bare yellow bulb, vol 1 i heard the news today
there's this guy, i think he's about 35 or so, lives in a town not far from here. he's disabled, suffers up to 300 seizures every month. he lives with his mother and his 24/7 care is provided by two attendants at all times. that's 2/24/7. the care is paid for by tax dollars, thru a state program. his mother says the thought of her son in an institution is her worst nightmare. i am not sure i'd go so far as to call it a nightmare, i will say i'm not happy paying for what seems excessive. if you can't afford to provide the care for your loved one, the state will provide institutionalized care. what's wrong with providing solid care in a system that allows for economies of scale? yeah, institutional care gets a bad rap but i'd prefer to invest there as opposed to what must be thousands (more?) of individual pockets of care.
thoughts?
posted by ace @ 22:22
2 comments
2 Comments:
I know it sounds crazy, because of the volume of helpers, but I think it's cheaper to have people at home. For the most part. I don't know about this particular guy, but even in his case perhaps. Ok, so for the home care, there is no overhead. Moms is paying the mortgage and electrical. There are the two professionals at all times, but that would still be true in the hospitals, right? Plus all the secondary infections and all that crap that comes from institutions. I don't know. I don't have studies, but I think that having people at home means better health outcomes, which means less money spent on keeping people healthy.
Plus it is nicer at home. Usually.
two guys in two houses with four attendants could become two guys in one facility with three attendants by juggling the attendants' shifts and their breaks.
overhead? i don't know. how much overhead is there in a well-run facility? if we're assuming the household is well-run and the mom is paying her bills, then in all fairness, we have to assume the facility is well-run also. all those individual homes all over the county, state, country - replaced with centralized facilities. consolidation is generally how cost savings are recognized, so why would that not be the case here?
yeah, i don't have studies either, and yeah, sure, home is nice, but the state cannot pay for every best possible case in every situation always to the most wonderful extent. choices must be made.
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