Medicare will kill Grandma...

By Fester:

One of the many rhetorical slights of hand that conservatives have been using to argue against healthcare reform is the "Grandma will die" trope. Steve captured a good example earlier today.

There is one major problem with this trope. A good number of grandmas are already in a public plan called Medicare, and almost all grandmas that are being alluded to (you know the ones with quasi-blue hair, three dozen cookie recipes that can be made in under 22 minutes, and tennis balls on the bottom of her walker) are participants in Medicare. There has not been a streak of prematurely dead grandmas under Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and now Obama have not decided not to kill grammy out of cost-savings consciousness, but instead life span has increased and the years of high quality life have increased faster than aggregate life span. Not all of that is attributable to Medicare availability but it argues against Medicare and other government health programs killing grandma.

And for the grandmas who are too young to qualify for Medicare (Hi Mom!) are stuck in the same crap-shoot that everyone else is in.

Some things may be covered if the moon is in ascent, other things will only be covered if you speak to the right bureaucrat. Expensive coverage that could both prolong life and provide high quality life is often denied. Run-arounds and aggravation/hassle costs are one of the rationing screens employed by the insurance companies. And this is with decent coverage obtained through work as most working grandmas have the pre-existing condition of being not young. Good luck if an employer goes bankrupt, and good luck finding a job with health insurance that is not a joke as a grandma in this economy.

There has been no epidemic of state sanctioned grandmother killing since Medicare was put into place despite the horrors of having guaranteed baseline medical care.

Comments

[John Ballard]

Whaddya wanna do? Start using common sense?

You are correct, of course. My mother died this year at the age of 92. I realized years ago when she and Dad qualified for Medicare why we have so many well cared for old people. After a lifetime of almost never seeing a doctor, both of them began receiving an abundance of medical attention. Prescriptions, check-ups, outpatient surgery, you name it.

Circumstances may have changed a little over the last thirty years, but basically whenever a Medicare beneficiary darkens the door of a clinic or doctor's office you can almost hear the bell of the cash register ringing. My wife and I joined the club this year and I can't wait.

I might mention, speaking of grandmas, that my mother's last year was spent in a nursing home. She was in good health for someone her age, took no prescriptions, was ambulatory, able to dress herself and find her way to the dining room. But I had the impression that she was something of a cash cow for the facility. Every time we turned around she was getting some kind of therapy or test, all of which I'm sure to be billed to Medicare.

Do you think I complained about too much care? Do you think anyone does?

My personal experience stands in sharp contrast to all the crazy disinformation swirling around in the whisper campaign aimed at defeating health care reform.

Maggie Mahar's post tonight covers a few of the rumors, but they're like flies at a picnic, coming out of the woods faster than they can be killed.

http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2009/07/truth-squad-wall-street-journal-health-care-editorial-wrong-on-the-facts-.html