OT Re[2]: [at-l] Re: CPR Useless?

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

Problem 1 - We have a "health care" system that is focused on curing illness
rather than maintaining health.
Problem 2 - We pay for "health care" as if it were a commodity like a
refrigerator or a TV rather than a basic need of society like roads or
education.
Problem 3 - We try to make it affordable through insurance policies with
companies whose whole reason for being is to make a profit.
Problem 4 - Insurance companies insure profit by limiting access (see
problem 1) and/or refusing to cover those who are most likely to need health
care.
I'm not making any specific recommendations here but there will have to be a
major paradigm shift before *anyone* except the independently wealthy, the
President and members of congress can be sure of "lavish" health care.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "W F Thorneloe" <thornel@attglobal.net>
To: "Bob C." <ellen@clinic.net>
Cc: <at-l@mailman.backcountry.net>
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 12:17 PM
Subject: Re[2]: [at-l] Re: CPR Useless?


> In a word, "NO."
>
> This is the logic of the bean counters who figure out means to limit
access
> to medical care for everyone, while profiteering with continually
> increasing premiums.
>
> We spend more or health care at end of life as that is when the services
> are needed and provided. Spending gobs of money on a healthy middle aged
> hiker isn't important until he is a less healthy elderly hiker.
>
> There will always be some form or healthcare rationing, such as triage. I
> am not impressed that health care is "lavished" on the elderly. Go visit a
> hospice, a VA hospital, a nursing home, a geriatrician's office and let me
> know if it looks like a spa.
>
> I receive Medicare reimbursements. I know lavish and I know miserly.
> Geriatric healthcare isn't lavish.
>
> OrangeBug
>
> At 11:39 AM 8/1/03 -0400, Bob C. wrote:
> >I think we as a society have our priorities backwards. We lavish medical
> >care on
> >the elderly. I forget the precise figures, but a third or more of total
> >lifetime
> >medical costs occur in the final few months of a human life. Wouldn't it
be
> >wiser to concentrate health care on those with decades of life span left,
> >rather
> >than months?
>
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