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Posted on 01/26/2014 12:54:41 PM PST by Nachum
This is what is going on right now in Great Britain. It is only a matter of time until Obamacare goes the same way.
Young lung cancer sufferers are only 10 per cent more likely to die within five years than their continental counterparts But pensioners with the disease have 44 per cent less chance of survival The figure for stomach cancer – at 45 per cent – is even worse
Pensioners with cancer are being written off as too old to treat, campaigners said yesterday.
They cited figures showing survival rates for British patients aged 75 and over are among the worst in Europe.
Young lung cancer sufferers are only 10 per cent more likely to die within five years than their continental counterparts.
But pensioners with the disease have 44 per cent less chance of survival.
The figure for stomach cancer – at 45 per cent – is even worse.
And Britons with prostate cancer are a fifth less likely to survive than Europeans if they are 85 and over.
Just 43 per cent live for five years, compared with up to 67 per cent over the Channel.
Patients in their 70s and 80s with kidney cancer have a 32 per cent survival rate, compared with 46-53 per cent in Europe.
Ciarán Devane, of Macmillan Cancer Support, which helped produce the figures, said: ‘It’s wrong to write off older people as too old for treatment. With a proper assessment and appropriate treatment, our research shows that many older cancer patients can live for a long time and can even be cured.
‘While it’s good news that so many older people are benefiting from treatment, many thousands more could live longer if our survival rates for over 65s matched those in comparable countries.
The barriers to getting treatment – which include age discrimination and inadequate assessment methods – must be tackled now so more older people can survive cancer and live for many years.’
The research from Macmillan and the National Cancer Intelligence Network shows that more than 130,000 Britons have survived for at least ten years after being diagnosed with cancer at 65 or over.
The study, which is the first of its kind, also reveals there are more than 8,000 people alive today who have lived for the same time period following diagnosis at 80 or over. The research from Macmillan and the National Cancer Intelligence Network shows that more than 130,000 Britons have survived for at least ten years after being diagnosed with cancer at 65 or over
The research from Macmillan and the National Cancer Intelligence Network shows that more than 130,000 Britons have survived for at least ten years after being diagnosed with cancer at 65 or over
Octogenarian women do particularly well, with twice as many surviving for ten or 20 years as men.
Survival rates for the over-75s are worse in Britain than Europe for nine out of ten common cancers.
A small survival advantage is seen for sufferers of melanoma skin cancer.
Caroline Abrahams, of the charity Age UK, said: ‘It’s good news that with the right care and treatment older people can survive for many years after cancer.
‘It is often forgotten that people over 75 represent a third of all cancer diagnoses and a half of all cancer deaths. Survival rates for the over-75s are worse in Britain than Europe for nine out of ten common cancers
Survival rates for the over-75s are worse in Britain than Europe for nine out of ten common cancers
‘People over 80 with the disease are the only age group in which mortality rates have got worse in the last 40 years.
‘An individual’s date of birth should not be used as a proxy for health and fitness or influence treatment decisions.
‘Assessments of older people must be based on their needs and not simply on their age. Anything else is blatant age discrimination.’
Mark Porter, chairman of council at the British Medical Association, said: ‘It is important that all healthcare professionals ensure that patients are treated on the basis of clinical need.
‘With an increasingly ageing population, it should be a key part of medical professionalism to guarantee that older patients are treated with the care and respect they deserve.’
Around 60,000 cases of cancer are diagnosed each year in Britons aged 75 and over.
One in four are prostate sufferers. Gerald Shenton, 78, from Staffordshire, said: ‘I was first diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma in 2000, and I am still here 13 years later, although I’ve suffered from every side effect in the book.
‘I never really had any aftercare because I have always been treated as end stage. I was turned down for a possible treatment twice, being told unofficially that it was because of my age.’
Mick Peake, of the National Cancer Intelligence Network, said: ‘It is vital all patients receive the best and most effective treatment based on the nature of their cancer and their fitness for treatment and that chronological age alone is not the deciding factor.
People bad mouth the Death Panels without giving them credit for how valuable they’ll be to SocSec and Medicare budgets.
When Julia and Pajama Boy get restless over granny’s premature demise, the regime will send out some Groupons for student loan relief.
Does NHS also ban Queen Elizabeth II from cataract surgery?
All “government-provided” health care schemes eventually become rationed care. And not only rationed, that which is available is much lower quality, and with long waiting lists to even get into the presence of a supposed specialist in the treatment of the disorder, also allows the condition to get much worse before treatment begins.
And the supposed specialist may not even have that much expertise in diagnosing or treating the disorder. What treatment is available, fails to address either the symptoms that present, or newer, more effective means of treatment.
The older treatments will necessarily have to be relied upon, because there is no capability or interest in developing new, cutting-edge technologies. Without available funding to support research and experimental study, the new technologies will never be discovered or explored for the benefit of community health.
We are all going to die sometime. In the words of that great sage of the House of Representatives, Alan Grayson, D-Florida, “Don’t get sick. And if you do, die quickly.”
Pretty much sums up what the underlying philosophy of Obamacare includes.
My MIL will be 100 next May. She arises each morning and makes her own bed, then picks which of her own homespun yarn she will knit the next sweater or cap with. I do fix her breakfast and lunch, but she always walks down the two flights of stairs to take in some Netflix movies. She reads books by the bushel basket and follows the stock market on TV.
She became ill with an UTI last summer and I had to throw a screaming fit to get the ER docs to treat her. They thought her “fuzziness” was the usual. I insisted they treat her now, or else when the other hospital put her back on her feet I’d bring her back and let her beat them all at chess.
Some folks just have good genes. The one-size-fits-all practice of medicine makes me very angry, but it is already in the U.S.
Now don’t you think she can afford her own doctors? Of course. And don’t you think many wealthy people could afford their own surgery if they needed it? Of course. Cost is not an issue for those who can afford it.
But for any nationalized care, be it NHS or Obamacare, cost IS a factor. And where the government’s money is concerned, shouldn’t cost be a factor? Of course. We would want the government to spend OUR money wisely. And starting from the absurd, e.g., spending a million bucks to extend a life by one day (which no reasonable person would do), then a lone has to be drawn somewhere. And for a governmental system the person making the decision is going to be a bean counting pencil pusher. I think the same is true in private insurance. Someone will eventually be deciding if care is appropriate based on a cost-benefit analysis. No system involving pooled funds can survive long by doing everything for everyone.
Patriarch Pavle of Serbia: Patriarch from age 76 to age 95.
Winston Churchill: Prime Minister from age 66 to age 71, and again from age 77 to age 81.
Ronald Reagan: President from age 70 to age 78.
Any questions?
Physicians who take government money of any kind will not be able to take cash. If they do they'll be fined for their first offense and charged for later offenses.
Let me explain a bit more on private and national medical insurance there: They have private hospitals and public hospitals. If you have a private policy, you go to the private hospital and have a private room and care. If you are public health insurance, you go to the different hospital with wards of people, no private rooms.
Now, wife had a bleeding ulcer and had to be in hospital a number of days. She was in a ward, her chosen public healthcare. She said she couldn't sleep because the others in the ward were noisy. She couldn't get a nurse until after a long wait. As soon as she got out of hospital, she told son to get private healthcare again.
She was only a liberal in talking but not in doing. Did they send my grandson to a public school with regular kids? No way - it is a private school for smart kids, not even a regular private school. Also, private tennis lessons, private piano lessons, private flute lessons, private swimming lessons.
I'm all for private, but don't pretend to be a liberal and live like the common folks when you don't do it.
An important element of this is not that the cancer treatments wouldn’t work, but that the NHS actively *wants* the elderly to die. That is, if someone invented a cheap cancer cure tomorrow, the NHS would try to *prevent* seniors from getting it.
Remember that former Gov. Richard D. Lamm of Colorado once said that “Elderly people who are terminally ill have a “duty to die and get out of the way” instead of trying to prolong their lives by artificial means.”
However, this is a half truth. They don’t really care that they are terminally ill. They want them to die anyway, because they see the elderly as useless parasites on society.
Past retirement age, they see the elderly as consuming their (earned) pension, getting free or low cost health care, hoarding their (earned) savings instead of giving them to government, etc. As useless parasites.
So remember that this is the mindset of such people when debating health care.
One more note about English private insurance:
Son’s mother-in-law had a private policy so when she got cancer, she was immediately admitted and got fast care and a private room. She eventually died but, in my opinion, she would not have lived that long had she not had private insurance.
” I’m all for private, but don’t pretend to be a liberal and live like the common folks when you don’t do it. “
Friends of one of my daughters are exactly like that.
They talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.
Incredible hypocrisy.
.
See US chart:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_life_expectancy
Cancer treatment, regardless of age, should be decided by the patient and his/her family. As a consideration, some chemotherapy and radiation treatments are more stressful and debilitating than the illness. For elderly patients, Medicare does not cover all the drugs and services which are part of cancer care, plus,the stress of a cancer diagnosis, prognosis often limits research on choices and options.
If you’re elderly, have your vitamin d levels tested. If you’re low, supplement with d3 and keep getting retested.
Find a doc willing and able to do these things.
Yes, that was then and hyper Socialists didn’t rule us.
Doc tested my D3 level over a year ago and it was very low so have to take supplement he recommended every day.
Could you explain more about the vitamin D? Thanks
Make sure it’s a d3 supplement and not a d2 supplement.
Some docs write scrips for the d2 variety. d2 is converted, slowly and inefficiently, by mammals to d3.
d3 is the right sort all along.
Low vitamin d levels (specifically the d3 kind) have been linked with cancer, heart issues and issues with bone density. You can’t just start popping pills though, you need to have your levels tested and then supplement if they’re low. And subsequently be restested.
What dose works for one person might be a drop in the bucket for another. What’s sufficient for one might be way way way too much for someone else. It’s a very individual thing.
Also ask your doc about k2. Have to be careful supplementing with that one if you’re a heart patient or any kind of blood thinning drugs. but k2 and d3 work synergistically. So ask when you ask about the d3.
And if you subsequently get a scrip for ‘vitamin d’, make sure it’s the d3 form. the d2 form is plant vitamin d and is poorly and inefficiently converted in mammals to vitamin d3.
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