglected their own needs and have no economic value anymore. It is immoral to saddle generations to come with staggering debts, lost opportunity, widespread poverty and a sharply reduced quality of life that will be the price for repaying those debts. As the saying goes: you made your bed, now lie in it.
Last edited by Ponderosa; 07-24-2013 at 08:13 AM..
It was not meant to be sarcastic. Frightening? Maybe, but it is reality. As in so many other areas, we are now wanting what we were not willing to pay for. The old people voted and lobbied against higher taxes during their lives in the amount needed covered their medical expenses. They failed to save for their own care. It is immoral to borrow trillions to care for old people who have anymore thereby saddling generations to come with staggering debts, lost opportunity, widespread poverty and a sharply reduced quality of life that will be the price for repaying those debts.
Ahhh, I get it. Kill them off because it's all their fault. I think I've heard that from the whiners who aren't contributing anything to this country.
You beat me to it. So old people don't deserve medical care?
That is the emotional question. The reality answer is we can't afford to give them the care they think they deserve. They refused to pay for it when they were young. They refused to save for their own needs. Now, they want to borrow trillions that they will not have to repay to cover the staggering costs of keeping them alive a few more months than they might otherwise have. They simply are not worth it.
27% of Medicare's annual $327 billion budget goes to care for patients in their final year of life.
The question is can we still afford this kind of expense, and is it right to be spending this much for a hopeless causes when there are more productive ways to spend this money that would be in the better interest of the country and the general welfare of the people.
How could the system be improved.
Unfortunately a lot of this care is given to people who don't want it. This is why it is important to have a living will to prevent hospitals to keep you alive with machines after something happens when you are old. Hospitals generate a lot of profits by keeping such people alive and the relatives are too weak to make the call, but the end result is a patient who is ready to pass, but is not allowed. They die anyway, but not before they suffer unnecessarily. It's a bad death.
Quote:
One of her doctors, Ira Byock, told "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft it costs up to $10,000 a day to maintain someone in the intensive care unit. Some patients remain here for weeks or even months; one has been there for six months.
"This is the way so many Americans die. Something like 18 to 20 percent of Americans spend their last days in an ICU," Byock told Kroft. "And, you know, it's extremely expensive. It's uncomfortable. Many times they have to be sedated so that they don't reflexively pull out a tube, or sometimes their hands are restrained. This is not the way most people would
want to spend their last days of life. And yet this has become almost the medical last rites for people as they die."
Dr. Byock leads a team that treats and counsels patients with advanced illnesses.
He says modern medicine has become so good at keeping the terminally ill alive by treating the complications of underlying disease that the inevitable process of dying has become much harder and is often prolonged unnecessarily.
"Families cannot imagine there could be anything worse than their loved one dying. But in fact, there are things worse. Most generally, it's having someone you love die badly," Byock said.
Asked what he means by "die badly," Byock told Kroft, "Dying suffering. Dying connected to machines. I mean, denial of death at some point becomes a delusion, and we start acting in ways that make no sense whatsoever. And I think that's collectively what we're doing."
A vast majority of Americans say they want to die at home, but 75 percent die in a hospital or a nursing home.
"How do so many people end up in the hospital?" Kroft asked Dr. Elliott Fisher, a researcher at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy.
It was not meant to be sarcastic. Frightening? Maybe, but it is reality. As in so many other areas, we are now wanting what we were not willing to pay for. The old people voted and lobbied against higher taxes during their lives in the amount needed to cover their medical expenses. They failed to save for their own care. It is illogical to borrow trillions to care for old people who have neglected their own needs and have no economic value anymore. It is immoral to saddle generations to come with staggering debts, lost opportunity, widespread poverty and a sharply reduced quality of life that will be the price for repaying those debts. As the saying goes: you made your bed, now lie in it.
Perhaps you underscored the difference between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives, such as you, assign an economic value to a human being -- in this case, our parents and grandparents. When they have no economic value left, even though they were the people who won World War II and gave us the lives we no have to enjoy, deny them medical care. Why? Because we don't want to pay what is need to keep them alive. That's a disheartening immoral viewpoint.
Liberals, such as myself, think that human beings have an intrinsic value and the cost of keeping our parents and grandparents alive and affording them the respect due is a worthy price to pay to those who have given us so much. We just shouldn't cast those people into the trash heap.
that does seem to be the only two choices, either treat the elderly in their final stages of life or deny them such care. If one denies such care, it is essentially the death panels that the GOP false claimed Obamacare instituted.
There's a third option, permit people to end their lives with dignity.
Assisted suicide is a valid response to terminal illness and dementia.
Heck, I have no problem with people ending their lives because they're tired of living.
It should be their choice.
That is the emotional question. The reality answer is we can't afford to give them the care they think they deserve. They refused to pay for it when they were young. They refused to save for their own needs. Now, they want to borrow trillions that they will not have to repay to cover the staggering costs of keeping them alive a few more months than they might otherwise have. They simply are not worth it.
Divisive much?
WTH do you mean, "refused to pay for it". Aren't we all paying into Medicare? A separate Medicare tax was enacted in 1965.
"Refused to save for theri own needs"? Please explain.
"Want to borrow trillions"? Ditto
You don't know a lot about health care, and you need an empathy transplant.
That is the emotional question. The reality answer is we can't afford to give them the care they think they deserve. They refused to pay for it when they were young. They refused to save for their own needs. Now, they want to borrow trillions that they will not have to repay to cover the staggering costs of keeping them alive a few more months than they might otherwise have. They simply are not worth it.
What the hell are you talking about.
The number one reason for bankruptcy in the US is medical costs.
They?
Shall we start with your parents, grandparents, children, siblings, etc?
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