Long Term Health Care

Last week my wife and I placed an ad for a young hit man in American Mercenary Magazine. Our plan is to pay two thousand a year into an IRA for this patient assassin. When we reach eighty years of age it’s his job to hunt us down and kill us with a high powered rifle from long distance. My wife is to be hit first, a head shot, and I guarantee I will open my chest, and put my arms out wide for my kill shot, as I wouldn’t want to live without Lynne.

We didn’t come to this decision lightly. We spent ten years caring for three elderly parents. Two of our parents had total dementia (one from many small strokes and one from normal-pressure hydrocephalus). I’m just not willing to put our children or some poor group of health care workers through it.

After these experiences my wife and I can see that long-term health care is not the answer for our generation. There are just too many of us and we’re just not entertaining enough. Also the last six months of our lives are the most expensive from a medical standpoint. Often hugely expensive for little or no positive return other than the assuagement of someone’s guilt.

Here’s an ad from the Ocala Star Banner:

Wanted: Angel of Death for regional hospital.
Non-paying position but your opportunity to help
Society is immense. The duties include visiting
assisted care facilities and hospitals to examine quality of life issues and medical records. If patients meet selected criteria then their families are to be introduced to our local Hospice.

In time I’m sure this will lead to the practice of “Jack-Kevorkian style” euthanasia (the true death).

I know this sounds radical but its time has come. It’s already happening in the countries of Northern Europe. Doctors in these countries, without the permission of family members, may elect to euthanize patients whose quality of life and cost of care have become prohibitive. How civilized.

Ten years ago I read an article about the long-term results of cardiac resuscitation. These patients tended to live less than six months, their quality of life was poor, and the average cost of their medical care between resuscitation and death exceeded $250,000.

I also propose that if a human physician is caught defrauding Medicare three times that they not only lose their license but they are euthanized for the common good.

It’s unfortunate that physicians and their minions cannot be totally trusted with these decisions. Multiple times when we took our aging parents to the emergency room we waited while their health insurance cards and Medicare benefits were triaged. Once it was found they were bottomless pits of health insurance cash they were rapidly served and the sky was the limit. Meanwhile I saw numbers of people with greater needs sit and wait. Some of them were still in the waiting room hours later waiting for attention while we were leaving.

I also had a conversation with a former client who sat on the boards of three hospitals in the Philadelphia area. She said that as long as a patient on life support had resources they were maintained (read this as warehoused) on life support. The day their resources were gone life support was turned off. She resigned to protest this waste of resources.

As a veterinarian who has performed hundreds of mercy killings and worked in an emergency room I volunteer today to put my name at the top of the hospice euthanasia list. Could anyone do more than that? Well, there is the hit man thing, but that’s even more radical.

If you agree and would like your name listed under mine, please send me an email and become a follower of this blog to receive future info. Please don’t volunteer your friends and neighbors no matter how worthy or worthless they appear. Ex-spouces will be considered if they are list worthy.