Study: Boomers to Flood Medical System

[RedEarth]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON (AP) - Millions of baby boomers are about to enter a health care system for seniors that not only isn't ready for them, but may even discourage them from getting quality care.

"We face an impending crisis as the growing number of older patients, who are living longer with more complex health needs, increasingly outpaces the number of health care providers with the knowledge and skills to care for them capably," said John W. Rowe, professor of health policy and management at Columbia University

,,,,,,,

The study said Medicare may even hinder seniors from getting the best care because of its low reimbursement rates, a focus on treating short-term health problems rather than managing chronic conditions and lack of coverage for preventive services or for health care providers' time spent collaborating with a patient's other providers.

"This July, the government will begin steep cuts in Medicare physician payments, and 60 percent of physicians say this cut will force them to limit the number of new Medicare patients they can treat," the AMA said in a statement.

Read more: http://apnews.myway.com//article/20080414/D901THPG2.html

[zanne]

I DIDN'T ASK TO BE BORN!

Sorry. I've been wanting to say that for a long time.

[raccoon]

19. Me either! Thank you for that post. Nt

[ccharles000]

1. ...

The boomer's are ruining everything for us millennials. The environment, health care and social security.

[Buns_of_Fire]

5. I wouldn't worry too much about it...

At this rate, we're not going to live long enough to be much of a burden on anything. Heck, the world's supposed to come to an end (December 21, 2012) about a month before I'm eligible for Social Security, anyway. (Dammit.)

It's the end of the world as we know it / And I feel fine... :party:

[Faygo Kid]

11. Perhaps we ought to die, and decrease the surplus population.

You're a little young for this crap, aren't you?

[MindPilot]

2. See, they tried to make us all healthy.

We were the generation that got conned into eating right, wearing bike helmets, quiting smoking, becoming vegetarian, working out, laying off the booze, having safe sex, driving crashproof cars, consuming salads instead of burgers, granola instead of candy, and now look. We've lived too damn long and are going to clog up the healthcare system.

Fuck it. I'm going to drive fast while sucking on the bong, getting my wang squeezed and try not to spill my drink. (with apologies to PJ O'Rourke)

[Buns_of_Fire]

12. "So, Doctor, if I quit smoking, drinking, and consorting with women of questionable virtue...

I'll live forever?"

Doctor: "No, my son, but it'll feel like it."

*barrrrrump* *tsssssh*

[Warpy]

3. Study: the government failed to plan, AGAIN

When we older boomers entered school, class sizes were often forty to fifty students crammed into a room. There weren't enough seats or books, let alone teachers or classrooms. I was into the fifth grade before class size started to decline. Nobody anticipated the flood of new kids into schools.

When we got to college, and especially if we were female, we had to outscore everybody else just to get in. Scholarships were restricted and there were no large scale student loans. If we were on our own, it was night classes or we were SOL. Forget about majoring in the sciences, labs were always during working hours. The university infrastructure just wasn't there because nobody had anticipated we might want educations.

When we got to the workforce, we were just in time for the waning power of unions, the wholesale offshoring of good manufacturing jobs, and the massive decline in real wages that began in 1969 when liberals went out of power for at least the next 40 years. The good jobs weren't there because nobody anticipated we might need work and wages weren't there because nobody anticipated we might want homes and families.

Now we're told we're going to put a terrible strain on the health care system because nobody has bothered to provide incentives for health care education and building infrastructure because nobody anticipated we'd get sick as we get older. At the same time, insurance companies are stiffing us all on the care they promised.

Well, whose fault is that, ours or a government that has ignored us too long, preferring to grab bribes from men whose whole purpose in life has been to cheat us?

These articles about how we are the end of the world as yuppies have known it simply because our parents produced us all at the same time are getting beyond tiring.

Why the hell don't these people put effort into outing our do nothing politicians and work to get them defeated so that something can be done, at long last? Such is the power of the press, power they are seemingly terrified to use.

To hell with the lot of them and the corporations they rode in on.

[BonnieJW]

6. I'm with you Warpy.

I went to school on double session from the time I was in the sixth grade. By the time I was in high school in Tucson and living in the foothills, I had to get up at 4:30 AM to catch a bus at 5:00 AM to be at school at 6 AM and got out at 12:30. As a senior, I got a part time job in the afternoon until 5 PM, got home, at dinner and fell into bed at 8 PM. There were 5700 kids in my school and 800 in my graduating class, half of whom I had never met because they were on the PM session. The schools never caught up to the kids.

They tried to eliminate some of us through the draft and the Viet Nam War, but not enough were killed off I guess.

[alfredo]

9. Some did try to help but the Reps want it to fail so they can privatize SSI.

[MindPilot]

10. Gosh, Warpy, you sound just a little bit...ummm...

BITTER.

Good rant. :applause:

[slackmaster]

14. Yup, I've been part of the "bulge in the snake" all my life

In my first grade class there were FOUR other boys who had the same first name as I, out of a class of 45.

The schools I attended were ALWAYS packed to the brim, using temporary classrooms (known as bungalows to us at the time).

There have ALWAYS been a lot of competitors in the job market, from the time I finished college on. At least some of us are actually starting to retire now, just in time for me to feel the pinch of age discrimination.

[enlightenment]

16. Because it's a hell of a lot quicker to suggest that it's all

our fault and if we want to make it right we'll go find that rapidly melting ice floe RIGHT NOW and stop clogging up the system.

As far as I'm concerned, our biggest mistake was raising our children to think we owe them something. We didn't drown them at birth - what more do they want? :sarcasm:

[area51]

18. Great post, Warpy.

:thumbsup: :applause:

[Hannah Bell]

4. More fear-mongering, calibrated to drive wedges between people.

Like the Social Security story, which is a lie from start to finish.

Like the food shortage story, also a lie.

You're being conned, the better to drive you into the preexisting "solutions" planned for you.

Capitalism produces more than any previously existing economic form, but must continually generate scarcity to maintain control.

If we choose to have more medicine, obviously we could. Particularly in medicine, where so much of what's required is pure knowledge/education, rather than physical resources.

[pattmarty]

7. So at 65 I'll HAVE Medicare, but I just won't have a doctor to treat me.

[alfredo]

8. I decided to go with the VA. It has saved me thousands so far.

[onyourleft]

13. As if...

...the country (government) didn't know about this baby boom 60 years ago? Please, just another failure to plan ahead for the inevitable. Another "We couldn't have foreseen..." moment.

Also, anyone besides me remember when medical schools slashed the number of incoming students because "we had too many doctors?"

[slackmaster]

15. Oh, they banked on it

Knowing full well they would have a swelling of working-class people to pump up the Social Security coffers for the benefit of the "Greatest Generation" (but not a thought as to what would happen after that).

[Submariner]

17. An extinction-event asteroid will probably the SS office when I go to

pick up my first check. So y'all got about 4 years left before my Karma does you in.