Damn…

Just…damn…

No words for this horror.

B.C. man with ALS chooses medically assisted death after years of struggling to fund 24-hour care.

Full article, HERE from CBC News.

IS THIS what is in store for us?

Comments

Damn… — 23 Comments

  1. Yes, it’s what’s planned for us. Death Panels are reality, regardless of how mocked they were on the left, when Obamacare was debated. Of course, if you are part of the Nomenklatura or part of the Party, that won’t apply to you, and you’ll get the best of medical care.

    All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

    • I agree. All you have to do is look for the “special” carve outs and exceptions to see what the politicians think of their single payer, medicare for everyone, special good deal that they have planned for the country. If it’s such a good deal, they why doesn’t Congress and it’s employees want to participate?

      Go suck swamp water (to put it politely).

  2. The longer I live, the more I am convinced the ONLY reason for medical advancements are to increase our lifespans to pay for it. Once the insurance company determines the cost will exceed the amount of $$$ they will gain – their payouts will become much less or stop.

  3. Grandma died of ALS, and I recall her being upset that she woke up after one surgery (rapid decline – she knew she’d soon be struggling to breathe, etc. until she couldn’t, and I can’t say I fault her for preferring the idea of simply not waking up from surgery – and she did go on for a fair time, for someone at her advanced age with ALS.). Still, Day-yamn.

  4. I live/work in the last county to comply with the new state-mandated care program. My clients have seen their options get reduced over the last few years as the new system was put in place. I’m told I can do the now-disallowed tasks as a non-paid favor rather than as part of the regular job. Ain’t no happy campers now.

    ALS is a horrible disease; eventually, suicide might seem an attractive alternative. The husband of an acquaintance of mine had ALS. He asked for, and she fed him, some doctor-forbidden McD’s french fries. He choked to death in the parking lot. We don’t need the state’s death panels- we have fast food. Yah, gallows humor.

  5. Let’s not pretend that making funding your own care such a struggle was designed to be that way under that ridiculously vaunted Canadian health care system, to make the victim long for the relative ease of a quick death, and was the point all along.

  6. Since the inception of the ACA/Obamacare, those out there who have to struggle with long-term care, either the afflicted or their care structure, have been taking hit after hit.

    From rationed supplies of critical drugs, to supply windows of certain drugs (can’t get a new script for some drugs until a week to 10 days before old script dies, can’t fill script unless within 2 days of last date filled, must be present (caregiver with lots and lots and lots of proof, or patient with lots of proof) and scripts only allowed for 30 days. So whomever is filling the script has to run around and find a pharmacy that has them in stock, one can’t build up much of a surplus of needed drugs in case of emergency, and Heaven Forbid one puts one’s scheduled drugs into a pill minder (outside of the prescription container) or pour a partial bottle into a new bottle and end up with 1 more than the listed amount and get pulled over or searched by jackbooted thugs… (pant, pant, pant, ranting is tiring…))

    To continued restrictions on everything in one’s daily life, making it continually harder to provide the same level care.

    Prescription drug price increases. HIPAA sticking it’s nose in everything (it is harder for caregivers to get med information than ever. So if the caregiver is just picking up something, an envelope with the list of how much the patient has spent for a timeperiod, the legal loopholes are such that it is far easier for CG to fill out and get a state license for the patient than basic med info… BTDT…at a pharmacy both CG and P have been going to for years….)

    Being told that things like a neural stimulator, that cuts down excruciating pain to levels that can be controlled by medication, is a non-necessary device, so patient on medicaid has to cough up 20% of the surgery and the device, is heartbreaking. Same with just getting funding for a wheelchair or a bedside commode, things that allow the patient some level of normal life, are so damned overcontrolled and micromanaged that it dehumanizes people.

    All of this I am certain leads to patients suiciding. Which at certain levels of diseases or ailments is rather easy to do. A slight ‘mixup’ on purpose of one’s meds… ‘Accidentally’ eating the wrong thing… Not informing the caregiver of certain symptoms…

    Or, even, patients accidentally dieing. Like someone on strong opioids whose kidneys stop filtering for two to three days, so the body goes into an overdose. Or someone who is on insulin AND managing their diet who gets the flu or an infected tooth (illness drives blood sugars at a more rapid rate than real sugar. Pain, infection, not able to eat due to nausea or vomitting, all shoot the BS up the scale, with the fun treat of how does one treat the blood sugar levels of a non-eating person, do you ride the sugar levels or pull back because no food is being intaked… Door #1 or Door #2… Or what happens when one is on anti-rejection meds and has vomiting so bad one can’t keep the meds down? (Had a friend lose a donor-kidney from this.)

    Our own current government mandated health care systems (VA, Medicaid) and government requirements on private insurance are starting to winnow away the ‘undesireables’ and the outliers of the medically needy. Thank God we didn’t get another Demo(n)crat after King Lightbringer, as I am certain things would have gotten far worse than they are now. Bad enough that the ACA is written to slowly implement changes over a long time, so people get used to the ever-tightening noose…

    Not that I’ve ever experienced any of this… Nah….

  7. I remember reading a piece by Mark Steyn on this same subject many years ago. Without going into case specifics, he made the point that with private health care, treatment will always be available because treating patients puts money in someone’s pocket. But with government health care, every treatment is an expense that won’t be reimbursed. So it’s to the government’s advantage to deny treatment, or to go with the cheapest option. And assisted suicide is a lot cheaper than long-term care.

  8. It is unfortunate that life gets more complicated as time goes on. At least it seems that way.

    I have had quite a bit of experience with the health care system post the inception or rather the ‘ineption’ of Obamacare. A series of surgeries for an injury and then post op infections coupled with my already have a significant physical disability landed me in rehab for months each time around. I am on Medicare and an advantage policy as well. While I was rehabbing I was in a facility that both did rehab and long term care. This was an eyeopener to me.

    I doubt most people have spent any appreciable time in a long term care facility and have no idea what the end of life looks like to the people who end up there. I will state before hand that no one was mistreated at all in this facility. Even so, the level of misery is obvious to a person who is there long enough.

    Elder patients who are still mentally fit oftentimes are saddled with age onset disabilities that are truly beyond frustrating and you can sense the dismay they feel. Some of these residents are not as much physically disabled as they are mentally. While they are unaware or less aware of their surroundings and life they still express emotions and these are like truth detectors. The last group are those who are essentially in hospice care and they are either lucid or not and there is an overwhelming feeling of loss or sadness.

    Remember too, that the staff lives these emotions on a daily basis and they are as affected by the changes in healthcare both in their jobs as they are for their families. All of these people I encountered left impressions upon me that I will not forget.

    As we age, we all get to a place where we are either benefited by our choices in life or penalized. Those who could and did work in good fields tend to have better care than those who chose other paths that do not provide as well in retirement. This is the unlevel playing field we find ourselves in through out life. People with lucrative jobs get better benefits. Politicians have leapt upon this reality using those who have less as a weapon to beat those who have more into supporting them. It is classic exploitation by these politicians to do this and yet, no one calls them on it.

    In a perfect world we would want to care for all of our people to the best extent possible. The problem is that money is involved. We live in a capitalistic society that allows fantastic success for some and less for others and yet as long as you find your way and manage to be happy you can say with confidence that you are successful. I look upon my life with this point of view. I refuse to be baited into jealousy by anyone and accept that my life is as it is.

    As to ALS and the emotional difficulty it poses as a sufferer in my last round through the hospital and rehab I was virtually paralyzed when I got to rehab and if I had to live the rest of my life in that manner I am unsure if I could. I understand the desire to stop suffering and I am including mental as well as physical.

    My daughter in-law said recently that she thought I was strong for all I have endured and am still going. I told her that I do not consider my survival as being due to strength but is instead due to my being a survivor. While my life is a shadow of what it used to be and is frustrating without a doubt, I continue to survive because I want to.

    Lastly, in reflecting upon my comment in the last paragraph I will say unequivocally that I chose to keep going and it always should be my choice.

    Death panels for health care will only lead to death panels for all sorts of other things that will be rationalized and explained as being ‘humane’ or ‘just’ or some other excuse and all of that is totalitarianism and is in a free society unacceptable. Obama and his pill instead of surgery statement is a harbinger of what the liberals want to do. We owe it to every person in our nation to fight these proponents of such draconian decision making back to where they came from. Thinking such as that is a cancer that will destroy our nation.

  9. You probably can’t do death-care for poor and deplorables without also compromising quality of care for the elite to some degree.

    Like how using up prisoners in involuntary medical experimentation probably isn’t going to advance medicine in ways that are generally helpful.

    Any actual local hypothetical net benefit is probably swamped by letting the field’s mental focus go off.

  10. All- There ARE ongoing horror stories out there, and we don’t have a chance in hell of winning against the machine… dammit…

  11. All very scary. The older so get, the more so pray I am healthy, yet things are falling apart. Ibgeel like that shiny new muscle car,of the 60S with a lot if rust.. And yes, that is what our world is coming to. Yikes.

  12. Also, to what extent does VA dysfunction serve the political ends of the left?

  13. Watch out for ‘assisted suicide’ laws by state, Once one state goes, the insurance companies in that state switch their coverages so that for expensive conditions the ONLY procedure they will cover is an assisted suicide. Especially nasty in Kev-Oregon, where by law the attending physician is supposed to list the cause of death as ANYTHING BUT the suicide.

  14. > IS THIS what is in store for us?

    Gotta find the money for free abortions, free-healthcare-for-illegals, free-healthcare-for-the-privileged-poor, free-ER-for-nonpayers, and all the rest, you know.

    Not to mention the various additional layers of bureaucracy managing Obamacare at Federal, state, and private sectors, whose salaries are probably at least half of your premiums.

  15. This is no more possible than shootings in Baltimore are because LEFTY SOLUTIONS GOOD!