Quality of Life

[Frankiarmz]

Somewhere between history and science fiction lies our future and I'm concerned. History tells us that years ago the average lifespan was forty, you reached forty and you were old! A combination of science and environment has slowly extended that number and now eighty is more the norm. I mentioned science fiction because of the many plots of a future world in which no one is allowed to live beyond a predetermined age. Good citizens who reach their magic number report to a termination facility and it's lights out! This brings us to our current healthcare crisis, too many people uninsured and too little money to fix the problem. Maybe we are just living too long for our own good? Society could better provide for the young and those under forty if everyone over that age would just go away. Legislation would be required to accomplish such a radical approach to our problem, but we may be headed there anyway. I'm all for it, if that's what it takes to save Americans and improve healthcare. Since laws are usually not retroactive, anyone over the age of forty at the time it becomes law would naturally be grandfathered and safe. Hey, it works for me and if you're a good American vote yes.

[gear junkie]

I say we get rid of all nonproductive waste of society. I'd start with everyone in the California prison system that has life in prison. Then we go down to the child molesters, free or in prison. That'd free up alot of money that could then be used for healthcare rather than penalizing productive members of society.

http://www.lao.ca.gov/2007/cj_primer/cj_primer_013107.aspx

Under my system, we would save $343,915,215 per year just for the state of CA alone. 7,945-3 strikes X 43,287(cost of housing an inmate per year).

Times that number by 50 for a nationwide rough average and you get $17,195,760,750. That's 17 Billion per year to house inmates that will never see the light of day again as a free man or woman. Why are my tax dollars going to pay for this?

http://costofwar.com/

My next great idea says that iraq owes us 668 billion dollars for the stopping their tyrant and giving them democracy whether they want it or not. I don't think they can give us 668 billion but they should give us fuel at a discounted price until we get our money back.

That's only 2 examples of where we can have free health care for everyone if we got rid of some excess. I think the 40-60 polulation is the most important demographic in the nation. I think they tend to have the highest paid jobs, THEY VOTE, and the pay their bills. I'm on a rant and not after you Frankie but think just a little differently. thanks for listening, had to get it off my chest.

VOTE!!!! Ben for President!!!!!!!!!

[Frankiarmz]

I say we get rid of all nonproductive waste of society. I'd start with everyone in the California prison system that has life in prison. Then we go down to the child molesters, free or in prison. That'd free up alot of money that could then be used for healthcare rather than penalizing productive members of society.

http://www.lao.ca.gov/2007/cj_primer/cj_primer_013107.aspx

Under my system, we would save $343,915,215 per year just for the state of CA alone. 7,945-3 strikes X 43,287(cost of housing an inmate per year).

Times that number by 50 for a nationwide rough average and you get $17,195,760,750. That's 17 Billion per year to house inmates that will never see the light of day again as a free man or woman. Why are my tax dollars going to pay for this?

http://costofwar.com/

My next great idea says that iraq owes us 668 billion dollars for the stopping their tyrant and giving them democracy whether they want it or not. I don't think they can give us 668 billion but they should give us fuel at a discounted price until we get our money back.

That's only 2 examples of where we can have free health care for everyone if we got rid of some excess. I think the 40-60 polulation is the most important demographic in the nation. I think they tend to have the highest paid jobs, THEY VOTE, and the pay their bills. I'm on a rant and not after you Frankie but think just a little differently. thanks for listening, had to get it off my chest.

VOTE!!!! Ben for President!!!!!!!!!

Hope you know I was just being ridiculous. You've got better ideas but society won't let that happen, not that plenty of us don't agree with you 100%! There are plenty of bad folks not in the penal system, they hide behind religion and serve in government. How do you think things got so out of had to begin with? Hard working folks busy being productive and trouble makers hurting others and not contributing. We are supporting way too many criminals in prison and illegals ( good and bad) outside. When I think about this seriously it is very upsetting, no joke.:mad:

[darius]

We are supporting way too many criminals in prison and illegals ( good and bad) outside. When I think about this seriously it is very upsetting, no joke.:mad:

In Ontario a per person food in retirement homes is set at roughly $3.00 per day. Prisoners get $10.00 per day.

Data for most States and other Canadian provinces are similar.

[Twicepipes]

Since you're new to actually living in CA, I'll go easy. First and foremost nearly 70% of the budget is allocated towards social programs. It's absurd the amount of govt. waste thrown away on frivolous and duplicitous programs. We also have a huge illegal alien problem. We prop them in every aspect. Free medical attention, education et al. The list goes on and on.
Their income supply needs to be cut. Fine and penalize employers that hire them and the problem will go away. Deport all the rest. Do these things and the budget problem would correct itself almost immediately.

Govt. spending is out of control. That's the problem.
Supposedly, the legislature just came to an agreement
on the budget. We'll see. Honestly, I'm not very hopeful.

"Free" health care? You came to the right state. The reality is.... nothing is free. Somebody has to pay. Ca has become the epitome of a welfare state. Tax those that produce and give to those that don't. It doesn't work, that's why we're broke.

[NHMaster3015]

I say that if we stopped giving medical services to illegal aliens the whole damn system would be in balance. Rough estimates are somewhere around 6 billion a year paid out to illegals that will never pay a cent back into the system.

[Frankiarmz]

I say that if we stopped giving medical services to illegal aliens the whole damn system would be in balance. Rough estimates are somewhere around 6 billion a year paid out to illegals that will never pay a cent back into the system.

I agree, and I think most working and tax paying Americans also agree. Why then have our borders remained so open, through one administration after another? Why are illegals given such costly medical care and not forcefully returned to their country of origin?

[westcoastplumber]

Since you're new to actually living in CA, I'll go easy. First and foremost nearly 70% of the budget is allocated towards social programs. It's absurd the amount of govt. waste thrown away on frivolous and duplicitous programs. We also have a huge illegal alien problem. We prop them in every aspect. Free medical attention, education et al. The list goes on and on.
Their income supply needs to be cut. Fine and penalize employers that hire them and the problem will go away. Deport all the rest. Do these things and the budget problem would correct itself almost immediately.

Govt. spending is out of control. That's the problem.
Supposedly, the legislature just came to an agreement
on the budget. We'll see. Honestly, I'm not very hopeful.

"Free" health care? You came to the right state. The reality is.... nothing is free. Somebody has to pay. Ca has become the epitome of a welfare state. Tax those that produce and give to those that don't. It doesn't work, that's why we're broke.



Don't forget about the vote 30 years ago Prop 13 is what its called.

Californians that voted for this 30 years ago shot themselves in the foot and now we have to pay for it.

This goes back 30 years, the native californians contributed to this problem. Now they sit on their over priced houses and all the equity and never paid their fair share of taxes on it.

oh yeah....the illegals and those who employ them also..... but my blood pressure cannot handle another discussion about this problem.....

[Drip Trip]

I heard that Obamacare has QARY, Quality Amount of Remaining Years. Basically, a doctor looks at your age, health, and the procedure needed to keep you alive. If the procedure would keep a 70 y.o. alive for 3 years, then it would be disapproved. If you're 40, you have a better chance of getting the procedure, as long as you voted for the Messiah, of course. :D

I like it. I've seen too many screwed up medical things like giving my bro-in-law treatment for colon cancer when he was in full dementia from a stroke. I freaked out when I heard that he was getting treated for cancer when most of his brain and half his heart was mush.

[Frankiarmz]

I heard that Obamacare has QARY, Quality Amount of Remaining Years. Basically, a doctor looks at your age, health, and the procedure needed to keep you alive. If the procedure would keep a 70 y.o. alive for 3 years, then it would be disapproved. If you're 40, you have a better chance of getting the procedure, as long as you voted for the Messiah, of course. :D

I like it. I've seen too many screwed up medical things like giving my bro-in-law treatment for colon cancer when he was in full dementia from a stroke. I freaked out when I heard that he was getting treated for cancer when most of his brain and half his heart was mush.

What you're talking about and QARY is a slippery slope. Some of my thoughts on abortion involve the value placed on the unborn life by those involved, if the unborn is wanted, loved and will be cared for the life is priceless as opposed to the unborn who is unwanted. Will we be judged not worth saving by a single doctor, panel of doctors, relatives? Will assisted suicide follow as a natural progression to this legislation? Where the hell is our society headed? How about saving our jobs and economy before we start thinning the herd?

[NHMaster3015]

just what we need, the government deciding who lives and who dies. Oh never mind, they already do.:winknudge:

[cactusman]

Does "solient green" ring a bell?

Cactus Man

[Frankiarmz]

Does "solient green" ring a bell?

Cactus Man

When I talk to my neighbors about these things the reference to that movie comes up over and over again. My original post for this thread mentioned science fiction and reality, scary what things may come to pass if bad decisions continue to be made.:eek:

[Drip Trip]

What you're talking about and QARY is a slippery slope. Some of my thoughts on abortion involve the value placed on the unborn life by those involved, if the unborn is wanted, loved and will be cared for the life is priceless as opposed to the unborn who is unwanted. Will we be judged not worth saving by a single doctor, panel of doctors, relatives? Will assisted suicide follow as a natural progression to this legislation? Where the hell is our society headed? How about saving our jobs and economy before we start thinning the herd?We're in a position mankind has never been in before. We've the capability to keep a corpse alive (like my bro) and to keep babies alive that should not live. Just because we can, doesn't make it right and society needs to stick with "only the strong survive". It is Nature at its purest.

Abortion is right when deemed medical prudent. Beyond that, I don't know.

I've seen lots of very bad things in the 30 years or so of being a service and repair plumber, so I'm a little jaded.....

[AFM]

Everyone has a different quality of life and I remember my father saying he wanted to live as long as he could wipe his own *** and not to have someone else doing it for him and he was lucky he died before before that happened.
But we've become so civilised that we have no choice in the way we die as euthanasia is illegal so all our so called rights in the US and OZ are worthless.

Tony:D

[Drip Trip]

Everyone has a different quality of life and I remember my father saying he wanted to live as long as he could wipe his own *** and not to have someone else doing it for him and he was lucky he died before before that happened.
But we've become so civilised that we have no choice in the way we die as euthanasia is illegal so all our so called rights in the US and OZ are worthless.

Tony:DTony, I live in a Right To Die state broadly meaning that Assisted Suicide is legal. All it takes is a doctor's signature and we get a lethal dose. If needed, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I also have a Do Not Resuscitate standing order which means that if I was in a accident or something that would destroy my quality of life to let me die.

[canucksartech]

This is a good discussion. My wife, Mrs. Canucksartech, is an R.N. here in Ontario (Registered Nurse, for those that may not be sure of the acronym). As such, she is a charge nurse on a floor in our local hospital, the floor being Rehab/Continuing Care. With this, she has patients that run the gamut from being a 16 year-old girl that was injured in a car accident and needs to rehab her broken leg (but that doesn't require being in ICU or the Medical/Surgical wing anymore), to a 50 year-old stroke patient that came straight up from Emerg for continuing care, to a 93 year-old paliative patient that needs more detailed "end-of-life care" that is more than a nursing/retirement home can provide, to help make them more comfortable in their passing. Now, my wife is two years younger than me (she's 28 years old), with 6 years seniority in her position. She's very unique in that she's quite young to be a full-time nurse in a charge position in the field that she's in - the norm here in Ontario is for a nurse to have roughly 6 to 8 years of part-time experience before a hospital will even look twice about hiring you full time for a charge position. She just lucked out - the stars were aligned. It may also help that she also does some emergency work in what she and I do with our regional Search & Rescue unit (she, obviously, is an RN, and I'm a Medical First Responder, similar to EMT in some U.S. states).

All that said, she also looks fairly young even for her age, and is quite frequently referred to as the "girly". She gets lots of, "What school are you a student in?", "When do you get done school?", and "Can I see your ID for this rum & coke, Miss?" Now, none of that actually bothers her - I'm just leading to somewhere with it (a long trip, I know).

She quite frequently deals with these sorts of decisions/cases/patients that have been discussed here as examples. She is the one usually who has to sit down with the patient's families (with or without a doctor also), and must discuss the options, and/or the patient's wishes. Many patients have a DNR order (Do Not Rescusitate order), however, there are usually patient's families who do not want this followed. They hide the DNR from medical personel, and/or don't tell them about it, or go through legal means to get it disallowed. There is a certain amount of legal leeway here in Ontario where the family has trumping status over what the patient may have themselves put to paper - organ donation is one example where the family can potentially disallow something that the patient has put their signature too.

Where I'm going with this is that what we see is that it's not necessarily the majority of patients who are putting the strain on the medical system, both in the U.S. and in Canada. It's actually the patients' families - they just can't bear to let go. It's extremely frustrating for my wife when she comes home from a day at work, where a 53-year-old woman, who is the daughter of an 80-year-old lady dying of multiple types of cancer, decides it is within her reason to call my wife and the other medical staff every last derogatory name in the book because my wife is trying to follow the dying woman's wishes. She gets situations like this all the time - the family can't bear the thought of what's happening, and have refused to deal with this reality even though they knew it was coming for say 6 months or so. They're upset that they don't have more time. And, in their selfish self-loathing pity and arrogance, they demand that more be done than should be, and put the patient through more agonizing time and extended care, when all they can do is blink and maybe nod, and not live productively or even comfortably. These are the kind of people that just don't get it.

Now, neither of us are really pro- when it comes to putting a timeline on what should/shouldn't be done based on age, etc. But there should be more of a limit put in place when patients' families (and sometimes patient's themselves) are making ridiculous demands and have excessive expectations about what can/should/could be done. Sometimes, you just need to give someone a good shot of Demerol or hydromorphone (maybe a rum and coke with a nice Cuban cigar, too), and talk about the good times as you let them feel comfortable in their passing.

Some people are just so self-loathing and arrogant, that they truely miss the opportunity to just be grateful in having the time to say their goodbyes.

[Frankiarmz]

This is a good discussion. My wife, Mrs. Canucksartech, is an R.N. here in Ontario (Registered Nurse, for those that may not be sure of the acronym). As such, she is a charge nurse on a floor in our local hospital, the floor being Rehab/Continuing Care. With this, she has patients that run the gamut from being a 16 year-old girl that was injured in a car accident and needs to rehab her broken leg (but that doesn't require being in ICU or the Medical/Surgical wing anymore), to a 50 year-old stroke patient that came straight up from Emerg for continuing care, to a 93 year-old paliative patient that needs more detailed "end-of-life care" that is more than a nursing/retirement home can provide, to help make them more comfortable in their passing. Now, my wife is two years younger than me (she's 28 years old), with 6 years seniority in her position. She's very unique in that she's quite young to be a full-time nurse in a charge position in the field that she's in - the norm here in Ontario is for a nurse to have roughly 6 to 8 years of part-time experience before a hospital will even look twice about hiring you full time for a charge position. She just lucked out - the stars were aligned. It may also help that she also does some emergency work in what she and I do with our regional Search & Rescue unit (she, obviously, is an RN, and I'm a Medical First Responder, similar to EMT in some U.S. states).

All that said, she also looks fairly young even for her age, and is quite frequently referred to as the "girly". She gets lots of, "What school are you a student in?", "When do you get done school?", and "Can I see your ID for this rum & coke, Miss?" Now, none of that actually bothers her - I'm just leading to somewhere with it (a long trip, I know).

She quite frequently deals with these sorts of decisions/cases/patients that have been discussed here as examples. She is the one usually who has to sit down with the patient's families (with or without a doctor also), and must discuss the options, and/or the patient's wishes. Many patients have a DNR order (Do Not Rescusitate order), however, there are usually patient's families who do not want this followed. They hide the DNR from medical personel, and/or don't tell them about it, or go through legal means to get it disallowed. There is a certain amount of legal leeway here in Ontario where the family has trumping status over what the patient may have themselves put to paper - organ donation is one example where the family can potentially disallow something that the patient has put their signature too.

Where I'm going with this is that what we see is that it's not necessarily the majority of patients who are putting the strain on the medical system, both in the U.S. and in Canada. It's actually the patients' families - they just can't bear to let go. It's extremely frustrating for my wife when she comes home from a day at work, where a 53-year-old woman, who is the daughter of an 80-year-old lady dying of multiple types of cancer, decides it is within her reason to call my wife and the other medical staff every last derogatory name in the book because my wife is trying to follow the dying woman's wishes. She gets situations like this all the time - the family can't bear the thought of what's happening, and have refused to deal with this reality even though they knew it was coming for say 6 months or so. They're upset that they don't have more time. And, in their selfish self-loathing pity and arrogance, they demand that more be done than should be, and put the patient through more agonizing time and extended care, when all they can do is blink and maybe nod, and not live productively or even comfortably. These are the kind of people that just don't get it.

Now, neither of us are really pro- when it comes to putting a timeline on what should/shouldn't be done based on age, etc. But there should be more of a limit put in place when patients' families (and sometimes patient's themselves) are making ridiculous demands and have excessive expectations about what can/should/could be done. Sometimes, you just need to give someone a good shot of Demerol or hydromorphone (maybe a rum and coke with a nice Cuban cigar, too), and talk about the good times as you let them feel comfortable in their passing.

Some people are just so self-loathing and arrogant, that they truely miss the opportunity to just be grateful in having the time to say their goodbyes.

Wow, I assumed you were an old fart like me! Young man with a young wife, God Bless You! Good post and very insightful. Some people must learn how to die as well as live, and there in lies part of the problem. I had a daughter who died of infantile progressive spinal muscular atrophy, no treatment or cure. I did not want her to suffer through medical procedures because there was no chance she would survive and live anyway. I've had many surgeries and they are frightening and painful. Why put someone who is terminally ill or very old, frail and unable to decide for themself through such torture? I agree that just because we can extend someone's life does not mean we necessarily should.

[Drip Trip]

...
Some people are just so self-loathing and arrogant, that they truely miss the opportunity to just be grateful in having the time to say their goodbyes.I get it all the time because of "Right to Die" stance. I tell them that we are not gods. We are very mortal. Humans know that death is the final outcome of life from the first pet that dies under our care. Our society does not shrink from showing/discussing death in all the medias.

Given that, why does the spouse/child/guardian keep the corpse alive? In many cases, its money: Retirement benefits that expire when the corpse is buried. In the case of my bro-in-law, he was receiving 4k a month while dying due to some policies he had and social security benefits. My sister was probably netting 3k because he had great insurance plus military health benefits. She would never admit this and nobody would bring it up, but there you are. He lived almost 2 years past his expiration date and it was a miserable experience for a vital man.

He is the reason I protect my own corpse from scavengers. I ain't going to be a cash corpse for nobody.

[canucksartech]

Wow, I assumed you were an old fart like me! Young man with a young wife, God Bless You! Good post and very insightful.

Old fart??!! Frankie, you're not an old fart, you're just a crotchety, miserable, uptight, grouchy SOB....wait a minute....is that better or worse? :D :rolleyes: ;)

Nah, I've just lived many experiences (from general contracting, to private escort security, to management, to policing/SAR/military, to international relief and poverty missions), and have always been told I'm mature for my years and have "an old soul". Like my wife, I've beared witness to way too many people passing in front of me to not have an opinion on it. The one good thing is that we get along smashingly in our marriage, in that there's lots of black humour to be had in our house. :cool: