After a few days away, I’m playing catch-up again. So I have a few blog entries to refer people to. There is some excellent writing happening in our community.
First up is a post by Chris Hilderbrant. In the interest of full disclosure, Chris is the Director of Advocacy at the Center for Disability Rights (CDR). CDR provides material support to NDY – by providing me with an office, phone, access to internet and other important things that are essential to NDY’s work.
The latest blog entry by Chris on the CDR blog is directly relevant to NDY and should cause concern about what things are – and aren’t – being targeted as priorities in the discussions on healthcare reform. Here are excerpts from “Chairman Baucus, what’s on your political palate?“:
For three hours Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus led discussions on how to reform health care and how to pay for that reform. Single-payer health insurance advocates stood and walked out in silent protest. Others shouted to interrupt the opening remarks of Chairman Baucus (some later re-entered the room in different clothes!). Chairman Baucus pleaded with the remaining audience members to allow the hearing on healthcare reform to proceed. He indicated that he’d meet with people personally rather than have further interruptions of the hearing. As an ADAPT members with a certain prowess for interrupting bureaucratic proceedings, I had been considering a one person protest for the Community Choice Act… but, now I’ll be contacting his office to set up the meeting he promised me.
For three hours, a variety of Senators and healthcare experts discussed options. And for three hours, not one person said anything about long term services and supports (long term care, by another name).
Sadly, the closest that the hearing came to a mention of long term services and supports (LTSS) was when they engaged in a discussion of “the high cost of dying.”
Yup, the Senate, in all its gentle wisdom, is showing more interest in how much it costs for seniors and others to stay alive at the very end than they have shown in how seniors and people with disabilities live for the DECADES before we get around to dying.
There’s more. All of it worth reading. –Stephen Drake
Medicare does not cover attendant care at home. So, folks slightly over the income limit for Medicaid,
or who don’t understand what’s covered, and how, often end up in nursing homes. Several years ago, there was a statistic that the average length of stay in a nursing home was 3 months. Where did the folks go after 3 months? Died, is where. I can only attest to individuals who I know, who did not “last long” in nursing homes.
I had disabled friends who died as a result of: having MS and the doctors never looked for cancer, assuming my pal’s new symptoms were more MS (after decades of MS!). My friend got the diagnosis and died within three days.
Another friend with a severe disabling rare illness that was not supposed to be fatal, died, suddenly, perhaps from infection.
It’s not uncommon. So there’s a combination of denying treatment, as for the folks with pneumonia in the article or ignoring disabled people, or sloppy care and ( )fill in your own stories/examples.
My word to type is “dipsolia”. Makes me wonder if it’s another disabling illness. Humor goes last.