Friday, February 3, 2012

Nursing care costs are unsustainable


Allow me to put a face on the medical care crisis facing this country. I'll never forget the first words of a Blaine Manor resident who had stage IV lung cancer, for whom the doctors now could only prescribe "comfort measures." She had never smoked a cigarette in her life.

"Do you know why I'm here?" she asked. I was taken aback by her frank and obvious need to communicate her reason for being in Blaine Manor, the only 24/7 skilled-nursing-home facility in the Wood River Valley.

As the activity coordinator, I am apprised of the condition of new admissions and intended only to ask state-mandated questions pertaining to her interests in activities of daily living, which usually bore or irritate the interviewee. But, she beat me to the first question, and before her death six months later, her residence at Blaine Manor revealed a personal and national problem that no politician, doctor, nurse, pharmacist, insurance executive, caregiver or bus driver seems to have an answer for.

In order for this resident to live out her remaining days in an "end-of-life" facility, she had to reverse mortgage her home (where her 92-year-old mother was still living with the 24/7 vigilance and care of a nephew), petition Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance, and benefit from a Blaine County levy, which comes to an end this August.

The cost for her six-month stay was beyond what millions of Americans make a year. It definitely exceeded her highest yearly income after 40 years of working as a secretary. Had she survived an entire year, her cost would have been above the yearly national average of 24/7 skilled nursing care—$83,000. An amount, I'm guessing, higher than what 80 percent of Americans make a year in wages.

"Do you know why I'm here?"

I'm here to ask everyone who says nothing can be done to change this unsustainable model of health care a simple question: "Is it in our national interest to bankrupt people so they can die in a nursing home bed?"—a bed that has no rails because the state mandates that a resident has "the right to fall"!

Michael Ayers

Activity coordinator

Blaine Manor




About Comments

Comments with content that seeks to incite or inflame may be removed.

Comments that are in ALL CAPS may be removed.

Comments that are off-topic or that include profanity or personal attacks, libelous or other inappropriate material may be removed from the site. Entries that are unsigned or contain signatures by someone other than the actual author may be removed. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or any other policies governing this site. Use of this system denotes full acceptance of these conditions. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

The comments below are from the readers of mtexpress.com and in no way represent the views of Express Publishing, Inc.

You may flag individual comments. You may also report an inappropriate or offensive comment by clicking here.

Flagging Comments: Flagging a comment tells a site administrator that a comment is inappropriate. You can find the flag option by pointing the mouse over the comment and clicking the 'Flag' link.

Flagging a comment is only counted once per person, and you won't need to do it multiple times.

Proper Flagging Guidelines: Every site has a different commenting policy - be sure to review the policy for this site before flagging comments. In general these types of comments should be flagged:

  • Spam
  • Ones violating this site's commenting policy
  • Clearly unrelated
  • Personal attacks on others
Comments should not be flagged for:
  • Disagreeing with the content
  • Being in a dispute with the commenter

Popular Comment Threads



 Local Weather 
Search archives:


Copyright © 2024 Express Publishing Inc.   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.