Obama questions expensive medical procedures for elderly in later years

Little-Acorn

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Several months ago, Barack Obama's grandmother had hip-replacement surgery, but then died weeks later at age 86. Later, Obama questioned the wisdom of giving "my grandmother, or eveyone else's aging grandparents or parents" such expensive surgery in their later years through government-run health care.

Of course, he pointed out that he would have paid for such surgery himself for his grandmother.

But he has not publicly addressed the question of how others might do that under Obamacare, after the programs starts running out of money and possibly has to cut back on services. By that time, most privately practicing physicians who could do the procedures, may have been driven out of business by tax-money-subsidized Socialized Medicine, leaving no one available to do the procedures outside the government-run health care system.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aGrKbfWkzTqc

Obama Says Grandmother’s Hip Replacement Raises Cost Questions

By Hans Nichols

April 29 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said his grandmother’s hip-replacement surgery during the final weeks of her life made him wonder whether expensive procedures for the terminally ill reflect a “sustainable model” for health care.

The president’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, had a hip replaced after she was diagnosed with cancer, Obama said in an interview with the New York Times magazine that was published today. Dunham, who lived in Honolulu, died at the age of 86 on Nov. 2, 2008, two days before her grandson’s election victory.

“I don’t know how much that hip replacement cost,” Obama said in the interview. “I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she’s my grandmother.”

Obama said “you just get into some very difficult moral issues” when considering whether “to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill.

“That’s where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues,” he said in the April 14 interview. “The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health- care bill out here.”


(Full text of the article can be read at the above URL)
 
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Obama said “you just get into some very difficult moral issues” when considering whether “to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill.

That is the crux of the problem right there. Obama and his goon squad making a decision regarding morality in this country. I can think of those who are even less productive and more of a drain on America in EVERY WAY, than old people: Prisoners who are serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Isn't discrimination because of age unconstitutional? Yeah right. Obama gives a crap about the AMERICAN constitution.
 
Ted Kennedy is old and terminal. He should offer himself up as the first, since he supports this plan.
 
I don't have a problem with a terminally ill person being given a hip replacement. I just don't believe that I should be the one paying for it. Either through my taxes or through my insurance premiums. If someone, or their family has the money and the will to pay for it. Go for it.
 
I don't have a problem with a terminally ill person being given a hip replacement. I just don't believe that I should be the one paying for it.
Will you have a problem with paying for a smokers treatment due to his smoking? How about a fat person problem stemming from his obesity? Any number of other lifestyle choices that are not healthy will be demonized by the collective and our march away from liberty will start moving in double time.

Single payer will result in fascist style policies that won't be forced on the public, the public will demand they be enacted. The public will demand that since they have to pay for the healthcare of people who choose not to live a healthy lifestyle, that politicians must pass laws infringing on individual liberty for the "common good" of society.

If you want to help the "poor", fine. Donate your own money through private charity, not my money through higher taxes. You want to see that those without healthcare insurance get the care they require? Fine. Do it through private charity, not through failed and failing government programs.

The American public has been talked into chaining themselves to one another in the name of compassion but were only enslaving ourselves to the state.
 
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Oh context, where for art thou... Seriously guys, stop the twisting and snipping quotes to suit your needs, it just makes you look ignorant.


"So now she’s in the hospital, and the doctor says, Look, you’ve got about — maybe you have three months, maybe you have six months, maybe you have nine months to live. Because of the weakness of your heart, if you have an operation on your hip there are certain risks that — you know, your heart can’t take it. On the other hand, if you just sit there with your hip like this, you’re just going to waste away and your quality of life will be terrible.

And she elected to get the hip replacement and was fine for about two weeks after the hip replacement, and then suddenly just — you know, things fell apart.

I don’t know how much that hip replacement cost. I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she’s my grandmother. Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question. If somebody told me that my grandmother couldn’t have a hip replacement and she had to lie there in misery in the waning days of her life — that would be pretty upsetting."


He isn't saying that he's questioning it. He's saying that questioning it would be upsetting. A completely different context all together.

“The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health- care bill out here.”

Yeah, but its true. Chronically ill can be anything from rheumatoid arthritis (which is usually non-fatal) Diabetes (which is easily treatable, I've been one myself for over 20 years), and many other constant care requiring illnesses. To even suggest that he's considering that to be a tough question as to should it be paid for is silly. Of course it will, that is what the majority of people who NEED healthcare suffer. The random and occasional emergency trauma/medical situations that occur are the smallest of the problems people require medical treatment for. Next comes non-chronic treatable diseases such as strept, staph, and hundreds of others that are not permanent. Either you or perhaps it was the reporter who did, twisted his words and cut out the context until it sounded pretty bad, I'll admit, but of course its fiction as to your suggestion of his intent.
 
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