Single payer is a death sentence for seniors

not at all. Its futile to proffer the steaming pile of bullshit that universal healthcare means old people are denied treatment. The ONLY criteria is if the patient would survive any surgical or chemical procedure to begin with = A medical decision made by professionals, not by insurance companies.

But I get you are grasping at straws.

 

that's exactly how the system is suppose to work. Triage dictates priorities and mitigate wait times. (although that's one area in need of substantive improvement).

Unless of course you are suggesting that its a waste of money to treat the elderly.

 

Yeah, kinda like the bible.

 

Dunno, Reps will do nothing for the people when it comes to healthcare. Maybe that is a good thing though. We can see how Obamacare ended up with expensive fines.

 

It's an enormous waste of money.

Hey, they're just boomers. I've got no love for what they've done, and the piper has to be paid by somebody.

 

Ah yes the hubris of youth. Wait till its your turn.

 

It has nothing to do with me personally. It has to do with the overall negative impact that boomers have had on the economy, which is their fault, so they should be the ones to pay for it. All those stupid social welfare services they dreamed up but didn't have enough kids to maintain means that they messed up.

 

Insurance companies are already death panels to many non-seniors and to some seniors as well. Medicare/medicade doesn't cover every necessary medical procedure for seniors and for those who don't qualify for government assistance, insurance companies decide what is and what isn't covered.

 

The parents and families dictate.
Go visit an acute extended care facility and observe the trach & peg club.

 

With the VA they own the facilities and directly employ doctors and staff.

 

Nope.. end of life may mean the last 5-10 years when the elderly use more of the healthcare dollar.

 

Those are the Republican/Libertarian Boomers who had such a NEGATIVE impact on the economy because they imposed GREED based policies instead of sane and reasonable taxation that would have paid for what is needed in this nation.

 

Unless the family has the money to pay for treatment themselves, doctors quit when the insurer says so.

 

The insurer is Medicare.
Single payer for the elderly. It pays for an enormous amount of end of life care that is medically futile.
When the family says full go, it's full go.

 

Unlike private insurance, where treatment can be denied at the whim of a corporation. Makes single payer sound far more patient friendly, doesn't it?

 

You're right, being a body subject to political interest, they are willing to go further than the purely commercial decisions that insurance companies make. Which makes the "death panels" scare even more ridiculous.

 

Actually it does make economic sense - for the government

A pacemaker costs only a couple of grand but that may buy him several years of independent living out of nursing care.

 

There is no such thing as death panels. You have peer review and case management review to insure highest and best standards. If you are an 80 year old with multiple health problems it may not be feasible to do a lung transplant. You should be able to comprehend that unless of course you are Sarah Palin.

 

It is useless and cruel to prolong death. If your 89 year old Grandad has two leg amputations, a colostomy bag, a pacemaker, two artificial hips and needs dialysis and cardiac bypass to give him maybe 6 months more life, which would be spent in the hospital in constant pain is that a GOOD thing? Is that a responsible decision?

 

It's a good point, but I don't think it's necessarily germane to the single payer = death panel discussion. Those opposed to single-payer claim that death panels will be convened and that people will be routinely denied treatment. From the way that Medicare seems to work in the US, it seems that, if anything, there will be less of a constraint.

Personally, I'd love for euthanasia to be an option. My father has terminal cancer, rapidly advancing Alzheimers, is doubly incontinent and has almost no quality of life. If he was a much-loved family pet then he could be out of pain. That said, there are other people who want to extract every last moment from life. For those people, I wouldn't want the quality of their insurance to be the sole determinant of whether they receive treatment.

 

The topic is expense, and why we are so expensive. End of life care(last month) is a huge portion.
Where do you think the savings is gonna come from? Not rocket science.

When grandma comes in with her bowel obstruction, she's getting morphine and an unmonitored floor bed to die in.

 

Tell that to the people who demand everything and get it under our current system. Tell them you're cutting them off and that's where the "savings" is coming from.

Oh yeah, that's right, they're not being told , the sole premise of this thread. It just took you a while to accidently slip and tell the truth

 

Sick 80 year olds aren't getting lung transplants now.
But they are getting months in the ICU and acute care nursing homes prior to their deaths.
You know damn well you will be cutting them off.
You just dont have the integrity to tell them.
You're spewing **** about better care and reduced costs when you know damn well you're going to refuse them the same care they know they can get now should they demand it

 

Not once they take over everything.
Ask bowerbid. She already defended cutting them off cuz that's what they do in aussie land to save money

 

Nobody gets months in ICU.. Are you familiar with hospice?

No one is going to cut off seniors. What's your problem? Medicare works.