Death Panels

[spotbird]

I just got off the phone with my mother-in-law. She was saying she didn't think my brother-in-law has health insurance since he became independently employed in a job that carries some physical risk. She also said my nephews do have health insurance through their step-father's policy. I allowed that they likely did not since they aren't in school, and my mother-in-law informed me that kids can stay on their parents policy until they are 26 now. I corrected her because that provision is not in effect yet, and if Obamacare is repealed, it will never be effective.

I said that health insurance reform didn't do much, but the little good in it is in provisions like these. She said that as a senior citizen she was very afraid of Obamacare, since doctors could be penalized for providing care that the government deemed unnecessary. I was pissed. I told her that the Death Panels were hysterical fiction, designed to scare people into opposing the pitiful reforms. And they were effective because people believe demagogues and don't even bother to find out the truth. I told her what will happen when health insurance reform is repealed is that her children, her grandchildren, and my children will not be insured, but at least she wouldn't have to be afraid of phantoms anymore.

I then ended the conversation, certain that she will never question the liars at Fox.

We live in a really fucked up world.

[jwirr]

1. She is so wrong. For the first time this month I did not have to pay

the co-pay on some of my drugs. Which is a very good thing since I have exactly $7 left for the rest of the month. They also cannot refuse to take care of my children & grand children's per-existing health care problems. And that is just the beginning how this helped this senior and without once touching either my medicaid or medicare. What is wrong with the rest of the seniors in this world?

[pinboy3niner]

2. The requirement for insurers to cover kids until 26 IS in effect now

Some provisions of HCR were written to go into effect 6 months after President Obama signed the bill into law; those provisions went into effect in September (the President signed HCR March 23).

http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/what-you-get-when-hcr-passes

(Ed. for typo.)

[spotbird]

3. Thanks

I didn't realize that because our insurance wanted verification of enrollment in August. I guess it was a last ditch attempt to remove some children.

Still, it wouldn't continue if my mother in law gets her way.

[emulatorloo]

4. Republicans manipulating seniors w "Death Panels" is one of the VILEST things they have ever done.

Manipulating our seniors by using baseless fears disgusts me.

[elocs]

5. "Why This Wisconsin City Is The Best Place To Die" My city and death panels.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120346411

Now, anytime a doctor in this large health system pulls up their records, their wishes for end-of-life care will be prominently displayed.

The result of all this attention is that nearly all adults who die in La Crosse, 96 percent of them, die with a completed advance directive. That's by far the highest rate in the country.

Bud Hammes, the medical ethicist who started Respecting Choices, says "We believe that our patients deserve to have an opportunity at least to have these conversations."
Bud Hammes standing in the Gundersen Lutheran Hospital in La Crosse, Wis.
Joseph Shapiro/NPR


But it's expensive to spend time with patients filling out living wills. Medicare doesn't reimburse for the time the hospital's nurses, chaplains and social workers do this. Bud Hammes, the medical ethicist who started the program, called Respecting Choices, says it costs the hospital system millions of dollars a year. "We just build it into the overhead of the organization. We believe it's part of good patient care. We believe that our patients deserve to have an opportunity at least to have these conversations."

And that's how La Crosse unexpectedly got in the middle of the national debate over health care and the so-called "death panels.

[patrice]

9. I know it's not PC, but my family has decided there are some definite down-sides to DNRs.

Especially when what can put some of our elders in that position in the first place doesn't really require anything like "heroic measures", just, perhaps, the time and careful attention necessary to discover the small sorts of things that need to happen in order to keep Mom folding the laundry rather than in the hospital.

With the downward pressure on "care" at ALL levels, DNRs just seem to be too much of a convenient out to some of us. Why bother to get something exactly right, why cause the trouble of enforcing standards with staff, if, ultimately, you don't really HAVE to?

[patrice]

6. Without a strong PO, de fact monopolies have no incentive to control costs, except

through denial of coverage. Because of the Health Care Affordability Act of 2010, they cannot rescind and they cannot deny for pre-existing conditions, but (just like phone plans) the devil IS, otherwise, in the details.

Medicare is the only alternative in which it IS possible to address costs systemically, rather than just capping care, but with the advent of what could turn into a full-on Republican congress in 2012, the political will to do authentic Medicare reform for fraud, waste, and abuse is probably not there.

[Capn Sunshine]

7. Death Panels are real

Every Health Insurance provider has them RIGHT NOW.
They're known as the "Claims Department"

[patrice]

8. Right on! People need to think about what those armies of attornies, accountants, actuaries and

all of their functionaries do to keep the shell-game going 24/7/365~