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Keeping the Patient Key — 5 Comments

  1. I believe that few employers will continue to pay for health benefits at the level they now do when a ‘cheap, affordable’ government sponsored plan is available – it’s just a number-crunching/accounting issue to a lot of businesses – and while the gov’t says their plan won’t affect current insurance options, they’re apparently not realizing that alot of the bottom-dollar accountants in many, many corporations will opt to stop paying the massive amounts a month to Blue Cross Blue Shield or whoever when they can give employees a ‘small bonus’ to self insure w/ the gov’t.

    Also, I fear that the government sponsored plan will be, essentially, Medicaid in a fancy new dress. Not much is covered, the payments to physicians for covered procedures are highly cost-restricted and slow, AND the waiting times may be quite lengthy just to see someone.

    I just don’t think there’s a lot we can do to stop it.

    I talked with a neonatal nurse the other day about the health care debate and she said that one thing no one seems willing to talk about is the MASSIVE amount of money being spent on lifesaving procedures for people with no hope, like infants born without vital organs and brain-dead patients. Folks that are kept alive solely by extreme medical procedures and technology. I’m not sure how I feel about all of that, actually. I can totally understand how someone would want to keep their precious family member alive by any and all means possible, but I don’t know if it’s a governmental issue or a private one. On the one hand I can see how if they’re never gonna get better, ever (like babies born without brains or livers) why spend hundreds of thousands of dollars prolonging the inevitable? But, on the other hand, there’s family and love and how can you just do nothing?

    I don’t know, and I don’t have all the answers. I just worry that our government will decide what’s best for us whether we like it or not. And it’ll be awful.

  2. Actually, I don’t really understand how a family would want to keep someone with no hope of every surviving off life support on that life support. I CAN understand the guilt they may feel for being responsible for pulling the plug.

    I’ve been fortunate to be in a family that doesn’t believe in taking “heroic” measures to prolong life for the sake of prolonging life. We just don’t have a “life at all costs” mentality. It could stem from a Christian faith that there’s a better life after — in whatever form it may be.

    Sadly, I don’t think it will be much easier for the people who can’t bring themselves to pull the plug to have the government do it for them. I suspect they’ll be angry. Of course, for those who just don’t want to be “blamed” for the decision, they may be comforted by passing the buck — “The government made me do it.” It seems like an extreme form of “The dog ate my homework.” and other indicators of an inability to accept responsibility for one’s actions or lack thereof.