Care For Dying Blacks, Hispanics Costlier

AP via theindychannel.com ^ | 03/10/09

[Abathar]

Treatment Costs Higher Than For Whites

CHICAGO -- Striking new research shows dying blacks and Hispanics have much steeper treatment costs than whites, sobering evidence that racial health-care differences continue right up until death.

It's not that minorities are being charged more than whites. It's that they tend to get more costly, intensive treatments including feeding tubes and other invasive medical procedures near death. That's in sharp contrast with what often happens throughout their lives, when minorities are less likely than whites to get aggressive medical care.

The results raise a troubling question about whether medical resources for nonwhite patients are "misallocated over a lifetime," with minorities receiving more treatment at the end, when there is little chance of improving or extending life, the study authors said.

The study appears in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine. It involved nearly 160,000 Medicare patients and records on their treatment in the last six months of life.

[Abathar]

Pay me a big fat grant like these researchers got and I will correlate it to KOOLS and burritos...

[autumnraine]

That’s only because whites are secretly giving them something in their food to make them sicker and die faster.

Just channeling Rev. Wright.

[Veto!]

Why would minorities get more “invasive” procedures? Don’t white patients want to live too?

[Lizavetta]

It's not that minorities are being charged more than whites. It's that they tend to get more costly, intensive treatments including feeding tubes and other invasive medical procedures near death.

So they bitch when they get less than whites, and they bitch when they get more than whites.

How about they just put a sock in it?

[Islander7]

Having 12+ years in home health care, I can say, as a general rule, black folks provide better at home care for their aged than whites. Of course my experience is limited to the Mississippi Coastal counties, but that is what I learned.

[Abathar]

This is just a guess, but I bet it comes down to insurance. Private insurance companies balk at being milked, Federal programs seem to exist solely for that reason it seems.

[Seruzawa]

I doubt I’ve ever seen anything as unscientific and outright stupid as this.

[TexasCajun]

Probably something Whitey put on their water.

[Ditter]

I was always told that life wasn’t fair, I guess this proves that mama was right.

[keepitreal]

So will the feds force people of color to see their doctors more regularly when well and then force them to pare down end of life measures?

Will Al Sharpton please comment?

[Condor51]

Striking new research shows dying blacks and Hispanics have much steeper treatment costs than whites, sobering evidence that racial health-care differences continue right up until death.

Oh well, that CIA plot to poison minorities food and kill them all off isn't working out as planned. Guess it's time to go back to the plot to get them all addicted to Crack and Heroin so they die younger, faster, and cheaper.

[skeeter]

‘Course the writer intuitively knows how that lifestyle choices have nothing to do with the condition one finds themselves in at the end of their lives.

[NativeSon]

Could not going to the doctors unless you're carried their in an ambulance have anything to do with it?

I know people that regularly go to the doctors, these are some of the same people that regularly go to work, pay bills, mow the lawn, take out the trash and care for their families.

Some people don't like to be bothered with such and therefore "don't do it".

I for one never go to the doctors, the first time that I went in 20 years was due to the rescue team pulling me out of my truck and stuffing me in the ambulance.

[Beagle8U]

I don’t need a big study grant to tell you that it is directly related to the need for tort reform.

[TonyM]

So blacks and Hispanics should pay higher insurance premiums, right? Just the way they say smokers should pay more.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

*** It’s that they tend to get more costly, intensive treatments including feeding tubes and other invasive medical procedures near death.***

Now wait a minute! Feeding tubes are only used at the behest of the patient. Both my mother and mother-in-law refused feeding tubes and signed living wills stating that fact.

[visualops]

with minorities receiving more treatment at the end

That makes zero sense (there's a pun for ya!).

[Congressman Billybob]

What a classically dishonest "analysis" by the AP. What group is more likely when the patient dies? Also, what group is less likely to have a long-term family physician who can make a decision to die, with the family?

These doctors are engaging in "defensive medicine," doing everything possible to head off the pending law suit when the patient dies. A competent and non-biased reporter would have mentioned this.

But it's an AP reporter. Ne-ver-mind.

Congressman Billybob

Latest article, "Anyone remember Chance the Gardener?"

The Declaration, the Constitution, parts of the Federalist, and America's Owner's Manual, here.

[bobsatwork]

Reasons why minorities receive more costly end-of-life care are unclear; the study had no data to explain that - The entire spin of the article is factless speculation.

[junta]

I guess “race” ain’t real till it comes time to spend money?