Universal coverage can also include public/private partnerships, such as our current Medicare / Medicare Supplement / Medicare Advantage program, which could be tweaked to work for all Americans. It would also be individual and portable, include dynamic choice, free market competition and innovation, and take a massive cost monkey off the backs of American employers.
Right now, we have SIX (6) different healthcare delivery/payment systems, none of which communicates directly with the others:
- Medicare
- Medicaid
- VA
- Group
- Individual
- Indigent
I wonder how many people really think that's a smart "system".
Medicare is God awful.
When my father passed away with brain cancer 3 years ago this month.... I truly got a glimpse at just how bad medicare is.
At one point, and more than once... he was lying in the emergency room in extreme pain but not getting medication because of Medicare's archaic and unmerciful policies between Medicare and Hospice care. It is a fucking, vile evil set up.
I hope you and yours do not have to experience it.
And then after my father passed away, it left his wife... my mother... buried in red tape that you need a lawyer to figure out.
It is impersonal, uncaring and without care about what people are going through.
It shouldn't be called Medicare... it should be called Medifuckyou if you get terminally ill
What was Medicare's archaic and unmerciful policies that prevented him from receiving meds for pain?
Cheapness. We went through it with my mom. Is it worse when the person is put into hospice? It shouldn’t be. If you have to give up Medicare to get hospice, that shouldn’t be a downgrade it should be an upgrade. And give them enough morphine that it will kill them. Stop the needless suffering
Most of the time a person who is admitted to hospice you have to give up all other meds except for pain relief. His post wasn't clear he mentioned ER and hospice. So ER denied relief or hospice? IV morphine is not that expensive but then again Medicare approved cost is much lower than what a hospital or hospice would charge. Was it a hospice facility or hospice in home?
Hospice in home.
You are correct, when you sign on to receive hospice care, which is wonderful, you are prohibited to receive any sort of life sustaining care. Which on the surface sounds okay. But in many cases, "comfort care" and sustaining care cross paths. Like I said, he would get dehydrated which can and does cause all manner of painful and uncomfortable symptoms. It is absurd that they won't even allow simple IV meds, that are not expensive and work very quickly.
He got sick in late October, and died in January. But got bad-bad in December.
My father died eventually of starvation. Which is what kills a great many people in hospice care. Dad lost the ability to swallow, but was still fairly conscious and aware. I want everyone to think about that. He knew what was going on. He knew he was wasting away. He knew he was going to die, not from the illness, but from the inability to simply receive intravenous vitamins/glucose etc. so he could at least die peacefully.
So we had to choose to kill him.
The day before we put him in the nursing home, he was sitting up and interacting with us. He could sort of speak, not because of mental decline, but because of his brain tumor. He was aware, smiled at us...and could kind of laugh at something funny....to what physical capacity he could still laugh. HE WAS CONCIOUS.
But he could not stay in the hospital. Because medicare won't pay for it.
So we sent him to a nursing home. They basically gave him enough morphine to shut everything down. He never regained consciousness and died in just over 24 hours. Where 24 hours before he was a living, conscious human being. Aware and interacting with his family. But medicare will not pay fot that. But they will gladly pay for the morphine to kill you.
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