Discussion for article #238257
Medicare Will Cover End-Of-Life Care, Resurrecting āDeath Panelā Outrage
As far as I am concerned the outrage is with idiots who think there is something wrong with have a chat about your final weeks/days or even years and having your HC coverage pay for it. I know I have already broached the subject with my family, almost 30 years ago now, and just recently had āthe talkā with my current Doctor. There is one thing that is notably different between today and the first conversation with a Doctor in 1987. In 1987 while my Doctor was all aboard with my directives, he alerted me to the fact that many staff had āreligiousā objections. At that time how the laws were written allowed some sanctimonious busybody to inject themselves into my wishes. All they needed to do was to call the State Anonymous Hotline and everything but what I wanted would occur.He actually had one such Nurse escorted from the Hospital when she keep questioning directions etc he had written on my chart. I brought this and other concerns up with my current Doctor and she stated that while it still occurs the laws have been revised to place my desires first and everything else a far second.
7 Likes
āMedicare Will Cover End-Of-Life Care, Resurrecting āDeath Panelā Outrage.ā
The way Republicans yammer on about the cost of Medicare and Social Security, youād think euthanizing the sick and elderly would be in their 2016 platform.
11 Likes
Iām sure the Democrats will certainly not be a bunch of cowards who will roll over and let the GOTP control the narrative.
Because Iām sure theyāve learned that lesson by now. Right?
3 Likes
Be warned - Heāll counsel the ill and then take their guns. You can look it up!
5 Likes
Rather than argue whether such counseling should occur, we should be working very hard to get the details right.
I am concerned that if a doctor decides you are suffering your final illness and counsels you to discontinue treatment, heāll probably be right 100% of the time, while if he counsels you to hang in there, you might die and heād be wrong. Doctors really, really want to be right all the time, and with schemes to pay for outcomes rather than treatment, it may affect his bottom line if he continues to treat a patient with a small chance of living much longer.
The big problem with end-of-life decisions are all the people who want to have a say, directly or indirectly, because they have a financial interest in having you die sooner rather than later. I am concerned that in a nursing home they control everything about your life, and they can make you wish you were dead. After theyāve drained your estate to zero, they have an incentive to do so. Even now, I saw the care my father got become much worse after the home had drained all his money with a $12,000/month fee and were only getting his Social Security and Medicaid to pay for his care. I donāt doubt for a minute that if they could have, somebody would have been by every day (especially when no family was around) to āsuggestā that maybe he didnāt want to live any longer.
1 Like
Lizā¦sorry to say this but you donāt know what you are talking about. āend of life counselingā is not what you suggest. And the issue here is not medical decision making its whether you can get paid for it.
End of Life counseling is part of what a āliving willā covers as well as options when you are fighting a terminal condition. If you go to a Doc ( prior to ACA ) to lay down the rules for your care in a terminal situation ( you donāt have to be in one at the time ) , how much testingā¦how much treatment and how much moneyā¦the visit is considered ānon medicalā and Medicare does not pay for it. Same for most insurance Coās until ACA changed that.
But the part you really get wrong is that its the Doctors decision that is made in the room. It isnāt. Its the patient or the potential patients right and their decision is what will follow. If your have 250 K in the bank and an artistically gifted grandchild you may not want to burn through all that cash to buy a week or two more life. You may want to send the kid to SCAD. So, while still mentally capable of doing soā¦still competentā¦you tell your Doc to just do what the insurance Co will pay for and nothing more. Otherwise, without limitations and you now not competent to make the callā¦he takes the 250 K. Legally. In fact he has to.
End of life counseling is really YOU counseling your medical team. Either at the end of your life or prior to that by laying down conditions for when that time arrives. And none of that was EVER a concern. What wasā¦and is nowā¦is does the Doc get paid to do it.
1 Like
Dirty little secret: a lot of Republican patients are already seeking it.
1 Like
Where is Sarah when we really need her?
2 Likes
You read your own biases into what I said, and then attack me for things I did not say. So we can all see what your comments manslpaining is worth ā nothing.
I saw the care my father got become much worse after the home had
drained all his money with a $12,000/month fee and were only getting his
Social Security and Medicaid to pay for his care. I donāt doubt for a
minute that if they could have, somebody would have been by every day
(especially when no family was around) to āsuggestā that maybe he didnāt
want to live any longer.
With all respect, perhaps your father is/was in the wrong nursing home.
1 Like
Iām an old lady. My husband and I have medical power of attorneys, DNRs, etc. Having lived through the last years of both our parents, we want to make our final years as easy as possible for our children.
If you look into it, most doctors die at home. I prefer to go that way myself. Extraordinary measures seem foolish to me. Iāve had a wonderful life and I donāt fear dying. Too many years on a ranch to regard death as anything but part of life.
4 Likes
I guess those that donāt want a conversation about ātheā end want to stay in denial that they will die.
Sheāll still be in time to stop the evil death panels as long as King v. Burwell, No. 14-114 remains undecided. Instead of having 9 justices whom nobody voted for decide this, we need to put the issue in the trusty hands of democratically elected Governor Palin.
Folks, this is an easy one ā¦critics will simply ask their God for dispensation so they may live forever and everā¦messy death problem solved!
Umm, no. The death panels are the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) in Obamacare.
Nice try.
This 73-year-old agrees with you.
Mitch Daniels is the only politician I know of, who explained why our US healthcare is so expensive.
Weāre the only country on earth which will pay $250,000 for 6 more months of life. But the rationing in other countries is not the solution.
How in the hell does anyone set up Hospice while the person is on Medicare for a family member if they canāt talk about end-of-life care? The Stupid among these dead-enders has always been off the fucking charts.
Oh, okay. I was afraid she was held up at a drunken neighborhood brawl.