The Death Lottery

[Skeptic Ginger]

I am not yet convinced that this is the best of all possible solutions, but I am heartily convinced that we, as a nation, should have a rational discussion about the issue you raise. Of course, this approach will be impossible because as soon as a politician suggests even talking abut it, political commentators such as Limbaugh, Beck, and O'Reilly will scream, "DEATH PANELS!!11!! OMG, THE NAZI LEFT WANTS TO KILL GRANDMA!!!111!!!"

It's already happened:

Today, 1-5-11; Return of the "Death Panel" Myth is a "Travesty," Says Dr. Atul Gawande

Even before the repeal vote takes place, Republicans can lay claim to a key victory in the healthcare battle. This week the Obama administration said it would reverse a regulation that would have covered end-of-life planning for Medicare beneficiaries during their annual checkups after Republicans revived the specter of so-called "death panels." We spend the hour with one of the most influential health policy writers in the country, renowned surgeon and author Dr. Atul Gawande. ...

...Dr. Atul Gawande, associate professor at Harvard School of Public Health and is a practicing surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He’s also a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. He is the author of three books; the most recent is The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right.

Either Obama is as gutless as he has recently appeared, (maybe he's being extorted by a threat to defund it anyway), or he's very wise and he's expecting physicians to rebel against this reversal and generate news coverage of the actual law instead of the news media echoing the Repub campaign slogan that a death panel has anything to do with it.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Ur doin it wrong.

Four years ago my mother and I bought a house together, but it's in my name although she paid a quarter of the purchase price. (Solicitor's advice because mother was 90 when we bought the house, and I have no siblings.)

She brings around £13,000 p.a. income to the household budget.

Works for us!

Rolfe.

ETA: The first line not directed to The Don, as I didn't see his post before posting. I heartily approve of his take on this.

In the US one can own a house as "tenants in common with right of survivorship". It sounds like something similar.

 

[Meadmaker]

I won!

Well....it doesn't really feel like winning.

When I wrote this thread originally, my mother was a nurse in a nursing home. Three months ago, she became a resident. Last week, she joined her ancestors.

It's not a tragedy. She was 97. She had a really good life, and it was her time to go.

We, her kids, were so incredibly fortunate. She held a job until she was 88 years old. She lived in her own home for nine more years. She had health issues for all of that time, gradually getting worse, as is usual. However, it was only in July that they got bad enough that she couldn't care for herself. She went into a nursing home, and shortly after that into hospice care, and then it was over. Time to roll the credits.

My brother was in charge of her finances for about the last year, and he assured us that we didn't have to worry. She had plenty of money to cover the nursing home costs. However, I didn't know how much.

It's not enough to be rich. It's not enough to retire on. It's enough to notice, though. My share is several months of my salary. When you work until you're 88 and only stop because you can't do it anymore, it also turns out you can't do a lot of other things, so you don't spend a lot of money.

We were just so fortunate that we didn't have to worry about how we would pay for good care for her. She really was getting good care. Every family should be so lucky.

She still hated it, though. She wanted to go home. She wanted to die at home. It just wan't possible, though. If we had left her alone at home any longer, we feared we could be charged with elder neglect, so nursing home it was.