Health Care Reform

This an email that I have sent to everyone I know and asked them to foward under the subject line: A true story about the death of my father and no I don't want any money.

If you were seriously injured or ill, could not speak for yourself, and had no hope for recovery, would you want to be kept alive by a machine? Don Eishen's answer was no and he took out a Living Will to keep it from happening, but it still did.

Even with his Living Will, he ended up in a nursing home for seven months, kept alive by a machine, unable to speak, write, or communicate in anyway. Able to only move his left arm and leg, he was totally dependant for all his needs including the changing of his diaper. How did this happen against Don's wishes? I did it to him.

His Living Will stated he would be provided with nutrition. When the doctors came to ask for permission to put a feeding tube into his stomach to provide nutrition, I was the only one of his five children in the room with him, and without thinking about the long term effects, I signed the form.

Two days later, his doctor told the family that Dad was not going to get any better and we might want to pull the feeding tube. I have two brothers and two sisters, all of us would have to agree and that wasn't going to happen, so away Dad went to a nursing home. Dad's Living Will was not detailed enough to cover all the various ways, including a feeding tube, doctor's could use to keep him alive.

Why should you care that my Dad didn't get to end his life the way he wanted? First, the same thing can happen to you and second, you paid for his seven months of suffering. Medicare paid for 90 days and Medicaid the rest. It is amazing to me that neither Medicare of Medicaid provide help to seniors to make sure they have a detailed Living Will that will get them the kind of end of life treatment they want.

I had hope that the new health care reform bill would provide that help, but instead of addressing the issue directly it was watered down. While it would pay for a doctor's visit, so a senior could discuss their end of life options, there was no requirement for everyone to have a Living Will. Even with this watered down approach, the conservatives have used it to scare seniors to such a point that Congressman and Senators are calling for the removal of all end of life counseling be removed from the bill.

I believe that everyone over the age of 25 on Health Insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid should be required to have a detailed Living Will and decide what treatment they want if they are faced with illness or injury like what happened to my Dad. With on-line technology either at home or in their doctor's offices, people could watch short videos of the various medical procedures and select the ones they want or don't want to have done to them.

If done at home, an on-line doctor or nurse could answer more detailed questions about the procedures. If done in the doctor's office, the staff could answer questions. Doctors would also be paid for the advice and the cost of the additional computers.

Being on-line the Living Wills would be available to medical professionals or family members from any where in the world, so that everyone's wishes would be followed. For me, this is a quality of life issue. I have never met anyone who told me they wanted to be kept alive on a machine as long as possible, yet it is happening every day, because people don't have detailed Living Wills.

Why require everyone over 25 to have a Living Will? If everyone only received the treatment they wanted, it would save all of us a lot of money. It makes good economic sense to require people to take control of their own lives and make sure that their wishes are known and followed.

If you agree with my plan, please forward this email to everyone you know. Let's see if we can make a difference in the current health care debate.

Sincerely yours,

Thomas Eishen

tom.eishen@gmail.com