August 12th, 2009
I’m just asking: Do you have a “DNR” on file with your doctor, lawyer, spouse, nursing home, kids, safety deposit box? I do. Ditto with a “living will” and medical power of attorney.
Did them together after important conversations with my doctors, my spouse and son, my sister (a registered nurse), and, yes, after prayers. I update it periodically to ensure the right folks have the most recent information. I want to be absolutely sure that if I am not able to make health care decisions myself that those who WILL make them respect my wishes — and that includes the “do not resuscitate” and “no heroic measures” language that allows my family and my doctors to “pull the plug” when it’s time.
Anyone who has ever been swept up in the family nightmare of deciding — without those legal documents — whether to keep a loved one on a ventilator would give their collective left arms not to ever have to endure that dysfunction again.
And, yet, here we are in the debacle discussion of health care reform hearing so-called smart people say providing for and paying for those discussions and decisions NOW, not when I’m on the darned ventilator, is wrong?
I do not get it.
August 12th, 2009
What do immigration, Social Security and health care reform have in common with the almost-forgotten Equal Rights Amendment? They’re all critical issues this country must wrestle with and resolve smartly, and they are all critical issues co-opted by the loud, hostile, abusive creature known as Anonymous.
The Equal Rights Amendment died on one dumb Anonymous claim: We will have unisex bathrooms everywhere.
Anonymous plays to our fears. Anonymous tells us Grandma is headed for the gutter right before she’s put down like a kitty. Anonymous swears he knows all the inside facts. Anonymous derails constructive, compassionate, smart discussion that could actually make our health care system a global model.
I’m sick of Anonymous. I’m weary of the rabble-rousing, self-serving, disingenuous politicians, pontificators, insurance industry, conspiracy theorists — the whole lot of them — who have co-opted the health care discussion.
And, I made this commitment as editor of the Rockford Register Star: We will use HealthyRockford.com to explain the mess, to separate fact from fiction, to offer credibile sources. You have two choices: listen to the rabble or research the facts. If you want the facts, if you want to make educated decisions and not just repeat the spewings of Anonymous, bookmark our special report.
I have decent-but-not-great health insurance coverage, awful dental insurance and good-enough vision. And, it’s costing an arm and a leg. I get whatever my company or my husband’s company offers; very limited or no choices. I have to pick docs the insurance company approves. And, my family physician must coordinate all care or it doesn’t get paid. What’s the difference between all that and most of the reform proposals on the table?
