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You know, when she first got the diagnosis back in 2000, knowing that she had already experienced this with her father and sister, I vowed that I would try to do everything in my power to make all of this as easy as possible on her. I know what her mother had to go through (twice), although the only factor that helped her was that her husband was a veteran, so ultimately he ended up in a VA facility. I think it's apalling that the last thing someone needs to be concerned with in the last days of their life is whether they'll have a roof over their head, food to eat, a bed to sleep in, and some companionship and activities to help pass the time. One of the reasons I wanted her in assisted living was so she wouldn't have to be involved in the ugly process that unfolded with the foreclosure, the reposessions, and the creditors calling non-stop everyday (literally. I kid you not). I don't want her to see the toll this takes on me physically and mentally. Alas, I gave it my best shot but I've consistently failed to live up to my promise.
I've started to prepare her for what is about to unfold. With payments for the Assisted Living lagging behind, with no realistic way for me to catch up on them again, they will be discharging her. I presume that means legally into my custody again, even though I currently have no place to live. With every conceivable housing option closed to us, I guess all I can do is find an apartment, hopefully located somewhere near the bulk of what we might need, and move us there. I'll have to quit my job since I'll need to be there all of the time to help her and keep an eye on her. We'll have to live solely on her monthly disability. She will, at this point, probably qualify for Medicare Part A & B, so I hope she can continue her current prescriptions (except for the one major one that Medicare won't cover) and that we can find the doctors and specialists who will still be willing to see her. Medicaid still won't be an option since, again, her disability puts her over the limit for qualification. Hopefully at least we can get food stamps, since she needs 6-8 a high-calorie meals a day, plus lots and lots of liquids.
IMHO - Medical care is not subject to the usual market limitations because the purchaser does not have any real choices. They generally need care right now and have no power to bargain for prices. The price of health care does not ration the need so the market is an inappropriate means regulating demand.
This is why a free market system is inappropriate and we need a Universal Health Care system with a little private sector involvement as possible.
Doctors and nurses treat patients for free everyday whether you are talking about being called to admit uninsured patients in the ER or seeing patients on Medicaid and waiving or absorbing costs so that the patient can be seen.
Hospital's lose an estimated 37% of their total budget for such people, according to the AMA in 2007. It's a significant amount, but not the majority. The reason being that uninsured people wait till a minor problem becomes a large problem.
What people don't like to talk about is irresponsibility that many Americans have with regard to health insurance. A lot of these uninsured patients are not poor. Many of them are people in their 20's who lack health insurance because they are healthy and figured they didn't need it and decided to risk going without health insurance. Otherse are people who cheat the system. I can tell you that I see AT LEAST one medicaid patient a day who has an i-phone, a Coach bag or another nice purse and drives a BMW yet they scam the government by underreporting their income to qualify for Medicaid. Everyday, my nurses ask if we should report those patients but we don't beause our concern is for their health and not to play investigator.
Being a 20 something, I can't afford health insurance. I'm 50k in debt from school, I work in non-profit (tutoring autistic children), and I'm applying to grad school (more debt and less time, thus less short term earning potential). Healthcare costs are simply too much on top of the other bills I have to pay. I don't have a BMW, I don't have an iphone, nor do I like the feeling that if I get into one accident or get sick (cancer is prevelant in my family) I will be even more in debt. We laden our youth with debt. That's not a good system.
I have been a public health nurse and worked with very poor people, many on "welfare". I saw my share of fancy (at the time) electronics, etc, but I never had a pt. driving a BMW or even a late-model Toyota. Most of them drove beaters, if they had a car at all. No one is going to give someone on welfare a loan to buy an expensive car.
When it became accepted that doctors have the right to live in mansions, drive expensive cars, belong to exclusive country clubs and take exotic vacations.
This is rarely addressed in the health care debate. What other industry, besides lawyers, allows the provider of a service to charge hundreds of dollars to walk in their door and speak to them for fifteen minutes before they do any actual work (tests, surgery, etc.) with no guarantee of results?
When it became accepted that doctors have the right to live in mansions, drive expensive cars, belong to exclusive country clubs and take exotic vacations.
This is rarely addressed in the health care debate. What other industry, besides lawyers, allows the provider of a service to charge hundreds of dollars to walk in their door and speak to them for fifteen minutes before they do any actual work (tests, surgery, etc.) with no guarantee of results?
I personally hate paying the hundred or so dollars to see my doctor when I'll only see her for 15 minutes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW
IMHO - Medical care is not subject to the usual market limitations because the purchaser does not have any real choices. They generally need care right now and have no power to bargain for prices. The price of health care does not ration the need so the market is an inappropriate means regulating demand.
This is why a free market system is inappropriate and we need a Universal Health Care system with a little private sector involvement as possible.
When did a patient's basic rights to receive and appropriate level of healthcare become solely based on money? When did all of the ethical and moral obligations, the whole Hippocratic Oath, become obsolete? When someone who has become, through no fault of their own, disabled and unable to work or care for themselves, why are they denied any compassion within the healthcare system?
When did this all happen? When people stopped working for free and deserve the pay for the services they performed... nobody asked you to stop receiving a paycheck so I can have a bigger house... and I doubt you would be willing to work for free either..
I personally hate paying the hundred or so dollars to see my doctor when I'll only see her for 15 minutes.
It's ridiculous and just plain greedy.
I took my teenaged daughter to two gastroenterologists last year because she had severe abdominal pains and diarrhea after she ate, and her stomach would pop out like she was three months pregnant after every meal. The first was in my insurance network. He did an endoscopy and said he couldn't find anything, so that it must be Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which is apparently MD code for "I can't figure it out." He said come back in two months if the problem persists. Since she'd had the problem for six months already, that just sounded pretty damn stupid.
So I went to an out-of-network doctor. $368 for the 15-minute "consultation". That one did a colonoscopy. Couldn't find anything so "it must be IBS. Come back in two months...."
My kid did some research on the Internet of her symptoms and within an hour found that it could be related to a dietary problem. She cut all products containing gluten out of her diet. She was completely better within two weeks. That was a year ago. She continues to maintain a gluten-free diet and has never had one recurrence of the problems for which she sought help from two high-priced MDs.
Neither multi-degreed doctor ever even SUGGESTED a dietary issue or even ASKED her what she was eating, yet they both made thousands of dollars off of her without producing any results and probably laughed all the way to the bank. A teenager with a laptop figured it out herself.
I think it started when the movie "Wall Street" came out. "Greed is good". Just kidding, it was actually long before that.
Blood money? It's the oldest kind.
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