5 ms·
As a counterpoint, though, is the very idea of running a business providing end-of-life care evil? It’s not like there’s a government program you can use.
by emodendroket 3y ago
As a counterpoint, though, is the very idea of running a business providing end-of-life care evil? It’s not like there’s a government program you can use.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- missedthecue 3y agoThe traditional providers of end-of-life care for most of history were called your own children. This has changed over the last 75 years or so and now people are upset that the cost of providing messy, high stress, praiseless, 24/7 work costs a lot of money.
- emodendroket 3y agoYeah and failing that you were just destitute. Let's not act like that always worked out so great or is a serious solution for today's problems.
- missedthecue 3y agoIt's not the solution necessarily but income equals expenditure. They're one and the same. People need to stop pretending that the true cost of hospice care is much cheaper than what's charged today. Look at what non-profits charge. It's still eye watering sums, and not much different than investor owned hospice care quotes. Your greatest hint into the fact that end of life care genuinely costs a lot is that LTC insurers keep going bankrupt. Insurance companies don't like going bankrupt.
- jjeaff 3y agoIt doesn't cost nearly as much as they charge though. Otherwise, private equity wouldn't be getting involved.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- missedthecue 3y agoLook up the prices charged by non-profit hospice care. It's not much different from investor owned hospice care.
- simfree 3y agoBut is the staffing and standard of care different? Do the patients of investor owned hospices suffer with a higher incidence of bed sores? Do they suffer longer?
- emodendroket 3y agoThe article suggests the nonprofits are getting sicker patients the for-profits don't want to take.
- forgetfreeman 3y agoAccurate, and it does nothing to address the central issue, namely someone is making a fucking killing off of individuals at their most vulnerable.
- missedthecue 3y agoUnless they are defrauding these people, I don't see the issue in profits off of hospice. Hospice availability is a huge issue. The only thing worse than paying a lot for hospice is not getting hospice because there are no vacancies. If the profit incentive to run a nursing home or palliative care facility were eliminated, supply would fall through the floor creating a bigger issue than someone having the gall to earn money. And supply would fall because no one is doing this sort of work out of the goodness of their own hearts, unless they are religious. And there are quite a few religious facilities out there but the numbers are dwindling.
- 3y ago
- FranzFerdiNaN 3y agoI don’t think history supports this thesis. Most children went away to the cities or other countries or even other continents. Maybe if you where one of the fewer and fewer people who still had a farm you might have one child taking it over, but if you were born in a city then that’s obviously not possible. I guess it might be possible you moved to where one of your children lived, if you even knew where they ended up.
- Sankozi 3y agoYou are describing last 100 years of US history and it is not "most of the history". What you are describing was still not prevalent through the world like 50 years ago.
- dukeyukey 3y agoThis is very very recent North America-and-other-settler-colony history. Even today, most Americans live within 20 miles of their parents. Most people don't live in different settlements to their parents, let alone cities, let alone countries, _let alone_ continents.
- emodendroket 3y agoAnd yet we still have hospice care. It is almost like just saying your adult children should take care of it isn’t an adequate solution.
- mrguyorama 3y agoMost of the "solutions" in history were to just let unfortunate people suffer and look away while they cry out.
- pyuser583 3y agoFirst line for elder care was, and still is, spouses. Usually one needs care before the other.
- shreyshnaccount 3y agoAnd perhaps more importantly community.
- justin66 3y ago> As a counterpoint, though, is the very idea of running a business providing end-of-life care evil? It’s not like there’s a government program you can use. The distinction between a for-profit business and a nonprofit is relevant here.
- emodendroket 3y agoI guess so, though my own experience in the nonprofit sector has made me a little skeptical of how big the difference really is in many cases. In many instances I feel nonprofits end up acting like cat's paws for their donors. May not apply to hospice care.
- justin66 3y agoThe nonprofit hospice I - and a few people I know - have dealt with a few times over the years has an excellent reputation and lives up to it. I'm not familiar with all their operations, obviously, but I don't think it could even function as a branch of a large for-profit corporation, let alone as part of the government. > In many instances I feel nonprofits end up acting like cat's paws for their donors. May not apply to hospice care. There are ways I could see a hospice service getting fucked up in that way, by influence wielded by its donors (if a large amount of donations came from a single religious sect that wanted to impose its ways on end of life care, or something) but the difference is that I'd view a large for-profit corporation fucking it up as inevitable. The use of a benefit corporation might help with that, possibly, with the right leadership.
- Pigalowda 3y agoNot that relevant. Nonprofit healthcare is simply a tax structure.