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looking sketchy there...
Social climber
Lassitude 33
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One of those non-intuitive observations is that smoking may well save the government money becasue it usually kills people after they've completed their full working live, but before they've got a chance to collect much social security.
The meager savings in SS benefits is vastly offset by the expense of treating the significant health problems of those affected.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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The real expense of smoking is end of life health care. Smokers do not drop dead without incurring big bills. 90% of seniors medical care comes in the last months of their lives. Follow the money
I know a chief of staff at an LA hospital. He told me that one of the biggest impediments to reforming the system is the fact that so many doctors make so much money off dying people.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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... is the fact that so many doctors make so much money off dying people.
Oh man. I feel like I just got punched in the gut.
My Mom died about a year ago. Both of my parents (step-dad is still with us) had a lawyer draw them up advanced directives clearly stating that when it was their time no heroic measures should be taken etc. I am entrusted to make the call.
So after several years of sliding into dementia, she had a brain hemorrhage which left her conscious but effectively gone. At the hospital my stepdad and I instructed that she be made comfortable with a hydrating IV and morphine. She had been clear that when she was dying she be let to die, not kept alive for another day or week or month.
I made my next daily visit and a nurse was feeding her with a spoon. I was told she swallowed a bit, which negated the terms of the directive. I was outraged and we moved her to a nursing care place which included hospice and palliative care. She was barely alive and again the hydration and morphine drip. She would slip away here in peace and comfort.
So I got a call at about 2AM a few days later informing me that her condition had become critical and she was being moved back to the hospital. I was stunned. They had pulled her out of her bed onto a gurney into an ambulance in the middle of the night as she was passing away. Good God! I imagined her being cold in the ER with doctors plugging crap into her. I gathered up my stepdad and we got there about 7AM. She was in a room hooked up to all sorts of stuff. IV's, tubes into her mouth. All sort of beeping things. She was desperately gasping and stared upward with her face in a grimace which reminded me of that Munch Painting "The Scream." I went to the nurses station. "WTF is going on here!!" The doctor who had overseen her care before she was moved acted astonished and moved immediately to get her back on morphine and fluids. She passed that evening.
My stepdad was crushed. Today he does not remember what happened there a year ago. His memory is sharp, he has repressed it.
Reading your comment leads me to re-think that whole episode. I knew at the time that the Dr was a partner in the care facility, but I'm not cynical enough to have been suspect of that arrangement. I assumed incompetence was the problem. Fact is they got their extra week of billing out of her. I've seen the bills. Scary sh#t.
I was all hot to take legal action, but my stepdad, being a wiser man than I, made it clear that he did not want to spend what time he has left fighting that battle.
Sorry for the OT, but Jon Beck's post just hit me hard.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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^^^sorry you had to go through that Ksolem, must have been gnarly.
Hope your mom is residing in peace now :)
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Ricky D
Trad climber
Sierra Westside
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So how does one go about circumventing the "keep the patient alive at all costs" (and profits)?
Both my wife and I have the DNRs on file but have also heard too many stories of Health Care personnel ignoring those mandates.
I'm almost of the mind that when one gets to that point - hide. As in don't call an ambulance, don't go to the ER - just stay at home and ride it to the natural end.
Not to be flippant - but a bottle of Jack and a couple of bootlegged morphine tabs should grease the skids.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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An old woman lies on her death bed. A doctor is trying to feed her through a tube down her throat.
The Priest walks in. "What are you doing? Can't you see she's dying?"
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Escopeta
Trad climber
Idaho
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So far, all the "Prolly's" appear to be coming from the RIGHT...
Makes sense.
Republicans want to be your Daddy.
Democrats want to be your Mommy.
Everybody else just wants to be treated like an adult and tell .Gov to step off.
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Flip Flop
climber
Earth Planet, Universe
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ive been trying to start smoking since I was eleven years old. It just won't stick.
Hey Ksolem,
That's hard. Thanks for sharing.
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Binks
climber
Uranus
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I used to enjoy a cigarrette or two from time to time. I still have one, very occasionally but something in my metabolism changed. They just taste awful to me most of the time. Fortunately, up here in Oregon, we can legally enjoy far better substances than nasty tobacco cigs.
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