Is National Health Care going to kill us, the elderly?

In Europe the talk about in the medical field is to allow the elderly to die because of the cost involved to keep them alive. Is that the price for national health care?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jht...

My Apologies to all if you misunderstood my location. But this scares me as a USA citizen. I am very much interested as to what takes place in Europe, because in time, it will creep here into the USA. I don't want for my wife and I to be denied health care services on account of age.

I have seen this posted before in another format. I can only answer your question in my humble opinion. A retired Nurse who dealt with the complexity of finding care and providers of that care for the elderly and for the infirm caused incredible burnout in our professions. AT NO TIME were patients considered expendable. I hurt for your nation and its peoples if this occurs. Stand up and fight. If not for yourself then those you love as all will become victims of this atrocity. Good luck to you and those that keep this issue in the forefront.

I seriously doubt that. I know that a lot of people in this country are dying right now, of all ages, because we do not have a national health care system, which is really the only thing that is going to work in turning this mess we have for a health care system in this country around.

Sounds like survival of the fitness to me.

Does anybody remember that Charleston Heston movie, the Soilent Green? That is what is going to happen to the elderly and I am one of them.

What's Medicare/Medicaid, if not socialized medicine under another name. I also feel I've gotten excellent care, since retirement. When my wife worked for a hospital and we both had union insurance, the care was nothing to bragg about.

National health care will kill alot of people besides just seniors, ask any Canadian. Why do you think they come to the United States to get treatment? What free trade will the government be taking over next comrade?

So far it's just for the young.....what do you think?

If it keeps going in the direction that is currently going in then yes I do believe it will.

I totally agree in those situations people become number and doctors do not care.I have a Friend in the UK with severe epilepsy and anxiety disorders.Really if you were having seizures that could kill you as hers are so bad who wouldn't have anxiety? They put her on a six month waiting list and when she tryed to talk to her GP she said the epilepsy wasn't her problem as she wasn't a specialist.My freind is 24 years old and afraid they will let her die because her care is so exspensive.Its very sad .Shes a wonderful girl but cant work and is scared out of her wits.She really suffering and the put her on a 6 month waiting list. We are talking about a persons life.

Already many doctors in the States are far more likely to be less aggressive in treating the elderly than they would a younger person. I looked after both my parents. My mother died a decade ago, but my father is 88 and several years ago when he clearly had heart problems if I had not pushed the doctors to do the right tests to diagnose it, they would not have bothered. Then it turned out he needed an ICD and the one in the group who did that procedure was quite reluctant to do it because "he's old. How long's he supposed to live?" I said, As long as God says. That was well over 5 years ago and my father is MORE active than many in their 40s--and there would have been no lip about an ICD for a 40-year-old.

So yes, when the rationing (DIE you are NOT worth keeping alive!) kicks into full gear, then the elderly and the disabled are ALWAYS first on the list to die.

Oh and here's a little something else:
The NHS, the oldest system, is in Britain:
"鈥淪taff are being laid off, and deficits are at an all time high (拢1.07bn for 2005-2006)鈥?(Hazel Blears, Labour Party Chair and Minister Without Portfolio, labourachievements.blogspot.com/2006/08/...
In the National Review Online article, Coburn & Herzlinger state 鈥渕ore than 20,000 Brits would not have died from cancer in the U.S.鈥?Just recently Alex Smallwood of the BMA (British Medical Association) was quoted in the Scotsman as saying: 鈥溾€橰ationing is reduction in choice. Rationing has become a necessary evil. We need to formalise rationing to prevent an unregulated, widening, postcode-lottery of care. Government no longer has a choice.鈥欌€?(Moss, 鈥淣HS rationing is 鈥榥ecessary evil,鈥?says doctors,鈥?26 June 2007).
And guess who DOES get rationed?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/322333...
"Elderly women are still being denied potentially life-saving surgery for breast cancer because of their age."

AND
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jht...
"Elderly sell homes to cover care bills"
"Its research comes after it emerged that most pensioners forced to sell their houses to cover care home bills are charged more than fellow residents paid for by the council.

And some residents pay up to 拢30,000 a year without being told what they are getting for their money.

The inquiry, by the Commission for Social Care Inspection, published last month provided the strongest evidence yet that the property-owning middle classes suffer worst financially when they go into a care home."

That's right, take Gran's home! And the British are still civilized--can't say that about all countries by a long shot. The kooky American pols who promise cradle-to-grave FREE care (like the evil HR 676) pretend that we can afford it--yet THIS is the result without question. It is inevitable.

And, to return to the US, it is GUARANTEED we'd get the same results because IT HAPPENS NOW:

"Yet thousands of policyholders say they have received only excuses about why insurers will not pay. Interviews by The New York Times and confidential depositions indicate that some long-term-care insurers have developed procedures that make it difficult 鈥?if not impossible 鈥?for policyholders to get paid. A review of more than 400 of the thousands of grievances and lawsuits filed in recent years shows elderly policyholders confronting unnecessary delays and overwhelming bureaucracies. In California alone, nearly one in every four long-term-care claims was denied in 2005, according to the state.

鈥淭he bottom line is that insurance companies make money when they don鈥檛 pay claims,鈥?said Mary Beth Senkewicz, who resigned last year as a senior executive at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. 鈥淭hey鈥檒l do anything to avoid paying, because if they wait long enough, they know the policyholders will die.鈥?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/busine...

People need to wake up to reality instead of living in the fantasyland where they think the media shoots it to them straight, that politicians give a damn, or that they understand what their insurance policy MUST do because ROUTINELY insurance VIOLATES contract law and antitrust law with impunity.

That's why we need something that allows for a TRUE free market and a sensible approach to health insurance--from those ON government programs to those who would PAY THEIR OWN WAY to get catastrophic coverage:
http://www.booklocker.com/books/3068.htm...
Read the PDF, not the blurb, for the bulk of the plan. Book is searchable on Amazon.com
Cassandra Nathan's Save America, Save the World

I plan on going to Alaska in a few years and live with the eskimoes -- when the time comes I'll get my own personal ice floe and that will be that.

That's great Snuffy, but I doubt there will be any ICE FLOWS left by then. good luck to you. Hope you can tread water for a long time.
If you have insurance, the insurance company' tell you it is experimental and they are not going to pay for it. But they do take your jpayments every month.
If you don't have insurance you are just out of luck. If you have ANY money, they will take it all away from you to pay the bills you owe for the medical treatments that you receive, then you will have to file bankruptcy, then you will have no place to live, and be a bag lady on the street. then you will die as you have no food to eat, no place to live .
If you don't get SS yet see above.
If you have SS, it will still bankrupt you as Medicare is so expensive, that you can bearly afford your rent, and food and living expenses now to begin with.
If you have money, you have insurance, if they deny your claim, you just pay for it yourself. And you don't really care about anyone except yourself anyway.
Life Sucks and then you DIE!!!!

Depends.

When we get National Health Service, there'll be a two tiered system. Got money, get the care you need when you need it. No money, get whatever they'll let you have, when they'll let you have it. Except for congress and elected officials. They'll get the care they need when they need it, all free, just like now.

Isn't that the way it always is?

We are on S.S and we have very good medical care and I just had surgery and complications from the wound and I haven't paid any out of pocket for my care. What more could I want? and I have one of the very best surgeons in the area.

Not if you live where I live, In Canada. Even our prescriptions, if we get some, are only a fraction of what non-seniors pay. My prescription cost me $4.OO last week. Visiting a Doctor is free and my husband just had a pace-maker put in, and it didn't cost us a penny.

I feel for those in the U.S. who have to have pace-makers put in or some other big operation, and either cannot have the procedure or go bankrupt if they do.

Added note after reading some answers. I am 76 and my husband is 80. I am really appalled at the answer, that mentioned the Doctors attitude towards his 80 year old father.