Go read this. Just go read it:
A Special Comment From My Father
by Keith Olbermann at Daily Kos
Feb 25 2010
Feb 25 2010
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and for his father…
the number of times I have had that conversation with patient’s and their families and not under the best of conditions. The decision to stop treatment is a private one that should be made with the best information of the consequences available. I tipped and recommended that diary and I wish Keith’s Dad, him and his family all the best.
Recommended here as well.
until the day she died. The last day was paid at 80%.
My mom must have planned that one out. 🙂
We were never left with any question of how we would pay for her hospitalization. If she had lived longer she would have been eligible for medicaid as soon as we spent down her tiny bit of savings (Enron wiped that out) which would have been almost immediately.
No one should be denied that kind of care at any time of their life.
I talked by phone last night to my sister Nan for the first time since her daughter (my niece) had her baby a week or so ago. She filled me in with various details about the birth which they did at a Birthing Center with midwife etc… there had been much advance planning for that blessed event.
We, as a society I mean, dont do that well when we have to plan for death. Medically and otherwise…. emotionally, spiritually.
For both cases, births and deaths, we have so blurred the lines between physician or nurse, healer, and priest/ess.
But for any of that … consultations, treatments, planning conversations … to be considered some kind of privilege rather than our right … an inherent right as human beings… that is measured somehow by its profitability… just boggles my mind.
thank you Edger… :o(
I watched the summit live and feel hopeful for a glimmer of health-care relief, once again this is a make of brake for the Dems.
that for such an important and serious issue as our health care, i.e. whether we live or die, whether we have resources or lose them all, we pick people to represent us by electing them who don’t appear to have much of a clue.
Keith, of course, is entirely right to say this. I just wish that the elected officials who could resolve this issue had others’ interests more at heart than those of the insurance companies, big Phrma, etc. Having to ask the elected officials for help seems a cruel hoax.