Medicare follies


Trying to find decent health care for an ailing parent
I've spent most of the last two days talking to government bureaucrats and corporate flacks.

It's one of those grand gestures that makes me detest the government. Any government.

Basically, my stepfather is not well and getting worse. One of his problems is mild dementia, which limits his options.

The company that is providing limited home health care is paid by Medicare, which means that they are more interested in fulfilling government standards than listening to the family. Medicare thinks that he is too sick to remain at home and should be in an assisted nursing facility.

Two problems with that.

First, Medicare is not offering to pay for said facility. There aren't that many places that are willing to take a dementia patient, even assuming it is privately paid. Dad makes too much in retirement for the State of Arizona to pick up the bills. Paying out of pocket would cost about $55,000 to $65,000 a year. Dad didn't make that much before he retired, and there is no way the family can afford that now.

Second, the last assisted nursing place we had him in was out of state and had numerous problems, such as strapping patients to beds and leaving them in the hallways. That took months to straighten out.

Thanks to our bastardized medical system, even when Medicare and the various state programs aren't paying the bills directly, they are calling the shots. Medical professionals can't afford to antagonize various government officials if they hope to work, even if they wanted to.. And the medical service companies aren't about to shit on the golden goose. After all, under the current system, they get paid no matter what, so those medical service companies have a vested interest in the status quo.

Seven months ago my stepfather was walking, driving, and he could tell you the name of elected officials even if he didn't understand all the issues of the day. Yesterday he couldn't tell you what day it was, or what he had for breakfast two days ago. Now he needs someone to hold his catheter bag while he struggles out of bed and tries to stand up with a walker.

His only two options are home care where he at least has people and things to remind him of the last thirty years, or a nursing facility that will bankrupt my folks.

Thanks to government "oversight" of medicine, there are no other alternatives.

You can pay a lot of nursing help for sixty grand a year. Unfortunately, in today's job market, that means that you are constantly hiring new people. I won't go into the numbers, but I will say turnover in private nursing is the very highest I have ever seen.

I used to call doctors tin plated dictators with delusions of godhood. I may have to come up with a new one for doctors, that fits so well for medical bureaucrats.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - October 24, 2006 at 09:57 PM  Tag


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