Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (6375)	3/14/2009 11:12:28 AM
From: i-node	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

I trust that by "allowed" you mean that the insurer would pay, not that that doctor and patient would be permitted to proceed with the treatment. Denying payment and denying treatment are two very different things. Presumably, a person who had the money to pay for it out of pocket could choose to do so. In reality, when you're talking about a series of chemotherapy treatments that cost, for example, $6,000 each, for the vast majority of people denying payment is the same as denying treatment. It is in these circumstances where this would frequently come into play. But also in ERs, where often, heroic measures are applied in a last ditch effort to save lives. My brother was killed years ago by a drunken driver who ran over him in a truck. When he got to the hospital there was still a faint pulse but the reality is that he wasn't not going to be saved. Yet, the ER bill was $60,000 for what amounted to a few minutes of desperate hope. One can argue that these treatments should not be attempted. The ER Docs (all of whom knew him well) could have just said, "No chance here." But that's not what is currently done. I don't know whether physicians would readily adapt to having to make a conduct an analytical "cost/benefit analysis" in these circumstances. Which are things that occur on a daily basis. What about an 80-year old with terminal cancer who falls and breaks his/her hip? To fix or not to fix? Honestly, I think these kinds of decisions are in our future, if not our immediate future. At some point, the massive debt due to out of control programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, are going to require it. I don't know if Americans have the stomach for it. I don't think insurers should have to pay for patients and their families not being realistic about or accepting death. I think it's useful to be able to present the facts to the consumer, to ask if it's really worth spending $300,000 to live three more months. Sure, we have to be sensitive around the dying, but I can't see being ridiculous about it. I could understand it in some circumstances, e.g., in the instance of my brother's death. They could see he was going to die. But on 12/31/2000, our state was covered by an ice storm, power losses to almost all the city I live in. My mother, a cancer patient for six years, became violently ill in the assisted living facility she was in. I took her to the hospital where she was refused admission for six hours. Not because they couldn't have done it, but because they were afraid Medicare wouldn't pay for it (she, of course, had other insurance that would have paid for it anyway). The ER physician refused admission because "there is nothing I can do for her". After running down her own physician HE admitted her, where she went on to die after a few days. This story is significant to me because her treatment was not humane. She was very sick physically, but was going to die, yet he was knowingly going to send her back to an assisted living facility with no heat or power during an ice storm. Medicare wouldn't pay. I told the guy, "I'll commit to paying the bill". His response was, "That's not the issue; there is nothing we can for her". Of course, there WAS something he could do which is to provide humane treatment in her final days. But because she did not fit the criteria set out by Medicare, there was no way she was going to get treatment from that twit. It took a half day to find her doc who immediate ordered her admitted. These are things that don't have to be this way. My Mom's case was in unusual circumstances, and perhaps the doc (who was a young kid) just erred in judgment, but he did so out of fear of the system. There is a lot that could be done differently to save money and provide better service. But getting government OUT is the approach, IMO.