How GPs are paid £50 bonus to put elderly on 'death lists'

And if you or your dad had wanted to visit the doctor to discuss his end-of-life care options, Medicare would now pay for that visit under ACA.

Before ACA, such visits weren't covered. Now they are. That's what this whole lurid "death panels" canard is about.

 

Give Obama and pals time. They can't destroy America any faster than they already are.

 

The right opposes exactly what this thread is about. This thread is about doctors providing information to patients about 'end of life' and giving them the opportunity to tell the doctors what kind of care they want.

The right calls this 'death panels'- I call it informed consent.

 

Your experience with "religious" people is somewhat different than mine when they are facing death, but that is neither here nor there and NOT relevant.

I was referring to the religious right who prolonged that poor woman's life unnecessarily and to no other end than to satisfy their own warped interpretation of "god's will".

I don't get your reference to "follow the money". Her doctors AND her husband agreed that she was brain dead with no hope of recovery. It was her parents and sibs supported by all kinds of religious whackos that tried to intervene. It would have been in the doctors and the hospitals best interest to keep her alive if it was about money since she was racking up big bills daily.

 

It does in the original post, I doubt you read it.

 

More waste, fraud and abuse. Medicare DID cover that very talk. It took place while he was in the hospital when the Doctor told him he needed a feeding tube.

No wonder there is between $60 to $90 billion every year in Medicare Fraud for approx 42 million insured. Just imagine if 42 million became 300 million in single payer imagine $1350 X 300,000,000 = $405 billion a year just in fraud.

 

So efficient that people give birth on the hospital lawns and cancel life saving operations so many times, the patient dies. Face it, your system is a complete mess.

 

What I find atrociously hypocritical are all the LWNJ's that constantly complain about greed and how people worship money over life. Now they are here defending letting people die over money. The truth is, they really don't care about OTHER people's lives, they just want to make sure THEIRS is is easy as it can get even if that means letting someone die so they can get the money for a sex change instead.

 

Don't be misled by the nature of the headline... Its not about death panels.. its about care plans.

 

No, it's about letting people die and getting a bonus for it. A life is worth more than any amount of money, as I thought the Left believed..... By the posts here, I was mistaken. It's about money for THEM!

 

You don't have a clue what this is about.

 

Actually I did read it.

Seems the daily mail spin is as bad as any other conservative source.

A discussion of end of life preferences and options with one's doctor requires a doctor's appointment. The doctor should be paid for same.

Scare mongers want to call it "death panels", but in reality it is a sensible, rational and considerate approach to dealing with one's mortality.

Is it a terrible thing to discuss where a patient would prefer to die?
Is it a terrible thing to discuss if a person wishes resuscitation or what restrictions/conditions they prefer?
Is it a terrible thing to discuss if a patient has a preference for the types of painkillers they would prefer if they are in pain at deaths door?

That it might also "save money" within the system is not the purpose, its a side effect of pre-planning and respecting a person's desire to die with dignity. We all gotta do it, so why not do it the way you want?

Just more sensationalist crap to scare the uninformed and the stupid.
I can't decide if you are one of the manipulators or one of the manipulated. I'm sure it'll come to me soon.

 

I guess there is some part of.................

The horror stories of Universal Health care in the UK are reported by the Daily Mail, the Guardian and the Times, but they're all wrong and you alone are right.....is that correct?

 

I notice you are not defending your OP nor the points I made that renders your premise a ridiculous distortion of fact.

As for legitimate reporting of "horror stories", I should hope that the media reports them to expose negligence, incompetance, loopholes, and issues that INVARIABLY arise in any large system of service delivery. These are anomolies that once exposed prompt the bureacracy to do something to rectify the situation.

Maybe you'd like to be regaled with the litany of horror stories that have all too frequently been exposed in the american system? You think for a second that all those malpractice suits have no basis? You think those stories of people dying after being neglected in the emergency ward or having a kidney removed instead of their appendix aren't nearly as bad as paying doctors to engage patients in a discussion of their end of life preferences?

Like I said before: Just more sensationalist crap to scare the uninformed and the stupid.

However, one positive is that I now have decided that you are one of the manipulators - and not a very good one either.

 

The utterly ridiculous and BS suggestion that a minimal payment for a consultation with a doctor about end of life care options is a "death panel bonus to doctors" is a new high in Right Wing conspiratorial insanity!!

For a $75 visit payment, doctors are supposedly "killing people"?

Folks, think when you vote! Are these nutcase Righties REALLY the people you want in charge of our country?

 

Well, Hitler got elected - but he was a fair bit more decent and rational than these weirdo liars!

 

If this were really true, then we would have to apply this thinking about things other than medical care as well.

Can there be no middle ground? A place where we try to help people down on their luck, while still realizing there are practicle limits to what we can do?

 

the real death panels were in Arizona.. the republicans death panel

 

Down on their luck? This is about planning for the end of life.. whether that's about ceasing heroic efforts or taking someone off a vent or hospice care. You want to put an 80 year old thru a heart transplant when they have diabetes and platelet issues.. or emphysema?

I Have lost a few friends to ALZ, pancreatic cancer and Lou Gehrig's disease.

 

Do you really not know the difference between "death lists" and "end of life advanced care plans?"

You mean to tell me that people age 60 and older would feel "threatened" by planning ahead to the end of their life, deciding what kind of directive they want (including what kind of heroic measure they would like to see applied to prolong their life . . .or to prolong their death. . . and which they wouldn't want)?

Do you think it is foolish for an elderly person to have a funeral insurance, or to plan their own funeral (whether they want to be buried or cremated?). Do you think it is "planning to kill one's spouse" to make advance's directive, or to take an insurance for long term care. . .or stay at home care?

There we go again. . .the crazies are confusing "extermination of the elderly" with "advanced planning for one's later years!"

I actually think it is FOOLISH not to have an "end of life" plan, if one has already faced a life threatening disease, or one is looking at the wrong side of 65!

I am 63, and I have had cancer. And I KNOW what I want my "end of life" to look like. . .I do not want to face the possibility of being incapable of making those decisions IF I should be struck by Alzheimer and unable to think. I do not want my family to have to go through the traumatic decisions of "when to pull the plug" if I get a suddens massive stroke or a heart attack, and I am in a coma. . . I want to have all that on paper, WHILE I CAN make those decisions.

And ANYONE, especially a doctor whom I trust. . . my primary care physician for many years, for example, who might be able to help me with those complex and very emotional decisions is a God send!

Now. . .it is true that some people do not have the foresight and the intelligence (or they are lost in a false reality of "invincibility," "it won't ever happen to me!") to face reality and to plan ahead.

Those are probably the same who feel they don't have to plan for retirement, of for long term care, or for any of life's realities. . . but instead prefer to waste their time attacking programs and people they don't even understand!

 

SO WHAT?
IF that person (the pensioner) felt he was at the end of his life, OR if he had already indicated what his end of life preferences would be, including the fact that he may not want to be fed after all the "heroic" measures to make him better had failed. . . why should it be his FAMILY's choice. . .if he was able to make that choice either at the moment of death, or at an earlier time when he drew his "end of life plan?"

Why would family members (and every family member is not necessarily looking for the best interest of the elderly person. . .) override HIS decision?

 

My godfather.. a doctor.. had ALZ and terrible circulation problems.. The doctors finally amputated one leg. He was a big guy who had to be put naked in a sling to be bathed. He didn't know anyone in his family.

When the other leg went bad about 2 years later.. they wanted to amputate again.. The family asked me to me the decision.. I remembered that he had told me 20 years earlier .. NO HEROICS... So I said no treatment. They didn't amputate the leg but the did put him on antibiotics.. I stopped that.

They leg returned to almost normal and he lived another year.. Died very peacefully.

 

I guess you believe you know so much about health care in England that you can JUDGE what they do. . .and be so totally mistaken!

I have lived in England for a total of 4 years, at a time when I had two children to raise. I have BENEFITTED from their system of health care, although we could easily have accessed their private health care since we were covered by US private insurance (cadillac plans for expatriates). I have NOTHING but good to say about their system of care, and my husband was in one of their hospital for 6 weeks. . . I KNOW what the truth is . . .you are just babbling negative propaganda based on NOTHING but your hatred of Obamacare. .or rather your hatred of President Obama!

By the way, the life expectancy in Britain is STILL higher than in the US! Why is that? Apparently NOT because they "have death panels!" DUH!

 

My point is that I understand THERE WILL BE DEATH PANELS in any type of situation where there is a body that pays for something that is influenced by a certain group of people.

If there is only so much money to go around, we have to have a way to determine which type/group of people those monies would help the most.

Do you spend that money on the old person that the help would only benefit a small amount, or on the kid that has the most potential?