[MissBrattified]

When I read the re-admission part, this is what I thought about:

My father was on Medicare during the last few years of his life. He and my mother never had much money, having pastored a small church for 25 years, let alone private health insurance. Any care they received was through the government or out of pocket. My mother is still paying on his medical bills, the parts that Medicare didn't cover.

Anyway, I remember he had to be in the hospital for a couple of extended periods during the last year of his life. I believe the maximum amount of days allowed by Medicare was 17 days of hospitalizing, and then the patient either had to pay out of pocket, or be discharged. Basically, every 17 days, my father would be discharged from the hospital, and within a day or two, they'd have to call an ambulance to transport him back to the hospital, where a new 17 day period would start.

Talk about INEFFICIENT!!!! Not only is the system messed up, BUT every 17 days my father would have to go through the pain and discomfort of being moved around, and having his health decline for a couple of days until he was in bad enough shape to go back.

I'm wondering if THIS is the kind of re-admission the plan is meant to eliminate. In my father's case, that would have been an early death warrant. He was eventually placed on hospice anyway, but if he hadn't been allowed to return to the hospital a couple of times, he most likely would have died at least a year earlier.

Now, I am NOT for prolonging life unnecessarily, but that should be up to the FAMILY and INDIVIDUAL, with the personalized care of their doctor[s]--not the government.

I may not be interpreting the penalties for re-admission correctly, but that's where my head went.