Critics Concerned Over Government's Role in End of Life Issues

[jojajn]

Originally Posted by Greatday

A quarter of all Medicare spending is made in a patients final year of life, and that's when the biggest potential savings could be made.

Critics of Health Reform Concerned Over Government's Role in End of Life Issues - Political News - FOXNews.com

From your link:

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says decisions will be made by doctors and patients and that the provision in the House bill would allow Medicare to pay for counseling sessions on end of life issues, but it doesn't require them. Gibbs believes the misunderstanding is a result of intentionally spread misinformation.

I don't understand all of the hysteria, an example of which is also in your link:

Critics have concerns the Medicare reimbursement could involve the government in end of life issues.

Encouraging end-of-life discussions and plan of care between health providers and patients has been a federal law since 1990. (Who was president then?)

http://www.dgcenter.org/acp/pdf/psda.pdf

(a) Hospitals, rural primary care hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, nursing facilities, home health
agencies, providers of home health-care (and for Medicaid purposes, providers of personal care
services), and hospices must maintain written policies and procedures concerning advance directives
with respect to all adult individuals receiving medical care by or through the provider and are
required to:
(1) Provide written information to such individuals concerning—
(i) An individual’s rights under State law (whether statutory or recognized by courts of the State)
to make decisions concerning such medical cars, including the right to accept or refuse
medical or surgical treatment and the right to formulate, at the individual’s option, advance
directives. Providers are permitted to contract with other entities to furnish this information
but are still legally responsible for ensuring that the requirements of this section are met.
Providers are to update and disseminate amended information as soon as possible, but no
later than 90 days from the effective date of the changes to State law;

The government has yet to end the life of old people in order to save money.

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by jojajn

The government has yet to end the life of old people in order to save money.

They are grasping at any straw they can to support the profits of insurance companies because they don't understand the current system, so how can they understand the proposed system?

Please read this short essay by Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman to dispel any hysteria about healthcare reform:

Go to www.nytimes.com; go to right side menu entitled "Most Popular" and choose number 1 "Paul Krugman: Health Care Realities"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/op...rugman.html?em

[TigerLily24]

Originally Posted by jojajn

The point is that the parents had no choice in the baby's medical care yet the parents had to bear the consequences which was a lifetime of medical debts and a severely physically and mentally impaired child!

When my husband had his stroke, I found out that some extraordinary percentage of spouses in the same situation walk away and leave their loved ones in the care of the hospital, nursing home, etc.
Some members of my own family actually suggested this very thing.
I imagine that some parents make this same decision.

I had the choice of either paying for some large part of his care out-of-pocket (the list of things insurance would not cover or only cover a small percentage of is quite long and, IMHO, completely arbitrary) or basically liquidating all savings, etc. so that he could qualify for Medicaid.

These are the sorts of choices that people, under the current system, have to make every single day.

I've yet to hear a suitable explanation as to why this should be the case when we have elected officials fighting to keep spending money on war planes that are completely useless at the same time fighting against something (UHC) that would really protect our citizens.

[JD59]

News, It's alive! End-of-life counseling in health bill.

WASHINGTON – It's alive. The Medicare end-of-life planning provision that 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said was tantamount to "death panels" for seniors is staying in the latest Democratic health care bill unveiled Thursday.

The provision allows Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling to help beneficiaries deal with the complex and painful decisions families face when a loved one is approaching death.

It's alive! End-of-life counseling in health bill - Yahoo! News