So besides not providing enough preventative care as mentioned above, the second painful weakness in our system is that we don't have limits. We don't ration healthcare. In my opinion, the rationing of healthcare is one of the strengths that socialist systems have. If you are over 75, your chances of getting that heart transplant you need is pretty low. All the healthy young recipients with more ROI to offer come first. To me, this is reasonable.
Also, our social acceptance of dying in hospitals is absurd. Feel old? Like your going to die soon? Go home. Hospice will take care of your basic needs and comfort meds. You will take care of your DNR request. Your family will be with you. You'll have some peace as well as just let nature take its course. Watching a person die and comforting them during this time is a phenomenal experience that no one should miss. Yet we are willing to let hospitals dictate/sanitize/and marketize this intimate experience that should be shared with family.
We don't do this here because we are so scared of aging that we can't even begin to look at death. People suddenly become hysterical when someone suggests euthanizing a dying patient, aborting a malformed child, or insisting on a DNR and having to fight the medical team to not save that persons life. When did we go beyond trying to improve everyone's lot to trying to dictate it to them? Why do we make it sound totally resonable to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on surgeries that may only extent an elderly persons life a few more years?
socialism, communism, americanism, whatever. Just a little semi-objective realism here would help our system to refocus on doing what makes the most sense. Sure, there are going to be hard calls to make; there always are in hospitals. But maybe it would be easier for them if we didn't walk in expecting top-notch, perfectly-safe, flawlessly-executed instant cures at our demand and not at our expense. We have become completely unreasonable in our expectations from our medical system and even more unwilling to pay for it. That just doesn't work.
