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In the US, not even $11,000 a month can buy you dignity at the end of your life

37 点作者 howard94110 天前

13 条评论

steamrolled10 天前
I don&#x27;t want to be judgmental because I know these are extremely difficult situations with no easy answers, but what strikes me about this article is that the author blames the profit motive after what can be uncharitably viewed as taking an elderly parent and paying a third party to make the &quot;problem&quot; go away from your life.<p>This industry is driven solely by demand and there are highly-developed countries where it doesn&#x27;t exist, or doesn&#x27;t exist on this scale, simply because of different social norms and taboos.<p>What&#x27;s the outcome we&#x27;re hoping for? We&#x27;re talking elderly folks we&#x27;d rather not care for ourselves and that we don&#x27;t want to watch declining and dying, and we&#x27;re dumping them into a large-scale... well, death facility.
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pavlov10 天前
This touches upon something that Europeans generally don’t understand about Americans’ individual wealth: the very last years of your life can drain almost any retirement account.<p>I’ve often had the conversation with Finns who are envious of American 401k balances. But they fail to see the real value of a national pension system that is guaranteed to pay roughly 52% of your last salary for the rest of your life, and a healthcare system that guarantees that the expensive cancer you get won’t mean selling your house.<p>Not having to think about whether you’ll be bankrupt at 80 is a kind of freedom too.
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thatguymike10 天前
Elder care is a difficult and painful topic, and change is clearly needed. I feel like I am missing something in the article&#x27;s argument though. A quick google says that the profit margin of nursing homes is in the 5-10% range. If the profit motive is to blame for conditions, doesn&#x27;t that mean that costs could be 10% lower if nobody was making profit?<p>I guess maybe that doesn&#x27;t account for profits being made by any contractors providing medicines, food, etc, which maybe could be done more cheaply without the profit motive. But 10% just doesn&#x27;t scream &quot;evil nursing home executives getting fat off of the elderly&quot; to me.<p>It&#x27;s a labor-intensive and difficult service to provide. The article&#x27;s suggestion to professionalize care work seems right, but will increase costs. The two areas of dissatisfaction (high cost and poor quality) seem fundamentally at odds to me, are there proposals which would address them both?
TrackerFF10 天前
We got both of my grandparents into a care home, with my grandmother having advanced dementia, and my grandfather a brain injury he got after a fall while going through hip-replacement rehab. Prior to that, my aunt, uncle, and rest of the family had been more or less 100% caretakers for them. Nurses would come by 2-3 times a day to give them medicine.<p>But even as the dementia (of my grandmother) progressed, the care facility was simply too understaffed and over capacity to take them in - it took us around a year to finally find a room.<p>Luckily the care they received there was good - but my plan is the following: If I get diagnosed with dementia, I&#x27;m going to end it on my own terms. Having witnessed dementia up-close as a caregiver, and then see other dementia patients...it is not a life. The person becomes an empty shell &#x2F; husk of themselves.
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throwaway25050110 天前
Using a throwaway. Apologies.<p>My grandfather died of cancer before he was 75. I don’t know what it was, but the symptoms and his rapid decline were horrific.<p>My father died of multiple myeloma before he was 75. He was lucky not to suffer chemo, but from diagnosis to death took 14 months.<p>Now I have started observing the same symptoms which my father had at my age and have started planning ahead. I’m too cowardly to get a checkup.<p>But I’m not going to waste 90% of my retirement savings on cancer treatment, of all things. Would rather leave it for the next generation.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sallekhana" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sallekhana</a>
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legitster10 天前
I have a flippant but not unserious suggestion:<p>I had a doctor friend who put it succinctly: &quot;You <i>want</i> to die of heart failure. It&#x27;s relatively painless, it&#x27;s instant, and it&#x27;s cheap. But heart disease is so easily preventable in a controlled environment that we can drag out lives much longer than they should be lived.&quot;<p>In a nursing home, they are obsessed with low fat, low sodium, heart-healthy diets. But <i>you</i> should consider a retirement of red meats and high activity.
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rickydroll10 天前
From all I&#x27;ve read and experienced, private equity not only strips all the money from nursing home companies but also from the residents
b0dhimind10 天前
My mom plans to go overseas back to (our birthplace in Bangladesh) for assisted living... where you can have a personal servant for less than $1k. The US is just ridiculous with inflated salaries and &quot;care&quot;.
Simulacra10 天前
I don&#x27;t expect to have dignity at the end of my life, I&#x27;ve already made the decision to end it on my terms. The right to end my life is just as important to me as my right to life itself.
looofooo010 天前
For 11.000 Dollar you can hire like 3 people living with him.
umvi10 天前
&quot;you can&#x27;t buy love&quot;, as they say... Nobody will take care of loved ones as well as kin, as onerous as that may be...
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winter_blue10 天前
Why is no one starting a new care facility that isn’t as profit-driven &#x2F; greed-motivated?
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legitster10 天前
My grandmother recently transferred to a small, independent facility. For $10k a month she lives in a small house with a live-in caretaker and only two other patients. It&#x27;s much more comfortable for her than the retirement community, but nobody can figure out why it&#x27;s still so expensive.<p>The costs involved are mind-boggling. You&#x27;d think that $100k+ a year should basically buy you personal round-the-clock care in your own home. But either there are not enough people interested in the career or too many rules to make such a deal. (Heck, why can&#x27;t she just pay her own children to take care of her?)<p>Baby boomers are just now starting to enter retirement homes and think about end-of-life care. It&#x27;s bad enough now, but things are going to get so much worse.
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