Why Obamacare won't work: Reason #4,566 (most of health care spending is on "end of life" care)

The crisis in health care is manageable - without the radical, extreme measures passed in the Affordable Care Act.

USA Today reports that just 5% of patients account for 50% of health care spending. And just 1% account for 22% of the spending.

That's about $90,000 per person, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. U.S. residents spent $1.26 trillion that year on health care.
Five percent accounted for 50% of health care costs, about $36,000 each, the report said.
The report's findings can be used to predict which consumers are most likely to drive up health care costs and determine the best ways to save money, said Steven Cohen, the report's lead author.
While the report showed how a tiny segment of the population can drive health care spending, the findings included good news. In 1996, the top 1% of the population accounted for 28% of health care spending.
"The actual concentration has dropped," Cohen said. "That's a big change."
About one in five health care consumers remained in the top 1% of spenders for at least two consecutive years, the report showed. They tended to be white, non-Hispanic women in poor health; the elderly; and users of publicly funded health care.

Other studies have shown that most of this spending is on "end of life" care - that is, patients who have very little chance of recovery but who have numerous hospital stays and even surgeries that don't extend life, but deal with unrelated symptoms to their primary disease. Someone dying of heart disease getting a kidney transplant, for instance.

My point is that it is ridiculous to spend money on expensive tests when they admit that, if they found cancer, they would not treat her because the treatment would kill her. If I were 95, I would not want intrusive tests done on me. I don’t believe she ever had carpal tunnel syndrome because she never did repetitive work. Every time she has an ache or pain, they did surgery, well into her 80s, and then she would say they didn’t fix it. Did I mention that her doctor has her on uppers because she lacks energy and sleeping pills because she can’t sleep? Besides, she is my step-m-i-l and lives 1500 miles away, so I do not take her to her doctors.

I won’t live to see you reach a similar age, but I suspect you may have a different view when you get there.

I never expected to see 50, wish I had been a little more far sighted, things might have worked out differently.

Beware anyone who assumes they have a right to determine the quality of your life, because it will never be in your best interest, but in their own.

"A longtime friend died a few days ago. She had been in the intensive care unit of a local hospital since October."

I have one of those 'we all thought she was dead in the ICU for months (3) then miraculous turnaround', stories regarding my mother. During that time I searched out info on her particular ailments, and end of life stories, and found a related story produced by Frontline.

In the end it really is up to the patient. Every one of us needs to get our docs in order. Because family will either prolong this until NO machine will keep you alive, or pull the plug as soon a anyone offers the suggestion.

My Dad, who had a pacemaker when he was 61, had to have it replaced at 75. He was in good health and I wondered about the cost, which was $31,000, I believe. He lived to be 88 and was in good health up until he was 85 and mostly lucid until the end. He went into a nursing home at age 87. So, end-of-life care would have denied him an extra 10 years of good health, during which he cared for my Mom, who had Alzehimers. Without the new pacemaker at age 75, that could not have happened. It’s a slippery slope to start intervening on a supposition.

In the end, at age 88, he got a massive septic infection, went into the hospital and the doctor said he was too far gone to do anything else but let him die — indeed he was already in the process of dying. No further intervention was done. He was removed from a breathing tube and breathed on his own for several more days, with the help of an oxygen mask. He was given food when he asked for it. Otherwise, he was not fed. When I tried to feed him, he did not want to be fed. I think his healthcare was handled right every step of the way.

‘I won’t live to see you reach a similar age, but I suspect you may have a different view when you get there.’

No, I won’t. I will not be getting colonoscopies when I am 95, I can assure you.

And who is assuming they have the right to determine the quality of her life? She has been denied nothing - ever. None of these unnecessary procedures have enhanced the quality of her life, and neither have the excessive medications. I’m not going to convince you, but the medicare abuses in South Florida are well-documented.

‘I won’t live to see you reach a similar age, but I suspect you may have a different view when you get there.’

No, I won’t. I will not be getting colonoscopies when I am 95, I can assure you.

I am already convinced of the abuse, that was not the discussion I was having. I am opposed to other people deciding the quality of life for anyone. Euthanasia is very common in countries that have adopted the right to die with dignity nonsense, and it is fast becoming the norm in this country.

Old people with estates are prime targets for both sides, the medical side wants to bilk the estate and the grand kids want to smother them, to preserver the inheritance.

Who was talking about euthanasia? And what is your obsession with smothering? All of her money is going to her own children, not us. We keep in touch with her and visit her because we promised my father-in-law that we would and because we like her. She is being enabled by these doctors, and it is shameful. She has a secondary policy and a tertiary policy, so she spends very little out of pocket. These abuses are why our insurance rates are so high. I am sorry if someone has mistreated you.

You have no idea what this discussion is about. Leave it alone, and no one has never mistreated me, and I doubt they ever will, at least as long as I am sentient.

The loving freepers that think that old people should be put down, they tend to irritate me. Right to die with dignity always leads to involuntary euthanasia, if you don’t understand that, then you are a useful idiot.

Not at all, it should be the decision of the individual, not some committee that knows what is best for me, or you or your grandmother.

Do you not see where this always leads? I am continually amazed by Freepers, who should be a little better informed on the history of Statism, yet fall right into the trap of the progressive.

Health care is ultimate state control, once they attain control over that, then the eugenics clowns begin their master plan.

The truth is there are about seven billion people on this earth, and your betters are convinced we should volunteer to depopulate the earth. Go back and take a look at the old movie Soylent Green. Review some of the beautiful footage of Cousteau the man who would save the oceans, buy reducing the world population to an ideal level of 250,000.

Review how Germany was able to kill 11,000,000 people without having a civilian uprising. Russia managed to kill a documented 60,000,000 people while we collectively went ho humm. China was even worse but harder to document.

The simplistic notion that, “Oh, that could never happen in America” nonsense has infected a younger population who shall soon realize that not only can it happen, but it is happening.

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