Why Universal Healthcare Bothers Me...

[sweeneytodd.livejournal.com]

My brother and I were just having a discussion...

So, the government gives free healthcare to anyone and everyone. Doesn't it bother you that the governments money is going to end up going to some meth addict on the verge of death? I mean, seriously. Even with the state provided healthcare today, I just feel that you should at least have a drug test. If you're killing yourself with drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes why should the government hold your hand through it all?

Comments

[pat-t.livejournal.com]

The problem with this is that we now have the technology to keep those meth addicts alive much longer. It's not that we're giving them a few antibiotics and they are going to kill themselves young. We have cocaine addicts getting heart transplants. People who have smoked themselves onto permanent oxygen tanks getting lung transplants - and then doing it to the healthy lungs. And, yes, to qualify the smoker and drinker has to quit for a certain amount of time. But that does not stop them from doing it again.

In the meantime, they are in and out of the hospital with long stays for sepsis, respiratory failure, heart failure, liver failure, broken bones and expensive ortho surgeries because people who are high and drunk tend to want to drive.

Or how about the 35 year old that came in with a history of cocaine abuse? He was diagnosed with high blood pressure, but couldn't be bothered with taking his medicine. You would be surprised how some of these people are not very reliable with other health concerns as well. After walking around a year with high pressures, he has now killed his kidneys. Now the taxpayers will get to pay for him to have hemodialysis the rest of his lives.

Now, all that said, one of our biggest health issues is obesity. No, I don't have a scientific data sheet to show you, just 11 years of working 60 + hours a week in a busy metropolitan ER,(and talking to many other ER nurses around the country) but around 85-90 % of our patients are obese (and many of them morbidly so) patients. And they are constantly in the hospital with respiratory problems (hard to breath with 300 pounds sitting on your chest ), heart problems (20 year olds with the heart muscle of an elderly person after they have overworked their hearts with all the increased body girth), all the health problems you would expect from lack of exercise. Many of them cannot get around and we have 20-30 year olds on scooters and wheelchairs that taxpayers are paying for.

Non-compliance is one of the most costly health issues. I read an article two years ago that stated the average cost of caring for a compliant diabetic is around $5000 a year. The cost for a non-compliant diabetic is around $45000. Huge difference.

Now, all that said, I'm not thrilled with the idea of the government making decisions about who should get care and who shouldn't. However, if taxpayers are picking up the cost for everyone's healthcare, there has got to be some guidelines or we will be running out of money very quickly and then no one will receive healthcare.

[tigress35.livejournal.com]

I can't disagree that the things you list aren't problems. But I'm not prepared that the solution is to keep a government bracelet on a diabetic person and force them to remember their medication. It sounds cruel, but under government run healthcare, the best we can hope for is that a non compliant person will succumb to the disease, instead of the compliant who lives many many 5k years, thus costing more money overall in the longterm.

Clealry the ideal solution is to ket private business determine what behaviors they deem uninsurable but that's not going to happen, now, looks like

[pat-t.livejournal.com]

It sounds cruel, but under government run healthcare, the best we can hope for is that a non compliant person will succumb to the disease, instead of the compliant who lives many many 5k years, thus costing more money overall in the longterm.


It sounds like you're making the assumption (or hoping for) that non-compliant people die early, thus costing less overall. I apologize if that isn't the case. However, if it is, let me assure you that is a false assumption.

With healthcare as it is, those people can live very long lives. Very poor quality lives, but long. People with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) can live well into their 80's and 90's. They'll be in a wheelchair and hooked up to an oxygen tank, but they will be alive. In the hospital more than out, but we can keep them alive.

Take those diabetics. They come in in a diabetic coma, we turn them around, get them better and send them home to do it again. They live decades with us fighting to keep their limbs attached while they eat what they want and not take their medicine or checking their blood sugar the way they are supposed to. Eventually, they lose the battle and we have to start amputating limbs. They go blind. Their kidneys fail and they end up on dialysis. We can keep them alive for decades, in and out of the hospital, using up more than their share of health care resources and sucking the tax payers dry.

The same goes for drug abusers and alcoholics. Don't assume that they will die off early.

And any money spent for my healthcare when I'm older is money that is being ripped out of my paycheck every week. It's *my* money. I've been paying social security and medicare taxes my entire working life. It's not my fault the government has stolen spent it on other things or paid out my money for other people's benefits. People who have not paid in.