An elderly friend recently had to go to emergency with severe pain and was told that any tests run may not be covered for her. When she received the bill, it was around $15,000!! She has good insurance and also Medicare, so we wonder if the Affordable Care Act has reduced coverage for people over a certain age?
I do love you idea about using the PPO book. I wish California did not have HMO's they are a pain in the bo hind! They mess us up even when we do not belong to them!
My father had cancer and an aortic aneurysm. The aneurysm needed to be fixed first, and that surgery could have killed him. My father chose no treatment, rather than risk the aneurysm.
The doctor may have decided that your neighbor was too frail for surgery. I won't believe that the reason was his age, or that that was the only reason.
I know that there are NO laws that would allow such discrimination. It's possible some arrogant doctor might have decided that, but that's the fault of one doctor, not the ACA.
It's awkward, because I won't believe it without proof, and this is an anonymous website, so you can't really give me proof. We'll have to agree to disagree.
If anyone knows anything about what BREN was referring to and knows it to be enacted in our healthcare system now, I would really like to know about it.
Alicia Munnell is the director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, where she also serves as the Peter F. Drucker Professor of Management Sciences at the Carroll School of Management.
From AARP's Factsheet about the ACA:The law strengthens Medicare by including more preventive benefits, lowering the price of prescription drugs in the Part D doughnut hole, and fighting waste and fraud.
Medicare is strengthened
Your guaranteed benefits are protected. You earned your Medicare over a lifetime of work. The health care law protects your guaranteed benefits so you can always get the care you need when you need it.
You get more from your Medicare
The health care law lowers prescription drug costs. If you have Medicare Part D, and you reach the coverage gap or “doughnut hole” in 2013, you will get more than a 50 percent discount on brand-name prescription drugs and more than a 20 percent discount on generic drugs while you are in the coverage gap. The discounts will continue to grow until 2020, when the gap will be a thing of the past.
More preventive care is covered. Medicare now covers yearly wellness visits and more preventive care. This includes cancer, cholesterol and diabetes screenings, immunizations, diet counseling and more.
The health care law fights fraud, scams and waste that take money from the Medicare program. The law strengthens Medicare by adding more resources to catch those who fraudulently bill Medicare.
Updated August 2013
The sad truth is, we do not have the means to prevent all deaths, especially from severe blows to the head.