Why Our Healthcare System Won't Be Improving Anytime Soon

[turbinetree]

We Spend Billions of Dollars Advancing Medicine But Deny Care to Millions of People

By Vic Simon

Looking at the balance of forces improving healthcare against those making it harder to get, it’s clear needed care will reach fewer people in the next three to five years. And, most of the new roadblocks to getting care come from Trump, his Department of Health and Human Services and congressional Republicans.

Already, obstacles to care are growing faster than opportunities. There’s no real chance to turn these trends around sooner than three years at the earliest.

There’s a huge tug of war in U.S. healthcare between forces pulling it up and pulling it down. On the “up” side, there are many efforts and investments to expand and improve care. Drug companies and medical device makers, backed by researchers in universities, the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere, make advances every day. Some strides are revolutionary, like immunotherapy for many cancers. Hospitals, doctors, insurance companies and government agencies run thousands of programs for health education, disease management, preventive care, smoking cessation, counseling and much more.

https://www.dcreport.org/2018/05/11/why-our-healthcare-system-wont-be-improving-anytime-soon/


And in Louisiana the republican controlled legislature is getting ready to throw 97,000 elderly human beings out into the streets, because the lawmakers haven't replaced a temporary tax on the services

[beachbum bob]

1. in louisana, when the republicans do this, it opens up lots of opportunities for democrats to win

all those old folks have relatives

[Hoyt]

2. It's disgusting government is putting residents and families through this scare; however

there are plenty of options.

Appears this in kind of a Louisiana's version of fed's Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that was slated for the chopping block for over 6 months. Congress finally extended it well into the future when it came down to the deadline.

This is what a CNN article says:

"Changes to the Medicaid system, however, will not happen overnight.

"The state would have to get approval from federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and nursing homes residents can appeal the state's request, Tucker said. If the state's request is approved, the state would have create plan to relocate Medicaid recipients.
Some nursing homes are hoping for the best.

"We've been knowing about this, but now it's real and it's not about the letter, it's about the faces of real people who we've been serving for years and years," Sister Ann Lacour of Chateau de Notre Dame, a New Orleans faith-based retirement community, told CNN affiliate WVUE.

She added: "Hopefully we won't have to work with it because our Legislature will find a solution to answer this."


Again, it's a shame legislators put people -- whose lives are tough enough -- through this junk. And, you never know nowadays. The legislature might screw up and come up with a last minute resolution, or the feds might give approval to ending the programs.