Posted on 09/30/2012 4:20:05 PM PDT by Red Steel
I’ve already experienced this crap.
I took care of a dear friend for nearly 6 years. At the age 96 stuff starts happening as your body wears out.
So we regularly had to go to the hospital for various events: UTI, Dehydration, loss of blood due to ulcers, etc.
In the last two years of her very full life, the doctor started getting agitated when we’d bring her in saying “I don’t understand why you keep bringing her in! Let stay in her home so she can pass comfortably?”
I would always reply “You guys haven’t been right in diagnosing her imminent and very present dying just any day. It’s been 4 years since her hip replacement where she survived 6 hip operations and 3 rounds of Vicomiacin Resistant MRSA. SHE IS STILL HERE! SHE NEEDS YOUR HELP AND IT’S JUST A LITTLE. SO LET’S FIX HER UP AND WE’LL GO HOME IN A DAY OR SO”.
(BTW, Vicomiacin Resistant MRSA is a flesh eating disease and generally kills most people half her age and even younger. Stella was indomitable and wasn’t going anywhere yet)
the discussions went like that for two years and I always on the side of life and we have a responsibility to help her.
Besides, she wasn’t dying anytime soon. We traveled all over the West. Trips to Palm Springs, Mexico, Santa Barbara, Carmel, etc.
We’d travel for weeks and she was always fine. She always animated and engaged in conversation and was very much sentient and mentally fine.
So after a wile I started researching why the doctor kept pushing “Paliative Care” and it turns out there are financial considerations from the profit and loss point of view for the hospital.
The DR. had a contractual obligation to push “Palliative Care” and his ability to practice in that hospital was very much at risk if he couldn’t convince patients to “go home and die”.
Seriously, that’s what it was about. This was under Medicare and it will be worse under ObamaCare.
I will post the actual contract obligations, profit and loss considerations, Primary Physician obligations to push patients home, etc.
It’s not hard to find but, I won’t have the time today.
I’ll try to get to it in a week or so.
People need to know what “government care” really looks like.
BTW, the Medicare system denies 50% of all claims and has less coverage than typical insurance which only denies 18% of all claims on average.
That’s why many elderly have supplemental insurance.
“I want Mrs. Beer to pass comfortably, in her home...”
FKR! I get it and what the impact is on his ability to practice in that hospital but, Damnit! She is a real living person.
We put up with that Shit for 5 years and Stella finally passed away last November at the age of 101 and 5 months.
Two months before that we were in Palm Springs and then decided to go to Vegas for a few days. She had a great time and loved the shows we went to.
3 before her passing she spent the weekend at a friends house and she absolutely had a wonderful time.
She was also able to spend time with a dear friend of ours that same weekend.
Steve Wozniak gave her a necklace with two seagulls on it, some 30 years ago.
He loved the story of Johnathan Livingston Seagull and it was the inspiration of how he lives his life.
3 weeks before Stella passed we learned Woz was accepting a painting on behalf of Steve Jobs, who had just passed away shortly before that.
We met Steve in the lobby and he went crazy kissing and hugging Stella. She smiled so beautifully and told him she had something to show him.
He asked what it was and she pulled the necklace with the seagulls out of her blouse.
He recalled when he gave it to her but was touched when she said “I never take it off. Not even the so many times I’ve been in the hospital”.
He turned, smiling and said “Really?”
I said “Oh, Ho, Ho! She goes nuts if she can’t find that thing”.
So he spent the next 30 minutes accepting the painting on behalf of Jobs.
When the ceremony was over it was time for the press to take all their pictures Steve insisted she come up on stage with him.
She spent about 15 minutes on stage with Steve hovering over her in between pictures.
Wish I could find the news about Woz receiving that portrait but I can’t. It later turned into a scandal.
Anyway, Stella was just fine after being told for nearly 5 years to go home and pass in peace in her house.
These doctors don’t know shit. I prayed to my God, the one true God, who sees no others beside him and he always answered my prayers in the most amazing ways.
Stella finally did pass but at 101 and 5 months....It was bound to happen! LOL
I love her and miss her but the medical profession is driven by government dicta, dictate, actuaries and “Standard Care”.
You won’t survive unless you push back and become your own physician and enlist the help of the doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists and bureaucrats.
We did and that’s how you get to live to 101 living the fullest life that many will never experience.
I mean, who spends their 100th year on this planet traveling nearly every 6 weeks to somewhere.
We spent New Years 2011 at the Palazzo in Vegas and watched the fireworks go off at eye level as they were being shot from Treasure Island.
We were laughing and had the best time, especially when the final firework went off like a giant expanding star.
Physicians have a contractual obligation to keep the “census” numbers down or they are at risk of not being able to practice at that hospital.
The end-goal of Obamacare is to destroy healthcare as we know it, and replace it with something that meets the goals of utopian liberals.
Suing a doctor is not going to enable a healthcare provider to avoid the cold mechanisms of Obamacare. It will only cause them to go out of business faster and cause more delays and worse healthcare.
I see what you’re saying, but think of this: After World War II should every German prison guard have been held accountable for his role in the murder of so many people? Yes. (Where they? No.) Being a clog in the Machine, and “I was just following orders” is not an excuse. Every single one of those doctors is morally guilty.
Oooops... (Where they? No.) = WERE they...
/Grammar Nazi insurance tag
In my opinion it isn’t the same type of situation.
Proponents of Obamacare WANT to destroy healthcare to the point it has to be taken over, because it will become financially un-viable.
They WANT it to fail, so it must be saved by the government.
Degrading care to the point care suffers is inherent in Obamacare. You can say that you want to force providers to suffer because they cannot meet unrealistic goals, but I would rather see the unrealistic goals addressed so care can be improved.
LOL...no need to avoid the grammar nazis...anyone who read that post knew what you meant.
What Obamacare seeks to do is to take providers, (hospitals, physicians) and divide them against each other. Divide and conquer. Unless we repeal Obamacare by electing Romney, a republican controlled senate, and retain the house, we are all screwed. Humpty-Dumpty will never be put back together again. What a shame. Of course Obama and the oligarch and their families will get the best of the best care. The rest of us will stand in waiting lines, some will die while waiting, some will simply give up and go away. For America, there will be no good outcome.
Kind of the exact same tactic the unions use against hospitals.
REmember Jane Sturm 105 yo mother?
Obama: “I don’t think that we can make judgments based on people’s ‘spirit.’ Uh, that would be, uh, a pretty subjective decision to be making. I think we have to have rules that, uh, say that, uh, we are going to provide good quality care for all people. End-of-life care is one of the most difficult sets of decisions that we’re going to have to make. But understand that those decisions are already being made in one way or another. If they’re not being made under Medicare and Medicaid, they’re being made by private insurers. At least we can let doctors know — and your mom know — that you know what, maybe this isn’t going to help. Maybe you’re better off, uhh, not having the surgery, but, uhh, taking the painkiller.” Do you realize how cold and heartless that answer is? This woman is asking about her mother. And everywhere she went, except one doctor, refused to put in the pacemaker. “Nah, she’s too old; she’s going to die anyway.”
So they found a specialist: “Maybe this woman really loves living. I’ll put it in.” She’s lived five years with the pacemaker, and still Obama: “Maybe you’re better off to tell your mother to take a pill, take a painkiller.” See, we have to have rules. “We have to have rules. Your mother should have died five years ago, lady. She would have been better off taking that painkiller.”
Top Five Worst Obamacare Taxes Coming in 2013
http://www.atr.org/five-worst-obamacare-taxes-coming-a7217
The Obamacare Medical Device Tax – a $20 billion tax increase: Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax...(excerpt)
The Obamacare “Special Needs Kids Tax” – a $13 billion tax increase: The 30-35 million Americans who use a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs will face a new government cap of...(excerpt)
The Obamacare Surtax on Investment Income – a $123 billion tax increase: This is a new, 3.8 percentage point surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This would result in the following top tax rates on investment income...(excerpt)
The Obamacare “Haircut” for Medical Itemized Deductions – a $15.2 billion tax increase: Currently, those Americans facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction to the extent that those expenses exceed...(excerpt)
The Obamacare Medicare Payroll Tax Hike -- an $86.8 billion tax increase: The Medicare payroll tax is currently 2.9 percent on all wages and self-employment profits. Under this tax hike, wages and profits...(excerpt)
So, how do you LOWER costs by DEMANDING that hospitals make NO mistakes for fear of additional fines and fees?
That’s actually pretty easy. Hospitals and doctors will cherry pick for the healthy and compliant patients. The other ones will be left out. Eventually, most of the doctors in private practice, that is not employed by hospital corporations, will drop Medicare. The Medicare patients will be funneled into an ever shrinking pool of providers and they will wait and wait.
Forcing providers to take Medicare patients will lead to an even bigger backlash from providers and hospitals. Because most medical interventions are elective, providers will have no incentive to offer procedures with the least amount of risk. A physician can use a whole host of excuses to avoiding doing an elective procedure; you’re too old, you’re too fat, you could die, the procedure is not really that effective in certain studies, there are serious complications, maybe you need a second opinion etc. Complex Medicare patients will be relegated to NPs and PAs and the results will be predictable. We will see the whole thing play out as it does in the UK, Canada, etc. Wait to see an NP, then an internist, then maybe a specialist in a few months. More waiting for the bureaucrat to decide if the specialist can do the procedure, and then more waiting to get on the specialist’s procedure schedule.
Welcome to ObamaCare world doctors and hospitals who supported ObamaCare who will be penalized if they take Medicare patients. Welcome to the world of no physicians or hospitals will take Medicare patients because of ObamaCare.
As a side note, I saw an article in the paper today that noted that the ObamaCare boards were considering limiting joint replacements and cataract surgery for older patients. I warned several friends after Obamacare was passed that these two procedures would be the first to be tested and limited. Got to substantiate that economic value return to society!!!
Expect hospitals to try to treat MI, pneumonia and CHF on an outpatient basis.
I think it will degenerate to a 2 tiered system. The Cleveland Clinic model for the oligarchy and a medicaid system for the rest of us.
Thank you.
There is no lawsuit you are now fighting Obama and Obamacare, the law of the land. Beat Obama because all the horror stories are true and it will only get worse. What a joke to see claims that Obama is “improving the quality of care”. How would he be working that miracle? It’s ridiculous.
Just think about that smiling jack o lantern Obama. What kind of sick bastard would even think of a rule to prevent readmitting sick people to a hospital for 30 days? It’s deliberate murder of helpless people. And yes, that is the plan. You die and save them money.
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