Michelle Obama Watch

Did she also talk about the report that came out from the Health and Human Services Department today that said if Obama care passes cost will go up over 2%, there will be rationing, millions will lose their private insurance and seniors will lose their Medicare because doctors will no longer be able to afford to accept them? I imagine not.

Let’s regulate the insurance companies so they serve us better without driving a stake through their hearts.

I will be willing to bet that GETFITNOW is one of those who eagerly spreaded the Death Panel lie.

Will we have to have a Michelle Obama Watch Beer summit? I don’t drink beer, but I’ll offer @Adarton and @getfitnow a couple of glasses if they promise to get along.

There won’t be “death” panels per se, they will just set treatment guidelines that will not recommend certain procedures for older patients. However, I shall have my “I’m old but I ain’t ready to die” fund built up so I can just pay cash for my treatment. They already have “treatment guidelines” in the insurance industry, just ask your PCP, you just aren’t aware they use them unless you get really sick and need aggressive care.

SO both of you are half way right. No one will be personally sentenced to death, they’ll just be denied treatment based on a number of factors including age. Happens all the time under the current system, just type in “treatment guidelines” into Google

On another note, I think I’ll ask the First Lady a question about end of life care because we as a nation really do need to have this discussion. I was listening on NPR last week and they said something like 80% of the health care costs you accrue in life occur in your last 6 months of life. I’ve told my family to just let me go and spend the insurance money on a trip around the world. They can sprinkle my ashes in each port of call. But if my parents wanted to continue to receive treatment, I’d sell everything I owned to get it for them.

One of the saddest things I’ve witnessed is the languishing and wasting away of people that have been stricken with debilitating strokes and diseases. Equally disheartening is seeing people denied access to quality health care based on economic status. Death panels – no. Putting an END to paying millions of medicare (taxpayer) dollars to “skilled” nursing facilities that pump tube feedings (that eventually lead to nasty infections = more $ for lab test & drug therapy) and engage in counterproductive physical therapies on the atrophied muscles of 90 year patients – yes.

In this country we really do ourselves a disservice by not embracing the aging process and realizing that we all have an expiration date that can’t be avoided. Forever young is figurative, no literal. So yes modern medicine can be manipulated to keep a shell of a person alive, but what about quality of life? Some of us really have a warped perception about quality of life also, but that’s another issue.

I am so pleased that in Illinois attention is finally being paid to the quality of care that is being given to the elderly in nursing homes, because that is where a big chunk of taxpayer dollars, around the country, is being flushed down the toilet.

Just ask yourself who would you put your money on? A 96 year old with end stage Alzheimers that suffered a crippling stroke, 5 years ago, and is now being fed through a tube for the low cost of $3000 to 5000+ a month. Or a 30 year old suffering from cancer that’s been given a year to live unless they receive a treatment that’s been denied because it’s considered “experimental” by an insurance company.

Yeah, but I think we need a national discussion on “quality of life.” How do you want healthcare decision to be made when you can’t make them for yourself. We have machines that can literally take over most major functions of the body, but do we want them to. I had a family member who was diagnosed with breast cancer at 87 she went on to live another 5 years, but what took her out wasn’t the cancer, but a broken hip. I remember the discussion about putting a feeding tube in when she wasn’t getting enough nutrients through eating and drinking formula. I was dead set against it, but I also said that I could completely understand if her daughter wanted to put the tube in because she wasn’t prepared to watch her mother starve to death.

Very complex issues irrespective of any health care legislation and we don’t talk about them because people don’t like to think about death. I would prefer to live out my final days in the North carolina high country watching the leaves change. I don’t want to die in a nursing home.

@ADMIN I agree. I don’t want to live out my final days in a nursing home either. I’d prefer to be surrounded by family and friends and pain free. Everyday I see families make the hard choices, often out of respect for a loved ones wishes, and believe me it’s not as bad as we may think it is. Modern medicine is truly fascinating.

Quality of life in this country is definitely a serious issue and not just as it relates to end of life care. Last week Oprah had a really good show where she highlighted how people live in different countries. It made me reminisce about past travels, pull out my Rosetta Stone catalog, and begin to think about making some serious choices. I find it comforting knowing that are places where the government makes decisions with their citizens in mind.

Some things are seriously broken here and they’ll never be fixed as long as there are those who hide behind arrogance and a false illusion of greatness. You can put a knock-off pump next a Jimmy Choo and keep telling yourself the knock-off is of better quality, but that doesn’t make it true. The first step in making serious changes is acknowledging the wrong. Some people need to give themselves permission to admit that there are countries that have gotten it right. It doesn’t make you unAmerican. It makes you intelligent.