Insurance companies cooking up ways to standardize cancer care:

alexandria58

Mardibra - I suppose the problem is that your position seems to be that becase you are lucky enough to be in a solvent company with a health plan, you should enjoy certain benefits while others whose company went out of business or decided to take away health insurance or are too sick to work, or who have spent all their money on care and have nothing left,  are just out of luck, and too bad for them.  That seems to be the position of everyone who rails against universal health care:  I' ve got mine.  Too bad for you.  Unless, of course, the situation changes. It is a simple matter of recognizing that there but for God or luck go I.   We have a duty as a country, as Americans, as humans, to provide a reasonable health care system that takes care of everyone, so that no one has to lose her home or die of a cureable disease for lack of insurance.

I, like you, am lucky that my husband has a good job and good insurance - I was per diem before I got sick and lost my job, but I am lucky that I have a sugar daddy.  I support any steps towards more universal care - and the ACA, thought it does not go far enough - because I do not believe that my being fortunate means that I should ignore the sufferings of so many people who are not in the same position.

Mardibra

whatever. 

Kaara

alexandria58:  That was very well stated...thank you!

PS:  I feel privileged to be in the company of many who feel the way you do. 

CherrylH

alexandria5,

LIKE, LIKE, LIKE, LIKE,LIKE, LIKE,LIKE, LIKE

RetiredLibby

Alexandra58, I wholeheartedly agree. And no amount of good health insurance can fix such poverty of spirit that doesn't care about the people in this country who die every day from lack of access to health care.

leggo

Shirley, No it was not because of cost. The hospital in London did everything they could for that little boy. I think they took into account that this family had already lost a child to the same illness and knew what was in store for Joseph. They knew the progression of the disease first hand. As far as I'm concerned it was sheer exploitation for the hospital in Missouri to take on the case. All they really got out of it was another 5 or 6 months of watching this poor child die. The Missouri hospital got it's fifteen minutes of fame with the media circus they initiated. Yes, parents and caregivers should ultimately be the ones making the decisions, but in this case, the motives of the parents were questionable. They knew that any child born to them would likely have the same illness and they had another one anyway. Also, the fact that they were constantly in the media saying "Joseph should die by God's will"...and then the very strange hypocrisy of asking for the tracheotomy to keep him alive...the pieces didn't fit. Remember the child was in a vegetative state with no hope of recovery. The London hospital was not o.k. with giving false hope. If you wish to respond to my post, please do so by pm....we don't need to get into a board war about euthanasia. Just for the record, I can't imagine what it was like for these parents and hope I never have to know, but in my heart of hearts, if there is no hope, there is no way I would extend my child's suffering to accomodate my selfishness....and these parents were being selfish in more ways than one. I am also not religious and I don't believe in God, so in my book "God's will" arguments do not enter into the equation...other than to illustrate the complete hypocrisy on the part of the parents.

alexandria58

I also want to note a study from 2009 that approximately 45,000 people a year die from lack of health insurance and a study in 2008 that people with cancer and no insurance are twice as likely to die within 5 years as people with cancer and insurance.

One sad tale of a child with no possibility of recovery who was refused some treatment that ultimately would only prolong his life a few months versus the sad tales of 45,000 people a year whose deaths were preventable had they been insured is certainly not an argument against universal health insurance.

  

leggo

Alexandria, I couldn't agree more. I did not get the point of Shirley's question either, but didn't think it should go "unanswered", by someone using it as an argument to poo-poo universal healthcare. Don't understand the correlation between the two.

Edited for clarity

crazy4carrots

The tale of wee Joseph is told over and over again by those who try to pick holes in Canadian healthcare for ideological reasons.  There are plenty of cases in Cdn hospitals of people being kept alive for years on machines because their loved ones can't let them go.  

alexandria58

I understand gracie, and agree with the reasons for your post.

I am encouraged that the vast majority of responders here understand the life and death implications of being without health insurance.  It gives me hope that things will eventually change.

Anonymous

gracie, no need to PM.  You don't believe in God so there's just no agreement you and I could reach when it comes to Baby Joseph.  And, Baby Joseph's trip to the states was possible because Priest for Life intervened.  And, if Baby Joseph was in a vegetative condition he most like did not suffer by having lived with the trach.  The "selfish parents" excuse does not work.

We'll just agree to disagree.

One more thing.  I don't think any woman on this board wants another person not  to have health insurance.  We just do not like Obamacare.  And the more we find out about it the more we dislike it.

alexandria58

But Shirley, the reality is that many people do not have health care, especially now.  I don't particularly like the final version of the ACA either, but it is an improvement.  It does provide a frame work for many people who cannot afford insurance or who would be denied private insurance because of pre-existing conditions.   And, it was as far towards universal health insurance as we could get in this country at this time, given the cries against even this plan as "socialized" medicine.

As far as treating baby Joseph and believing in God: no religion mandates that extraordinary measures have to be taken to preserve life in the face of inevitable death.  Many many religious people do not want to be on a venitilator and do not want machines to prolong life when there is no hope of recovery.  There is a clear difference between taking a life and intervening to prolong an inevitable natural death. 

I will leave to philosphers the question of how a benevolent God could allow such childhood diseases in the first place. 

Further, given the number of children in the world beyond Canada, England, and even the United States  who die for lack of such simple things as clean water, food, immunizations, and basic medical care,  I think Priests for Life could find better use for their money and time.     

Mardibra

If Obama Care is going to be modeled after the Massachusetts plan, it will not be affordable. It is crazy expensive to get insurance in MA if you buy it from the state. If you can't afford insurance today it is unlikely you will be able to afford it buy buying from the state. See my earlier post.



As Shirley said, I don't want people to be uninsured. I just don't like the plan they are putting in place.

alexandria58

But what's the alternative that you propose? 

Anonymous

Every life is precious and valuable.  It is a very slippery slope when someone starts believing that resources should be diverted away from someone because there is "no possibility of recovery" for that person. 

If that becomes the standard, how many women who are stage IV could be denied expensive treatment by some bean counter because they have "no possibility of recovery"?  When money becomes more important than human life, we all lose. 

alexandria58

Patmom, I was responding to Shirley who wrote that believing in God mandates using extraordinary measures to keep alive a comitose child whose death is both inevitable and imminent.   I was just stating that no religion requires extraordinary measures, i.e. ventilator or trac.  This is especially true when there is no hope for any sort of recovery.  

I was making no statement about restricting treatment while there is still hope for some quality of life.  I was certainly not suggesting any restriction of treatment to stage 4 sisters.  To the contrary, I want every woman to have full insurance so that she can fight her disease. I believe that every person should have access to medical care for as long as that person wants to fight.  But at some point, when a person is both comitose and dying, there needs to be a question about whether to use extraordinary means to keep that person's body alive.   

If money and medical care were infinitely available to everyone, that would also be a different story.   However, I also wanted to point out that 30,000 children in Africa of preventible disease EVERY DAY for lack of money and other resources.  People in this country die all the time for lack of insurance, approximately 45,000 unnecessary deaths a year.  To use baby Joseph as an example of how terrible universal care is because one child, in a coma, with no life expectancy, was not provided extraordinary measures to continue his comatose existence while every day people die unnecessarily because they are uninsured makes me crazy.

Anonymous

Change the word child in your last sentence to woman and the situation could easily apply to women dying of breast cancer.  Who gets to decide when enough is enough?  Right now in the US, it is the patient and the patient's family.  If that changes, many of the women on these boards could be directly affected. 

Who gets to decide whose life is valuable enough to save, and for how long?

crazy4carrots

"Who gets to decide when enough is enough?  Right now in the US, it is the patient and the patient's family.  If that changes, many of the women on these boards could be directly affected."

I'm sure you're all aware that the mythical, fear-inducing "death panels" were NOT in the ACA.  What causes you to question whether or not the current situation might "change"?  Just wondering......perhaps you're worried about health insurance companies?

alexandria58

PATmom,

It's the person and the person's family who decides right now.  Really?  What about the person who loses her insurance but makes too much for Medicaid?  What does she get to decide when the hospital tells her to pay $100,000 that she doesn't have up front for a bone marrow transplant to save her life?  Or the person who has insurance but the insurance reaches its maximum, and she no longer has the money to pay for chemo.  Does she get to choose to keep going? Or the person whose insurance decides to drop her when she developes breast cancer - or at least as it happened before the ACA.  Does she get to choose?  Or the person who has to choose between prescription medicine and food for his kids and, choosing for the kids, dies of a cureable infection?  I guess he got to choose.

Don't tell me that the patient in the United States gets to choose now.  Some lucky people do.  Way too many others don't have any choice.

As I said before, people who use the tale of baby Joseph to justify a system under which 45,000 people a year for lack of insurance die make me crazy.   

Anonymous

Choosing to go into debt to pay for treatment is an option today.  Not a good option, but there. 

If changes in rules mean that for some people, treatment will not available at any price, that will be a loss, not a gain. 

That seems to be what you are advocating.  If not, you should clarify your posts.

alexandria58

In 2009, the risk of death for uninsured was 40 percent greater than for insured, according to a Harvard study.  That same study found that 45,000 people die each year for lack of insurance.  Where you get the information that "choosing to go into debt" is an option?  I haven't seen any studies. 

I am afraid that what we have in this country is a form of social Darwinism - that if you are dying for lack of insurance, it is your fault.  You should have worked harder, smarter, for a better company, exercised  - whatever.  The idea that people can make up for the lack of insurance by going into debt is sad.

OK - and I have said repeatedly that everyone should have the right to treatment.  I am for more treatment choices for more people, not fewer.  

The only treatment I have questioned is the specific example used by foes of universal health care: that of the baby Joseph who was comatose, dying, and the family wished to delay death through extraordinary means when there is no quality of life and no hope of recovery.  I would be perfectly fine with a family choosing to do that, but I am not fine with choosing to prolong mere existence on a machine over giving medical care to people who could otherwise be saved. but I'd be happy to do both.  But to be even more clear, that choice is not being required under the ACA.   There is no requirement that comatose, unresponsive and dying babies be removed from lifesupport under the ACA.  That is just propoganda.

kayfh

There was/is no requirement that comatose, unresponsive, dying babies or at the other end of life, comatose, unresponsive dying adults be removed from lifesupport under Canadian Universal Health Care. There is a requirement that all sensible people make advanced care directives for themselves or their loved ones so that hospital ethics boards are not required to intervene when families cannot Or will not make these decisions for themselves.

Mardibra

This is a country of haves and have nots. Sad but true. If you a member of the haves, your covered by good insurance and you get necessary treatment. If your a member of the have nots, your covered by Medicaid and you get necessary treatment. If your the unfortunate who are stuck somewhere in the middle, your screwed. The problem is that the voice of those in the middle isn't loud enough to alter the current system in any meaningful way. So, we end up with a proposal that over corrects in one direction or the other. Then the fight begins with each group jockeying for position and the end result is a watered down, screwed up mess...also known as the ACA. Nobody wins.

Kaara

alexandria:  You are correct...the "death panel" or "pull the plug on grandma" was conceived to stir up fear in the general public.  The intent was that a doctor would be able to have a discussion with his patient during office hours, covered under insurance, about the patient's wishes regarding end of life care.  Why wouldn't someone want to do this when they are in a healthy state of mind rather than when they are at death's door.  Many of us are smart enough to have a living will that lays this out so that our families are not burdened with this decision, but others have not addressed this issue at all.  It was the beginning of the end for the original health reform bill.  The insurance giants laughed all the way to the bank on their ability to pull the wool over the eyes of congress and the general public!

RetiredLibby

We already have "death panels."  They are called insurance companies, and they deny treatment all the time.  These boards are full of women who have had essential treatments denied and have to fight every step of the way.  There are tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands or millions) of people in this country whose medical insurance was cancelled after they became sick.  These insurance company death panels not only decided when "enough is enough" FOR these people, sometimes they decided that "enough is TOO MUCH" and cut them off before treatment at all. 

alexandria58

There's no question that this bill caters to the insurance companies and that it is far from perfect and that I was deeply disappointed.   I have supported the idea of universal care - a Canadian like system - for more than thirty years.   And yet, and yet - it is something.  It is further along the road to universal care than we have ever been and it may well be as far as we could get right now given the political divide.  It allows young people to stay on their parents' insurance when they get out of college - which is so critical in this economy.  It sets up something whereby people with pre-existing conditions can get coverage.  Insurers cannot boot people out when serious conditions are discovered.  And hopefully, the state exchanges will work to lower prices.  Hopefully.  Vermont claims to be putting a single payer system into place.  Perhaps Vermont can lead the way here.  I still hope that we will move to a more universal system, once people realize that the sky won't fall.

Yet laughably, even though this was originally a Republican idea and the health care insurance remains in the hands of private companies, it has been called socialist.  Romney's only offering is to say he will repeal it, leaving the current failed system in place. 

Mardibra - I agree with you that many people are screwed because they have neither private insurance nor Medicaid, but I point out that Medicaid kicks out at a very low income level, and that many working men and women are not in the middle, but in effect, the working poor.  I believe the income qualification for a family of three - prior to cuts proposed by our governor - would be around 24,000.   Last year, Christie - the governor that the Republican party wanted to step in and save the day - proposed cutting that to around 5,000 - for a family of three to qualify for Medicaid.    

 

alexandria58

To everyone,  I realize that I've gotten more than a little partisan and even hostile on this topic, but it is an issue on which I feel deeply.  I do realize that people of good intentions and different political persuasions can differ on this issue.

I just hope that we can eventually have a country where people do not die of curable diseases for lack of health care and no on has to go bankrupt after a life of hard work because a loved one has fallen ill.

Anonymous

If our government would clean up the fraud going on, not only in Medicare, but Medicaid, illegals, and billions going to countries that hate us perhaps we would have more money to help people who have no insurance who are not eligible for Medicaid.  I know people who have defrauded Medicaid by lying about living with a SO. 

This has gone on in both political parties. 

What I wanted to see all along is EVERYONE come together, doctors, pharmacists, dems, repubs, lawyers, spiritual advisors, etc., but no this was done behind closed doors and you expect us not to have cynical feelings about this mess of a health care law?

Do you remember telling a daughter that her 100 year old mother could have taken a "pill" instead of having a simple pace maker.  If not, I can find the video and post it and you can make up your mind what he meant by that.  We were told that night he had that "town hall" meeting on a network that sometimes we need to take "a pill" instead of having a procedure done.  Please tell me what he meant by that...I'm talking about Obama.

Famous words...if you like your insurance you can keep it.  NOT TRUE!

alexandria58

Shirley,

    I disagree with much of what you wrote, including the reasons why we don't have universal health care.

     I do agree that the ACA could be better. 

     I don't know what town hall meeting you are writing about that Obama attended.  Without seeing it, I don't know what was said and I can neither defend nor disagree when I don't know what was going on.

      However, I will say this:  the Republicans will not do any better.   I still recall the cheers at one of the Republican debates for the idea that if someone is uninsured, he should just die.

       

      

Chickadee

So I went looking for this video where Obama supposedly says elderly lady shouldn't have gotten pacemaker. He said no such thing and I find it interesting that as he is trying to speak generally about the decisions that may have to be made in healthcare vis a vis managing costs and making decisions, again not specific to 105 year old lady, the YouTube video stops so we don't get the entire conversation. Typical political spinmeisters looking for negative sound bites.

I hope everyone in the US side of this discussion is not only registered to vote but actually do vote. The reason we have such a mess is in large part due to lots of whining and very little participation in our political process. Something like 20% of registered voters are picking these wacko politicians that we have now.