Posted on 08/20/2009 8:18:47 AM PDT by AstralisLux
After I posted this last night, many people had more questions about this story. This article is an update that hopefully answers those questions. Please feel free to comment and I can ask the author to clarify if needed.
(Excerpt) Read more at speroforum.com ...
Hey, you guys! That was frightening!!!!
Jennifer sounds like a real sweetheart.
[spit]
Have a blessed weekend??!
Goes to show what happens when a state passes “tort reform”.
parsy, who says Texas has it coming!
But this article cannot be true.
Healthcare in the United States in not rationed currently, that would only happen under Obamacare, and further, the story suggests this is happening on the basis of a law passed in Texas. Texas is the most freedom loving state in the whole of the United States, well, except maybe for Alaska.
Oh No She Dent!
Guarantee ya this will be blamed on Bush.
“But, you guys got to…need to contact me on Monday. You do not get to sit and not look for a place to put your father. That is your problem. If you guys don’t want to take care of him, that is your decision as well. But, you do not get to get what you want by keeping him in the hospital, and having it on Memorial Hermann Northwest. So, we were nice. We gave you guys ‘til after the first, and now you guys have took our niceness as for a weakness.”
There’s a whole lot more to the story than was posted on the blog. It looks like the family may have just abandoned him there.
I also noticed how many times she said that. I suppose that is supposed to offset all of her other nastyness.
The family didn’t abandon him. He had a stroke and the hospital was happy to keep him while the government was paying his bill. Then his government benefits ran out and the hospital gave them notice to get him out (to face certain death). The family was with him continuously.
It’s like the person who says, “I don’t mean to be offensive, but...” That’s always a clue that they know they are going to be offensive! LOL
Ping!
You see, here’s what happens when you start setting health care people free from any real worries about having to go to court and face a jury of 12 ordinary Americans.
parsy, who says what a coincidence. . .
Oh yes she apparently did.
parsy, who thinks Texas deserves it for passing “tort reform”
OK, but you didn't include who was supposed to pay the bill when the government benefits ran out.
Who should? The hospital?
I don’t have an answer to this sort of thing, but I’m surprised there are no charities that will pick up at least part of the tab for these instances.
There’s a whole lot more to the story than was posted on the blog. It looks like the family may have just abandoned him there.
They didn't abandon him - they expected the hospital (and the taxpayers) to continue footing the bill for his care.
Wake up! This is the reality. Do you think this is an isolated incident? Happens everyday, and worse, all across the country. Here, somebody was lucky enough to have it on tape.
parsy, who says there is a whole lot more to medical malpractice than some alleged frivolous lawsuits.
Perhaps there are. Did the family seek any of them out?
It was not frightening to me. People die. It is life’s one guarantee. It would be hard for me to receive that phone message about my wife or daughter, but life can be challenging. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
Health care is like everything else. We all get as much as we can afford, but once the money runs out, you’re on your own, barring voluntary donations. God designed our bodies to last a certain amount of time, some longer than others. He is the one who decides when someone dies.
This phone message is the equivalent of being exposed to sausage being made. These decisions really are made all the time, whether people want to admit it or not. There is not an endless sea of OPM to keep a person alive, be they young or old.
All that said, I would NOT want the government involved in it. I also think the caller could have been a little more careful with words. For starters, I would have said “your responsibility”, not “your problem”, to the family. And it is.
The legal work was done as charity.
Under Texas law, you only have 7 or 10 days from the moment the hospital gives you notice to transfer. If you follow the links in the article, there are examples of where the hospital warns other hospitals not to accept the patient (because they have no benefits or are too expensive) and so if you have nowhere to turn, at 10 days the hospital literally pulls your plug.
In this case, an agreement was worked because of the short notice where the patient was transferred to a nursing home across the street and the hospital agreed to pay the bill until long-term government care benefits kicked in.
If there was no legal charity work, this would have gone unnoticed.
>>The family didn’t abandon him. He had a stroke and the hospital was happy to keep him while the government was paying his bill.<<
And what do you expect the hospital to do when nobody is paying? Are they a charity?
There is certainly real malpractice, and there is certainly plenty of ambulance chasing as well. Of course, as long as someone like John Edwards can become fabulously wealthy it will continue. If any industry needs govt interference it is the legal profession. There is no reason on God’s Green Earth that the attny gets up to 1/3 of the settlement. Solve that issue, and most of this would go away.
I don’t know, I’m not pointing fingers, I’m just saying something that has been on my mind. So much can be done by charities, and I think much more WAS done by them until the govt stepped in. Perhaps they are still out there. If I were extremely wealthy, I would love to set up a foundation to do that sort of thing. But I wonder if there are laws that would get in the way? I’m not sure.
As a libertarian, I also think this stinks but this guy was already on government benefits and they decided he wasn’t worth paying anymore.
This is an illustration because it’s already current policy that when we’re all on government benefits, we’ll have no choice when we have a death panel making our decisions about how long we live.
>>It’s like the person who says, “I don’t mean to be offensive, but...” That’s always a clue that they know they are going to be offensive! LOL<<
When I say that, it is a warning that some people might take offense to it, while the “less emotional” people hopefully won’t. It is a preface to something that is uncomfortable to discuss, but must be said, and I will attempt to be as delicate as possible when I say it.
I mean charity hospitals. I’m sorry I was not clear.
The family should have told the hospital that he’s an illegal alien.
Then he’d be OK’d for free treatment indefinitely.
Sure..... ;)
I don’t mean to be offensive, but, you’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny!
;)
"Stafford family, what have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? If you'd come to me in friendship, then this stroke that wounded your father would be treated this very day. And if by chance an honest family like yourselves should make enemies in the insurance companies, then they would become my enemies. And then they would fear you."
Paralepsis.
Hey, leave my mother out of this. Besides it’s likely her fault I’m ugly! :)
Correction, we don’t have a choice when we are on someone elses dime.
This Family could have paid the bill, I’m sure the hospital would have continued treatment for him.
Not an option under Obama care.
Healthcare has ALWAYS been rationed, mostly by cost. Same in this case.
How did he have government benefits at age 40? He wasn’t a Vet or he would be in a Vet hospital.
How do you get government benefits at 40?
Often, hospital’s have a social services dept to assist families with these very kinds of situations, with a list of known charities or groups that assist.
Perhaps (I had to dictionary.com it—thanks for making me learn a new word). :)
I presume it was poverty (Medicaid).
I’ll assert that the hospital was reasonable in not wanting to provide service without payment.
The problem with Obamacare is that this decision-making would move to government authorities.
The decision to buy a can of beans should be between the consumer who wants beans, the grocer selling the beans, and any third party (insurance provider) with which the consumer has contracted to perform bean buying services. All based on the resources of the consumer and quality of the beans.
Adding the government, and other peoples’ money, too the mix only stifles the health of the bean economy.
Several times in my town I've seen donation jars at supermarkets and/or special accounts set up for a poor family with a relative who has had tragic, unforeseen medical expenses.
The word is put out and people give to those causes - myself included. When a family in need asks for help from the WILLING it is usually received, it is not illegal as far as I've seen.
The family in the article, if they so chose, could find a way to pay for their loved one.
“tort reform”.
Tort reform had nothing to do with this with holding care. This guy was at age 40 on some kind of “government benefits”. The government denied the care.
But for the life of me I cannot figure out what kind of gov benefits which pays for medical care at age 40. Maybe he was on disability before his stroke?
From the picture that I saw of you on another website, you are not ugly, my friend :)
There is a good reason. Lawyer is investing his time and his money in the case. Client’s could opt to pay by the hour, but none could probably afford it.
And for John Edward’s, from wiki:
In 1984 Edwards was assigned to a medical malpractice lawsuit that had been perceived to be unwinnable; the firm had only accepted it as a favor to an attorney and state senator who did not want to keep it. Nevertheless, Edwards won a $3.7 million verdict on behalf of his client, who had suffered permanent brain and nerve damage after a doctor prescribed an overdose of the anti-alcoholism drug Antabuse during alcohol aversion therapy.[27] In other cases, Edwards sued the American Red Cross three times, alleging transmission of AIDS through tainted blood products, resulting in a confidential settlement each time, and defended a North Carolina newspaper against a libel charge.[26]
In 1985, Edwards represented a five-year-old child born with cerebral palsy whose doctor did not choose to perform an immediate Caesarean delivery when a fetal monitor showed she was in distress. Edwards won a $6.5 million verdict for his client, but five weeks later, the presiding judge sustained the verdict but overturned the award on grounds that it was “excessive” and that it appeared “to have been given under the influence of passion and prejudice,” adding that in his opinion “the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict.” He offered the plaintiffs $3.25 million, half of the jury’s award, but the child’s family appealed the case and received $4.25 million in a settlement.[26] Winning this case established the North Carolina precedent of physician and hospital liability for failing to determine if the patient understood the risks of a particular procedure.[27]
When asked about an increase in Caesarean deliveries nationwide, perhaps to avoid similar medical malpractice lawsuits, Edwards said, “The question is, would you rather have cases where that happens instead of having cases where you don’t intervene and a child either becomes disabled for life or dies in utero?”[26]
The biggest case of his legal career was a 1996 product liability lawsuit against Sta-Rite, the manufacturer of a defective pool drain cover. The case involved Valerie Lakey, a five-year-old girl[28] who was disemboweled by the suction power of the pool drain pump when she sat on an open pool drain whose protective cover other children at the pool had removed, after the swim club had failed to install the cover properly. Despite 12 prior suits with similar claims, Sta-Rite continued to make and sell drain covers lacking warnings. Sta-Rite protested that an additional warning would have made no difference because the pool owners already knew the importance of keeping the cover secured.
In his closing arguments, Edwards spoke to the jury for an hour and a half and referenced his son, Wade, who had been killed shortly before testimony began. Mark Dayton, editor of North Carolina Lawyers Weekly, would later call it “the most impressive legal performance I have ever seen.”[29] The jury awarded the family $25 million, the largest personal injury award in North Carolina history. The company settled for the $25 million while the jury was deliberating additional punitive damages, rather than risk losing an appeal. For their part in this case, Edwards and law partner David Kirby earned the Association of Trial Lawyers of America’s national award for public service.[27]
After Edwards won a large verdict against a trucking company whose worker had been involved in a fatal accident, the North Carolina legislature passed a law prohibiting such awards unless the employee’s actions had been specifically sanctioned by the company.[26]
Let’s see permanent brain injury, cerebral palsy, AIDS tainted blood, and disemboweled 5 year olds. Don’t sound frivolous to me.
parsy, who says you need to look at the cases
.....It looks like the family may have just abandoned him there.......
More likely, one child was unable to cope with the possibility of death and insisted by tantrum after tantrum that every possible heroic effort be made to prolong the life for perhaps only hours.
The other family members were unable to have any input because the tantrum thrower assumed control of the family voice. It is an everyday event for urologists
WIsh I knew, I’m 61 and have never gotten any government beneifts. All I’ve ever done is pay for someone elses benfits.
Yeah, I know, if there are any Leftists reading my post they think I’m a chump.
I didn’t know you could get Medicaid as an adult.
But...it goes to show you that if we are being sold health care reform on the basis of the relatively small number of truly uninsured....(too poor to have insurance) then it certainly doesn’t improve the level of health care the poor can receive if the government is in charge.
the whole “Parsy says, Parsy “ *.*” is funny.
Don’t know why, it just sounds funny when I say it.
Post on.
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