Posted on 01/21/2013 8:37:27 PM PST by Rabin
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso... on social security reforms, "the medical system should be changed so that the many terminal patients now using government money for expensive treatment, can quickly pass away. Such patients can keep living even if they wish to die...
(Excerpt) Read more at japantimes.co.jp ...
Japan is just ahead of our curve.
Death panels come to Japan.
Read and weep....forced starvation/dehydration for the elderly, car accident victims, premature babies etc...in the thousands a year.
Some doctors who can remember their Hippocratic Oath are prescribing water for patients.
“Death panels come to Japan.”
Coming to neighborhoods all across America. Soon.
the Catholic church, IIRC, has a basic attitude that you don't have to break the bank to save one person, unless its your own money of course....
would we rather have tube feedings and suction for an incoherent 90 yro OR have vaccines for young children?.....if we only had finite dollars, what do you choose?.
日本 ピング (kono risuto ni hairitai ka detai wo shirasete kudasai : let me know if you want on or off this list)
We should do this to death-row inmates - no food, no water. It would be years quicker than the appeals process.
Or just poison them and they can die quicker, eh?
And send the bill for the poison, the needle, the bed, and the doctor to the family.
If you want to spend a half million dollars of your own money (or your children's inheritance) during the last month of your life, then have at it. The government should have no rules to prevent this. But tradeoffs have to be made somewhere when it's a question of spending government money to keep people alive for short periods at extraordinary cost.
Either get rid of socialized medicine or accept its limitations.
In a recent interview, David Goldhill, author of Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father had something interesting to say about the distortions caused by socialized medicine:
Many people think that, you know, if they're seniors, that Medicare is paying for their health care. What's interesting about seniors and what almost no one understands about Medicare is in 1965, when seniors paid for almost all of their health care themselves, roughly 10 to 12 percent of their income was spent on health care. This year, when seniors pay almost none of their health care themselves - Medicare pays 95 percent of the bill - that little 5 percent they pay now accounts for 20 percent of their income.
So what you have is people who think they're being protected by having these big intermediaries between them and the price of health care, in fact, what those intermediaries are doing is so inflating prices, so inflating demand, building so much waste and complexity into the system that all of us are bearing this extraordinary cost. We just don't see it because it's so many different hands into our pocket. But there is no other place for the money to come from.
BOOKbump
“what do you choose?.”
Since we made the decision 55 years ago not to have childern knowing what they would have to live through in the demise of this country, I chose medical care!!!
Funny. My Filipino bud told me Aso’ means dog.
“Many people think that, you know, if they’re seniors, that Medicare is paying for their health care. What’s interesting about seniors and what almost no one understands about Medicare is in 1965, when seniors paid for almost all of their health care themselves, roughly 10 to 12 percent of their income was spent on health care. This year, when seniors pay almost none of their health care themselves - Medicare pays 95 percent of the bill - that little 5 percent they pay now accounts for 20 percent of their income.”
But the not often discussed issue is the escalation in the cost of healthcare. For me, and I am a senior, that is the issue. My mother took about 3 days to die in a local hospital. They did little more than keep her sedated to ease her passing. The bill $50,000! But since it was Medicare the hospital “forgave” 80% of the bill leaving about $10,000 of which Medicare paid 90%. I just read about an all expense paid 200 day cruise that costs less than $50k. You talk about the Banksters. I submit that the “healthcare administrators” put these guys to shame. We also should never have decoupled the patient from his healthcare bills.
Another factor that has changed dramatically is simply the capability of modern medicine to keep people alive in adverse circumstances. Going back 50 years I would guess that people died much sooner once they had failing health simply because there was nothing that could be done—unlimited budget or not. Now there is a lot that can be done, but naturally, at a cost.
The Parasite Class is the problem. Spending on parasites is driving this country bankrupt. I would rather spend money on keeping a WWII vet alive for another month than spend it on welfare, government schools, ubion thugs, bridges to nowhere, bailouts and any other progressive nonsense. Yes, a choice has to be made.
Exactly right. They are printing money furiously longer than we have to keep interest rates very low. They have bigger national debt/capita and if interest rates go up to historical norm, both countries go bankrupt in a hurry with the much higher cost of servicing the national debts. Japan is already beyond point of no return. They simply can not stop printing money. After Obastard (one with the phony BC) finishes his 2nd term, we will be in the same situation as Japan.
My Medicare pays only 80% after I pay the deductible first. I have to buy a supplemental policy to get additional coverage.
If someone is dependent on government to pay for their medical care, then they should be aware that money is NOT infinite. I’m surprised rationing isn’t even more common. Choices have to be made, especially in single payer systems (we aren’t there, yet, but the federal government is paying for a large percentage of Americans).
People really have no right to demand that other people cover whatever costs might be necessary to extend life for as long as possible. If someone wants no expenses spared, then they need to pay for it themselves or request the (voluntary) charity of others.
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