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Another day, another horror story about the American health & care system. I'm just speechless about all of that at this point and very glad the I live in Euro
by martin_a 4y ago
Another day, another horror story about the American health & care system.
I'm just speechless about all of that at this point and very glad the I live in Europe, where we have things like these figured out.
(edit: yeeeeaaaaaah, not everything is perfect in Europe, either, but nobody will be left with a bill of 150k € if your grandmother wants to die in her home.)
- newaccount2021 4y ago[dead]
- siilats 4y agoHow would you get 24h home care in Europe? Impossible
- manuelabeledo 4y agoElder care? It exists, and it's nowhere as expensive.
- lm28469 4y agoMy grandma's non medicalised public retirement house costs $2k+ per month, she's not even sick. A 24/7 _at home_ and _medical_ care will cost a fortune anywhere in the world and is never covered unless you have a very expensive private insurance to begin with
- manuelabeledo 4y agoI'm not saying it would be cheap, I said it would not be this expensive. Also, there are different healthcare systems around the world. I don't know why you would be so sure about the impossibility of at-home nursing.
- em500 4y ago24/7 care is 168hr/week, so the costs will be about 4 FTE in local salary. It's only less expensive elsewhere because wages are lower elsewhere.
- lm28469 4y ago> I don't know why you would be so sure about the impossibility of at-home nursing. Hospitals and health systems are at capacity pretty much everywhere, they can barely keep up with people in them, they won't dispatch nurses and docs around. And my example was in France, far from being hell on earth when it comes to health
- martin_a 4y agoThere is intensive care in Germany but it's mostly done in clinics. Although it seems that sometimes it seems like that can be done at home, too.
- iamflimflam1 4y agoEnd of life care on the NHS is pretty comprehensive - https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/end-of-life-care/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/end-of-life-care/ and https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/social-care-and-support-guide/money-work-and-benefits/nhs-continuing-healthcare/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/social-care-and-support-guide/... My father passed away last year and towards the end he had carers at the house 24x7.
- zabzonk 4y agowell, perhaps not. i am in the uk and am currently spending about 1000.00 GBP per month for carers to come in twice a day for half an hour each time - i have heart and mobility problems. and this is towards the cheaper end of the spectrum.
- lettergram 4y agoFor reference, we get better baseline Medicare in the US: > Currently, Medicare only covers an average of two hours per day, five days a week, of home health aide coverage for a patient in hospice care.
- phphphphp 4y agoThat's for a patient in hospice care, i.e: end of life. I believe the parent comment is describing on-going healthcare.
- martin_a 4y agoThe UK is not part of Europe. ;-) But yeah, if you've got the money to take care of yourself, you'll have to pay it. My grandparents had a low-enough income that the care takers (twice a day) were free for them.
- iamflimflam1 4y agoTake a look here as you may be able to get some help from the NHS - https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/social-care-and-support-guide/money-work-and-benefits/nhs-continuing-healthcare/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/social-care-and-support-guide/... Also, check with your local council as there's a lot of support that is not well publicised (particularly for making modifications to your home - which can lead to reduced council tax bills). Unfortunately GPs often don't seem to be aware of what is available - it could be worth talking to your local hospice (even if you aren't end of life) as they tend to be much more clued in.
- zabzonk 4y agothe last time i was in hospital, last summer, the only way of getting out was to agree to pay for home care myself - nhs-funded care was simply not available due to a chronic staff shortage. people needing care were stuck on wards for weeks - the so-called bed-blockers. i'm not complaining about the nhs here - in general the help and treatment i've received has been exemplary.
- lettergram 4y agoJust throwing it out there, in europe do they hire a full-time, round the clock nurse, plus monitors and medicine for end of life care? I seriously doubt that. That’s what this person spent on their grandmother. There’s a huge difference between “wanting to die at home” and “wanting round the clock care at home”. You can die at home for effectively free.
- manuelabeledo 4y ago> Just throwing it out there, in europe do they hire a full-time, round the clock nurse, plus monitors and medicine for end of life care? You could do that. I have seen it before, back in Spain. It is expensive, but not $13,000 a month. It would not make much sense to pay this much, when nurses themselves make, on average, a small fraction of that.
- nradov 4y agoThe median wage for a Registered Nurse in the US is around $6,400 a month. That's a large fraction of $13,000.
- em500 4y agoMaybe you forgot that you need 3 to 4 nurses to cover a 24*7=168hr week.
- manuelabeledo 4y agoThat’s not how it usually works, but if the author needed to do so, where did she find three nurses in NYC at $13,000 a month? That’s barely $15/hour.
- boringg 4y agoCan you please elaborate on how end of life care works in Europe (which country are you in?). In the US you have a lot of different options depending on financial ability and your choices. Some aren't choices, and some are. In this case the individual choose to spend an in-ordinate amount of money - their choice and they have to pay for their choice. Do you have the luxury of choosing in your country or does the government choose for you?
- phphphphp 4y ago> Do you have the luxury of choosing in your country or does the government choose for you? I'm unsure where this belief originates from, but it's not true that state provided care is the only care in countries that offer it. There's very few places on earth where money cannot be used to improve quality of care: the state guarantees provision of a minimum level of care, rather than impose a limit on the maximum.
- boringg 4y agoOntario, Canada - effectively chooses for you. You cannot go around their decisions unless you leave the country.
- Dalewyn 4y agoIf you're suggesting my taxes should pay someone's rent and practically private medical care, you've got something else coming. Watching someone pass away is never pleasant, but there are limits to public generosity.
- Waterluvian 4y agoI don’t quite agree. Universal Healthcare isn’t a blank cheque. My grandmother had a similar story in Canada. The public system wouldn’t have paid for all the advanced in-house care. It would tell her to move into a nursing home somewhere and still wouldn’t cover all of that either. She was fortunate enough to afford the constant care and was basically employing a full-time nurse. That adds up.
- koheripbal 4y agoThis comment (and many others) make me think most people are not reading the article. This isn't about someone dying at home. This article is about prolonged end-of-life 24hr care at home. OP's grandmother had a team of support people giving her medication, changing diapers, monitoring equipment for an undisclosed period of months. No where in Europe is 24hr support available for free in your own home. That simply isn't scalable. Moreover, it should be noted that none of the family was willing to do this - so they were forced hire outside care. The US healthcare system isn't great - but this article smells like spoiled rich people annoyed that they have to pay for rich-people-level service themselves.
- chaostheory 4y agoSocialized healthcare is nice, but a lot of people don’t realize how terrible the wait is. I can get an appointment to see a doctor within a day. I can usually get appointments with specialists within two weeks. As everyone knows, most of the US budget goes into defense. Most Americans are not keen on that fact, but I don’t see Europeans complaining about it when countries like Russia go on the rampage.
- hgdfhgfdhgdf 4y ago"Britain’s NHS was once idolized. Now its worst-ever crisis is fueling a boom in private health care" - article from CNN
- martin_a 4y agoGreat Britain is not part of the EU. Neither am I from the UK.
- iamflimflam1 4y agoThere are certain elements of the current Conservative government who want the NHS to be replaced by private care. Some of this is driven by ideology - low tax, small state. And some of it is driven by greed - lobbying by large US healthcare groups, or more obviously owning shares in those groups. This has led to an almost deliberate policy of mismanaging and underfunding in real terms the NHS.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago>but nobody will be left with a bill of 150k € if your grandmother wants to die in her home.) In the USA, my grandma died in my parent’s home 10 years ago and there was no bill. She was upper 90s, refused treatment, and doctors prescribed morphine for us to give her so she could die peacefully. I think a nurse came everyday just to check on things.
- throwaway6734 4y agoWhat's the long term plan for European healthcare with the current demographics issues? Who's going to pay for all the elder care?