Hospice cuts averted

Advocate staff photo by RICHARD ALAN HANNON -- Terri Kaaihue, Life Source Services of Baton Rouge community liaison, second from left, and director of nursing Michele Browning, center, rally Wednesday on the steps of the State Capitol in what turned into a celebration that Gov. Bobby Jindal’s budget cuts to end-of-life care had been averted.

Before the sun set and candles could be lit, a vigil protesting state budget cuts to hospice care turned into a celebration Wednesday night.

State Sen. Fred Mills Jr., R-St. Martinville, delivered the news that the cuts will be averted, allowing Medicaid patients to receive end-of-life care.

“Y’all give yourselves a round of applause and the hospice patients a round of applause. Y’all made this happen,” he told a group of people gathered on the front steps of the State Capitol.

The Jindal administration scraped together $1.1 million in unspent federal grant dollars to continue providing hospice services to dying patients beyond the Feb. 1 cutoff date.

The decision, a reversal of a cut Gov. Bobby Jindal made as part of mid-year budget reductions, came a week ahead of a legislative meeting to review and possibly reject the cut. Jindal’s cut also caught the attention of national media.

State Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein said the Jindal administration will revamp the program this spring, keeping the parts that work well.

Comments

1) Comment by Michael Gary Scott - 26/01/2013

RINO Bobby never had a second thought about what he was doing to the dying until CNN reported it and he looked bad nationally. A disgrace to Republicans everywhere because he acts like the libs accuse us of acting.

2) Comment by Being_Stupid - 24/01/2013

@gary, I plagiarized Milton Friedman, not the Heritage Think Tank. I have never heard of the Heritage Think Tank in my entire life.

3) Comment by Being_Stupid - 24/01/2013

Socialism is not compassion. Think with your head, not your heart.

4) Comment by gary - 24/01/2013

Crazycajun: you put the old hammer right on the head, once CNN reported it - Jindal did his favorite crawfish dance aka flipping the flop! Being_Stupid - gotta say you are good at cutting and paste from the Heritage think tank web page.

5) Comment by crazycajun - 24/01/2013

Compassion had nothing to do with it. Once it became public knowledge on the national scene, he was ridiculed into changing his mind. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. LOL

6) Comment by Being_Stupid - 24/01/2013

What are we getting for the money, that we are spending on medical care via third parties? What is the relation between input and output? Spending on medical care provides a reasonably good measure of input, but, unfortunately, there is no remotely satisfactory objective measure of output. Two simple observations are key to explaining both the high level of spending on medical care and the dissatisfaction with that spending. The first is that most payments to physicians or hospitals or other caregivers for medical care are made not by the patient but by a 3rd party—an insurance company or employer or governmental body. The second is that nobody spends somebody else’s money as wisely or as frugally as they spend their own. No 3rd party is involved when we shop at a supermarket. We pay the supermarket directly: the same for gasoline for our car, clothes for our back, and so on down the line. Why, by contrast, are most medical payments made by third parties? Why are we headed toward completely socialized medicine? Why single out medical care? Food is more essential to life than medical care. Why not exempt the cost of food from taxes if provided by the employer? Third-party payment has required the bureaucratization of medical care and, in the process, has changed the character of the relation between caregiver and patients. A medical transaction is no longer simply between a caregiver and a patient; it has to be approved as "covered" by a bureaucrat and the appropriate payment authorized. The patient—the recipient of the medical care—has little or no incentive to be concerned about the cost since it’s somebody else’s money. The caregiver has become, in effect, an employee of the insurance company or, in the case of Medicare and Medicaid, of the government. The patient is no longer the one, the caregiver has to serve. In a bureaucratic system, increase in expenditure will be matched by fall in production. Such systems will act rather like ‘black holes,’ in the economic universe, simultaneously sucking in resources, and shrinking in terms of ‘emitted production.’ Milton Friedman called it "The Black Hole of Bureaucratization". Our steady movement toward reliance on third-party payment no doubt explains the extraordinary rise in medical care spending in the United States. The high cost and inequitable character of our medical care system are the direct result of our steady movement toward reliance on socialized third-party payment. The cure requires reversing course, reprivatizing medical care by eliminating most third-party payment, and restoring the role of insurance to provide protection against major medical catastrophes. The ideal way to do that would be to reverse past actions: repeal the tax exemption of employer-provided medical care; terminate Medicare and Medicaid; deregulate most insurance; and restrict the role of the government, preferably state and local rather than federal, to finance care for the hard cases. However, the vested interests that have grown up around the existing system, and the tyranny of the status quo, clearly make that solution not politically feasible. Yet it is worth stating the ideal as a guide to judging whether proposed incremental changes are in the right direction. Most changes made since the final decade of the twentieth century are in the wrong direction. A more radical reform would, first, end both Medicare and Medicaid, at least for new entrants, and replace them by providing every family in the United States with catastrophic insurance (i.e., a major medical policy with a high deductible). Second, end tax exemption of employer-provided medical care. And, third, remove the restrictive regulations that are now imposed on medical insurance—hard to justify with universal catastrophic insurance. This reform would solve the problem of the currently medically uninsured, eliminate most of the bureaucratic structure, free medical practitioners from an increasingly heavy burden of paperwork and regulation, and lead many employers and employees to convert employer-provided medical care into a higher cash wage. The taxpayer would save money because total government costs would plummet. The family would be relieved of one of its major concerns—the possibility of being impoverished by a major medical catastrophe—and most could readily finance the remaining medical costs. Families would once again have an incentive to monitor the providers of medical care and to establish the kind of personal relations with them that was once customary prior to the Medicaid Act of 1965. The demonstrated efficiency of private enterprise would have a chance to improve the quality and lower the cost of medical care. The first question asked of a patient entering a hospital might once again become "What’s wrong?" and not "What’s your insurance?"

7) Comment by foldgers - 24/01/2013

I bet he could have found the $1.1 million more easier if he didn't spend the PAST year spending our money to go campaigning around the country. I would be willing to say he has spent well over that in travel!

8) Comment by shad-o - 24/01/2013

Being_Stupid you should change your name to I_AM_Stupid. "Pathetic parasites" really? Are you even aware of what Hospice is and what services they provide? Have you no empathy or do you prefer to cling to your right-wing viewpoints no matter what?

9) Comment by swinham - 24/01/2013

@Being_Stupid: May you never be 1) poor or 2) in need of hospice care. One does have to wonder how many other pots of unspent federal dollars are laying around - the fact they found this $1.1M is going to work to their disadvantage down the road when other program cuts are necessary.

10) Comment by Tea_Slayer - 24/01/2013

"The decision, a reversal of a cut Gov. Bobby Jindal made as part of mid-year budget reductions, came a week ahead of a legislative meeting to review and possibly reject the cut. " He couldn't have the legislature reverse HIS decision so he "found" the money that was already there. What a terd...

11) Comment by Being_Stupid - 24/01/2013

These protesters are pathetic parasites.

12) Comment by lovemykids - 24/01/2013

Terd Handler, what do you mean half baked? Most of his ideas don't even have all of the ingredients.

13) Comment by Terd Handler - 24/01/2013

Yet another half-baked idea from the mind of Jindal.