I Got Nothin’ November 30, 2010
Posted by Benjamin Wendell in Health Care, reader interaction.trackback
I’ve really been letting my blogmate do the heavy lifting these last few days. I admit that my contributions have been close to nil. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. By way of excuse, I’ve been deeply embroiled in the care of my aging mother-in-law, who is currently residing at a “rehabilitation” facility (read: nursing home) near Mrs. Left and me. Trying to care for her and make the appropriate decisions regarding her care and her future gives me a deeper perspective on the whole issue of health care, death panels, rationing, and end-of-life planning. Bottom line: This shit ain’t easy. As a relative, it’s hard to know what’s appropriate, when we’ve done enough, when we’ve failed to do enough, whether there’s something we should have done that we’ve just completely overlooked. As a dispassionate observer with 35 years of experience in medicine, I see huge expenditures being thrown at an alarming pace, with little or no chance of actual patient improvement. Honestly, I wish there WAS a “death panel”. It would be nice if there was some expert who’d just sit us down and say, “Look you’ve done everything you can possibly do. We, as caregivers, have given everything reasonable that we have to give. Now we’re just going to make absolutely sure that your mother is comfortable.” Instead we’re floundering around like fish out of water, just hoping for some kind of epiphany. So that’s why I’ve not had much time to focus on politics the last few days. But I’ll still come up with something. Standby.
BW
There is in fact at least one Death Panel in existence.
I speak of the one created by he Governor of Arizona who had declared that organ transplants and the individuals who depend on the state for their health care are no longer eligible to recieve funding for those life saving operations.
Yeah, Governor Brewer is a real charmer.