My point is that the emphasis on "informed consumers" and "consumer choice" comes, oddly enough, at a time when medical care is being increasingly sped up and fragmented, care for those without resources is being cut, and costs generally are rising for everyone. So the emphasis on the informed consumer model seems to me to be a kind of con. Being well-informed doesn't make up for poorer quality care or lack of access to care. And isn't an option for people without family or friends whose condition precludes them becoming "informed" on their own (e.g. the widow with Alzheimers and no family), as someone already mentioned.
Case in point: Every Thursday I work at a small community hospital up in the mountains. This Thursday I got called for a nutrition consult on a 57-year old man with cerebral palsy who lives at home. He used to work, but can no longer walk. He used to get physical therapy years ago, but funding was cut.
He's developed severe osteoporosis partly as a result of immobility. He gets chore services twice a day to get him out of bed and into a wheelchair, then back into bed at night. For the rest of the day, he's in the chair. If he needs to poop, he has to do it while the chore workers are at his house. He gets a bath 3 times a week. The choreworkers make about $8-$10 an hour, no benefits.
He came to the hospital because his entire hips, buttocks and thighs were ulcerated and bleeding - not from poor nutrition, but from poor circulation and sitting in one position for too many days. A visiting nurse comes quarterly, and she's the one who sent him to the hospital. In the hospital, we will give him some rehab until his backside heals, put him on a diet, hopefully give him some exercises he can do at home, (but this isn't certain because there is not regular physical therapist at the hospital), then send him back to the same situation.
I think you and I are not in disagreement - I'm all for community living, but in its current incarnation it's not without problems. Especially for people, as in this guy's case, who don't really have much of a "community," though theoretically, he lives "in the community." In the world we currently live in, what would give the guy more choices is money.
<<In a message dated 01-06-13 13:02:35 EDT, M. Russell wrote:
<< Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 08:32:00 -0800
From: Marta Russell <ap888 at lafn.org>
Subject: Re: coerced treatment
Everyone takes their chances. And with the medical profession, just
as with capitalists selling you something, you better know something
about your condition.
Otherwise you turn yourself over to someone in blind trust -- and I
would not recommend that with all the horror stories I know about.
The rich can be recommended to get ineffective and costly back surgery
that leaves them worse off than before too you know.
Marta
Leslilake1 at aol.com wrote:
>
> I despise the "informed consumer" model....