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

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (9276)	9/10/2009 7:51:06 PM
From: i-node	Respond to of 42652

2. But, I challenge your assertion that bad behavior reduce life expectancy I think everyone would agree that bad behavior reduces life expectancy. and that reduces health care costs. More specifically, your assertion that reduced life expectancy reduces health care costs. Of course it does. ONE HALF of Medicare expense -- i.e., that related to the over-65 age category, is spent on end-of-life care -- the last six months. If you live long enough you're going to need knee replacements, hip replacements, other ortho procedures, heart surgery, cancer treatment, dialysis, nursing home care, alzheimers care, you name it. This isn't all because of "bad behavior". It is because people's bodies wear out if they're used long enough. I may die young because of what/how I eat. But that is far less expensive than the treatments I will receive if I live to be 80 and have to be treated for all these systemic failures that wouldn't otherwise have occurred. As an example, my dad died young (age 69) with a heart attack -- he had a 24 hour stay in a hospital before his death. It was the first time he'd ever stayed overnight in a hospital. My mom lived to be 84 and had both knees replaced (one requiring a 30-day stay in the hospital), one hip replacement with a 3 week stay (1 wk in hospital, 2 in SNF), a 40 day stay in a hospital with skin grafts and major wound care (after being attacked by her cat, of all things), a broken wrist, multiple cancers, a ton of chemo, many surgeries of various kinds, etc. Mom & Dad were about the same age. I don't know but I would guess that the cost to Medicare for my Mom's care easily ran 10x, 20x or more what my Dad's did. And frankly, she lived two years after she walked away from the cancer treatment -- had she done as her oncologist recommended, she would have received additional chemo as well as radiation therapy and that would have probably extended her life by a year or two. And she never even made it to a nursing home. I'm not saying these are typical, but neither am I suggesting they aren't.