Re:Frail Older Patients Struggle After Even Minor Operations
by lotsofpulp on Monday December 16, 2019 @01:37PM
(#21805676)
I also support taxpayer funded healthcare, but I realize that taking care of each and every old person in nursing homes and keeping them alive as long as possible would consume a disproportionate fraction of the nation's resources, especially in a population with fewer and fewer children.
And the people triaging at insurance companies are doctors and pharmacists themselves. A doctor not employed by insurance companies is also a "businessman", considering they get paid more the more they treat. No one is exempt from conflicts of interest, but since US voters didn't want "death panels", they get to deal with prior authorizations.
It's the same function done by the NHS or government in any other country.
I'm generally against doing procedures that won't really add life to folks - especially weeks. Years, though? That's years. Folks can be frail yet able-minded and so on. It doesn't really matter to me if someone needs to have some assistance to live, regardless of age.
Triaging criteria already exist. It is really a shame that insurance companies and businessmen have their hands in it instead of doctors. But I don't mind these criteria: They are, in general, for emergency situations instead of, say, routine gall bladder surgery.