Octogenarians bullied into excessive medical care

Medical over treatment of elderly is common, based on experience of many baby boomers who are caring for dying parents.

While screaming about Granny being left to die because of health insurance reform, no one is speaking about the over treatment of the elderly. This is precisely why a Republican proposed the end-of-life counseling for those over 65. Many, if not most of us, have no idea about “durable power of attorney” papers and “living wills” or “do not resuscitate orders” until we either help our parents through their dying process or see that our own deaths are imminent. By then we are stressed out and lacking in reason.

Nor do Americans know until a loved one dies how heart breaking it can be to watch an octogenarian being bullied into medical care such as radical chemotherapy, immediately after he has been diagnosed with rapidly-spreading, fourth-stage lung cancer that has already metastasized into his breast bone.

Witnessing a loved one’s reduction to ‘cash cow’ or ‘guinea pig’ status for the sake of padding the pockets of a cancer care doctor corporation or hospital corporation is gut-wrenching. The gain: two more extremely depressing months of diaper-dependent, bed rest while struggling to swallow 100 pills daily.

To pray for the mercy of death changes the way one views the world around and the money-driven medical care that has so corrupted this country. Few of us dare to speak of this.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/16/opinion/l-medical-overtreatment-of-elderly-is-common-living-will-solution-396892.html

Bullying, greed, propaganda and lies try to stop health insurance reform

Even to the extent of maligning Canada and Britain, “…the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies,” could prevent millions of American families from being broken and bankrupted by health care’s, market-driven non-system that has run amuck.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17krugman.html?scp=1&sq=It%20was%20the%20blooper%20heard%20round%20the%20world&st=cse

We American US citizens who have lived and received medical care in the UK or Canada know better. We are ashamed of fellow Americans whose ignorance prevails over their common sense. These are lies told about our closest allies who do not at all appreciate the disparagement.

Other lies include the one about the United States having the best medicine in the world. Not so! We don’t have the best outcomes. We don’t promote medical research, except that which serves private industry. We were not world leaders in laser technology to medicine. We are still performing global fusions on our spines while many other countries are installing the artificial disk. Medical research is left largely to venture capitalists because our government so seldom gets behind the funding.

If an American has one of the 5000 listed “orphan diseases,” he will wait ‘til hell freezes over before a cure would come from his own country. America may be the best country in the world, but just don’t get sick, with or without health insurance.
http://www.bostonherald.com/jobfind/news/healthcare/view/20090816health_care_reform_alone_wont_make_us_healthier_experts_say/.

Is this free speech, hate speech, stupidity, racism, hyperbole, or bullying?

Republican South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint said in a conference call with Conservatives for Patient Rights, "If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”

So this U.S. Senator openly admits he wants a new U.S. President to fail. He also said, “This health care issue Is D-Day for freedom in America."

So this man believes that administering to our nation’s children, elderly, poor, and sick will end our freedoms. Is this free speech, hate speech, stupidity, racism, hyperbole, or bullying? All of the above. One ponders if the good Senator might also claim to be a good Christian.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0709/Health_reform_foes_plan_Obamas_Waterloo.htm1

"SPOILERS" continue to spread fear

Medical industry and hospital building boom finally goes bust

Ben Bernanke blamed the US budget deficit on rising medical costs due to “the hospital building boom.” Corporate hospital CEO’s drove towns and suburbs to build palatial facilities, each with its own atrium, two-story waterfall, and heart clinic. Each had to have state-of-the-art machines that would cost $6000 for a single patient’s 10-minute session of pictures, per doctor requests, that were only required while machines were otherwise idle and Medicare or Medicaid would pay. Japan MRI’s cost $150 per use, according to PBS’s “Sick around the World.” If an American has no coverage, he might pay the special price of $8000. If she has assets and cares about her credit score, she slowly pays off that bill and its accumulated interest which is likely on her credit card.

But the hospital and medical boom is coming quickly to a halt. People are not seeking medical treatment because of the recession. States and counties are cutting back on payments to hospitals or issuing IOU’s. Investors are getting afraid to buy stocks in medical corporations of any kind. Change needs to come, now! And everybody knows it, including the “spoilers” who offer no solutions of their own, but continue to shout about their fears implanted by huge corporations that supply medical goods and services. Such is the fate of all robber barons. Such is the fate of those who practice ‘I’ve-got-mine:-the-rest-of-you-can-go-fish-for-it.’

http://www.hfmmagazine.com/hfmmagazine_app/jsp/articledisplay.jsp?dcrpath=HFMMAGAZINE/Article/data/02FEB2009/0902HFM_FEA_CoverStory&domain=HFMMAGAZINE

California Healthy Workplace Advocates say it's time for change. Let's NOT take the public option off the table...WE ARE THE PUBLIC!! Let's take care of ourselves and not simply line the pockets of those who shout the loudest and are fighting to keep the already failing status quo.

California Healthy Workplace Advocates find data on hospital industry

Real data on hospital industry, medical corporations, medical suppliers, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical profits almost impossible to find:

The rising costs of US health care, therefore health insurance, are not true measurements of real costs. They are the result of gouging, profiteering, unchecked lobbying practices, excessive advertising, and gross inefficiencies in delivery, measurements of outcomes, system irregularities, and smorgasbord regulation shuffling from state to state. http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/2061111.html

Real data from Kaiser Family Foundation is readily available:

“The Foundation is an independent voice and source of facts and analysis for policymakers, the media, the health care community, and the general public. The Foundation publishes research and analysis to foster understanding of increasingly complex policy issues in the U.S. Much of the work focuses on the issues and debates affecting those most vulnerable and disadvantaged, including Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries, the uninsured people living with HIV/AIDS, low-income women, and racial and ethnic minorities, helping policymakers and the media understand what’s driving changes in the health system.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Family_Foundation#What_the_Foundation_currently_does
a. Medical costs reached $7,498 per person in 2008, twice higher than any
other nation.
b. Average family deductible for PPO increased 30% to 64% in two years.
c. New York Times/CBS News poll said 85% of respondents want fundamental
change.
d. Same poll said 72% support a government administered health insurance
plan.
e. Spoiler campaign of health care industry is spending $1.4 million a day.

California Healthy Workplace Advocates say it is time for change...

Conservative Republican, David Frum, supports health insurance reform. This very well-respected Republican explains that “[Employers are] paying a lot more for labor, about 25 percent more. All of that increase in the wage fund was consumed by the cost of benefits.”

Frum, an insider in the G. W. Bush administration, says that victory against reform will be victory for the status quo. Health insurance regulation at state-level isn’t working in the health market. Rising health care costs wiped out all of the Bush tax cut benefits. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08142009/watch2.html

While you are on Moyers’ site, watch or read his interview with media analyst Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Kaiser Family Foundation president and CEO Drew Altman [who] discuss the messages in health care ads today, and how well they reflect [or don’t reflect] the real issues of health care reform.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08142009/watch.html

Bullying in the Media

Hateful fight against Health Insurance Reform rages on...

Town hall bullies shout out, stopping others’ free speech – From the PBS News Hour you can watch this debate between former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey, chair of FreedomWorks, a conservative group that has shamelessly practiced obstructionism and rallied protestors at health care town hall meetings and Richard Kirsch, the national campaign manager of Health Care for America Now, a liberal group which has urged its supporters to turn out at the meetings.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/module.html?mod=0&pkg=13082009&seg=3

Next, read this blog on how those who shout down others’ freedom of speech are hypocrites when they cry their free speech is being exercised. Bullies do kick sand into faces on the beach. http://www.workplacebullying.org/2009/08/10/town-hall-bullies/

Evidently, these people can only shout as they are instructed.They don’t even seem to know that they are being used or that socialism and communism are the opposite of Nazis fascism. http://www.sacbee.com/babin/image_media/2109569.html