Six years ago I wrote my thesis on end of life care and the ethics of physician assisted suicide. I think that the it is relevant to the current argument to bring up the cost of the last six months of terminal care in the current debate.

One of the figures I discovered during my research is that in the last six months of life, the cost of out of pocket expenses, the charges not covered by Medicare, lost productivity and costs to families in travel etc. was in 2004 $0.5 Trillion. It seems to me, that if the estimated cost for Obama’s program is $ 1.0 Trillion over 10 years someone needs to do the math and see just how much is really sucked out of the economy and how much capital would be freed up by a government option. We do not have the best health care system in the world although in places we do have world class medical care (Mayo et al). Our costs are high, outcomes and equity of distribution and access rank us pretty low vs the rest of the world.

While the right continues to whine about government dictating what treatments individuals may or may not be allowed under a government option plan and that it interferes with individual “choice” (since when did they ever advocate for choice). Do they ever consider that millions of people have their employment choice restrained because they are hostage to a company medical plan? How many people would go and create their own businesses, creating jobs and paying taxes if they weren’t hostage to the health care industry? We are forever hearing about the nobility of the small businessman and how they will be driven into the ground by federalized health care…how many small businesses would love to have their low wage workers covered under a gov’t. plan…a healthier workforce is a productive workforce why can’t they understand that or is it that our congress is happy to have us farmed like aphids by the insurance companies?

Family members should not be stuck with this painful, emotionally wrenching decision at a time when they’re having to deal with a loved one’s terminal illness. The patient him or herself should not be having to make this decision while he or she is in pain, doped up on drugs, nauseated from chemo, emotionally overwrought at the prospect of death and having enough trouble just dealing with the illness. The best time to make these decisions is before they become an absolute necessity. It’s a hard thing to deal with even when you have months or years to prepare while the person’s dying of cancer, say. People cling to hope as long as they can — and that’s not always a bad thing — finding it difficult to “give up” and deal with the fact that the chemo doesn’t work, there are no more miracle drugs, second opinions will only second the first diagnosis, etc., plus just dealing with that kind of illness takes everything out of the patient and the family and you live one day at a time. But having to make the decision suddenly when the terminal diagnosis is a surprise or the person reaches the point of death much sooner than you expected or the precipitating event is sudden and unforeseen, like a car accident, is even worse. Anything that eases this time for patients and families is worthwhile.

As a veteran of hospital admissions, late-night visits to the ER and the whole gamut of terminal illness care, I can tell you it is the most normal, standard thing to be given a living will form and the name of a social worker or some other professional to talk about it every time you check in — at your TOTAL discretion if you want to fill it out and have it on file or ignore, it’s up to the patient and family, whatever they want to do. Nobody pressures you, but it’s there if you want it, as is counseling about hospice care (which I fully recommend), home health care, etc. And my experience was at a CATHOLIC hospital. Are the Sisters of Mercy in cahoots with Obama to pull the plug on old people? And by the way, this provision was co-sponsored by a Republican doctor and endorsed by several medical organizations, including some Catholic hospital systems — hardly Hemlock Society material. What IS this wingnut compulsion to turn every decent thing in life into some paranoid evil? They do this about EVERYTHING. It’s pathological, and it’s scary if they really find this accusation credible. If they’re just cynically stirring people up with their distortions, they deserve to burn in hell or whatever equivalent of hell on Earth.

Plus it will add to the idea that “Obama is conducting a permanent campaign” when he is only trying to get his mandate enacted.

Oh yes, the Washington Post talks about Democrats. Where were they in debunking this crap? Whay have they waited so long?

This mess is the Democrats Katrina. They bailed out the banks and left the people clinging to their sinking roof tops. Now they have another chance to really make things right and help the country, and single payer is still off the table.

*loonicon*

Many people do consider Paine a “Founding Father” although he was not a “Framer” of the Constitution or Declaration of Independence. His “Common Sense” was pampletted all over the American Colonies. I suspect if Paie had been directly influential in those documents they would have had a decidely more socialist flavor.

I suspect the screed was written or influenced by the portrayal of Paine as presented by Glenn Beck. This is crass revisionism as anyone who reads any of Paine’s works would know.

Here, for example, is Paine’s “Agrarian Justice” in which he argues the landed have a responsibility to compensate those who lack property or wealth for absconding with the “natural property” of the community. and while he does not discuss health care, he does indicate that the blind and lame have the right to sustainable support.

http://www.cooperativeindividu…..ce_02.html

Bob in HI

Most military hospitals I served at during my career required that every single patient admitted be counseled about end-of-life issues, and offered the option for a living will and an advanced directive. But that, of course, was socialized medicine, so I guess it figures

This is disgusting; it’s despicable that these repugs lie and scare the elderly like this. There is a special place in hell for every single one of these congress people, as well as every single one of these idiot jerks in the media lying like this.