Rationing Health Care for Seniors

MY health care decisions are mine alone. Mine and my doctor and my insurance company. I trust either one of them far more than I do the government.
My point was more about preferential treatment given to celebrities.

No. Socialized medicine is a system in which doctors and hospitals work for and draw salaries from the government. Doctors in the Veterans Administration and the Armed Services are paid this way. The health systems in Great Britain and Spain are other examples. But in most European countries, Canada, Australia and Japan they have socialized health insurance, not socialized medicine. The government pays for care that is delivered in the private (mostly not-for-profit) sector. This is similar to how Medicare works in this country. Doctors are in private practice and are paid on a fee-for-service basis from government funds. The government does not own or manage medical practices or hospitals.

The term socialized medicine is often used to conjure up images of government bureaucratic interference in medical care. That does not describe what happens in countries with national health insurance where doctors and patients often have more clinical freedom than in the U.S., where bureaucrats attempt to direct care.

My point was more about preferential treatment given to celebrities.

MY health care decisions are mine alone. Mine and my doctor and my insurance company. I trust either one of them far more than I do the government.

Shriver was admitted to the hospital after suffering a series of strokes, the Associated Press reported early this morning. The Special Olympics spokeswoman would not confirm that report.

If this were any 'regular' 88 year old woman on Cape Cod, she would already have been sent to a local SNF to die..not kept in the ICU. I am truly sorry for the Kennedy family, but this is just one example of how health care is being rationed already. It'll get even worse if Obama's plan goes through.

At least with an insurance company you can appeal the process, reversing a decision in Medicare or Medicaid is almost impossible.

I don't want government to control my health care.

Equity: The U.S. ranks a clear last on all measures of equity. Americans with below-average incomes were much more likely than their counterparts in other countries to report not visiting a physician when sick, not getting a recommended test, treatment or follow-up care, not filling a prescription, or not seeing a dentist when needed because of costs. On each of these indicators, more than two-fifths of lower-income adults in the U.S. said they went without needed care because of costs in the past year.



Healthy lives: The U.S. ranks last overall with poor scores on all three indicators of healthy lives. The U.S. and U.K. had much higher death rates in 1998 from conditions amenable to medical care?with rates 25 to 50 percent higher than Canada and Australia. Overall, Australia ranks highest on healthy lives, scoring first or second on all of the indicators