WAVE of the FUTURE for the USA?
Germany Accused of 'Deporting'
Its Elderly:
Rising numbers moved to Asia and Eastern Europe because of sky-high care costs
Friday, Dec 28 2012
• Country's elderly and sick being sent abroad due to rising care costs
• Situation described as 'inhumane deportation' and a huge 'alarm signal'
• Warning to Britain where pensioners are selling homes to pay for healthcare
PUBLISHED: 17:10 EST, 27 December 2012
German pensioners are being sent to care homes in Eastern Europe and Asia in what has been described as an ‘inhumane deportation’.
Rising numbers of the elderly and sick are moved overseas for long-term care because of sky-high costs at home.
Some private healthcare providers are even building homes overseas, while state insurers are also investigating whether they can care for their clients abroad.
Experts describe a time bomb’ of increasing numbers unable to afford the growing costs of retirement homes.
And they say the situation should be a warning to Britain, where rising numbers of pensioners are forced to sell their homes to pay for care.
The Sozialverband Deutschland (VdK), a socio-political advisory group, said the fact that many Germans were unable to afford the costs of a retirement home in their own country was a huge ‘alarm signal.’
‘We simply cannot let those people, who built Germany up to be what it is, be deported,’ VdK’s president Ulrike Mascher told The Guardian. ‘It is inhumane.’
More...
Researchers found an estimated 7,146 German pensioners living in retirement homes in Hungary in 2011.
More than 3,000 were in the Czech Republic and more than 600 in Slovakia. There were also unknown numbers in Spain, Greece and the Ukraine, as well as Thailand and the Philippines.
Some told researchers they were there out of choice as costs were lower, while standards of care were often higher.
But many others admitted they moved reluctantly.
According to Germany’s federal bureau of statistics, more than 400,000 senior citizens cannot afford a German retirement home, a figure growing by around 5 per cent a year. This is because many are living for longer while their pensions are stagnating.
As a result, the Krankenkassen – or statutory insurers that make up Germany’s state insurance system – are discussing cheaper care in foreign retirement homes.
EU law prevents state insurers from signing contracts with overseas homes.
But that is likely to change as legislators are forced to respond to Europe’s aging population.
Artur Frank, the owner of Senior Palace – which finds care homes for Germans in Slovakia – said it was wrong to suggest senior citizens were being ‘deported.’
‘Many are here of their own free will, the results of sensible decisions by their families who know they will be better off,’ he said.
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I'll choose "an alternative" rather than be deported. If I'm physically capable of effecting that alternative, that is.
ReplyDeleteNow, I wouldn't mind downsizing my abode at this stage of my life, particularly so that Mr. AOW and I would be living in a one-level dwelling. But I'd need help with the cleaning out. And I sure as hell wouldn't own a house that couldn't accommodate my piano (upright) and the choicest of our cherished family heirlooms (antiques) and our beloved kitties.
To some extent, the moral fabric of a society can be judged by the way that society treats the disabled and the elderly. Deporting the elderly is an abomination as far as I'm concerned.
FT, maybe we could just have them dropping dead in the streets as we did in the early part of the last century.
ReplyDeleteYou know, let the Repubs give them the Full Ayn Rand.
And make sure elder care is a "for profit" activity.
Don't get Kapital upset.
I hope I do drop dead in the street, Ducky -- very suddenly and without any warning whatsoever. Beats the hell out of prolonged invalidism -- unless one is fortunate enough to have a wife like AOW -- or may late mother -- or a son like me for that matter.
ReplyDeleteLeading a short merry life is not a bad objective. The only thing that could beat it would a long merry life. Merry being the operant word, of course.
The best things in life may be free, but medical care is never going to one of them.
A truly enlightened society would provide a cyanide capsule to each of its citizens (minors excepted, of course) free of charge to be taken whenever the citizen feels its appropriate for whatever reason.
Safe, cheap, decisive, effective.
Your tendentious Marxian fantasies about life at the turn of he last century are just that -- FANTASIES -- retrograde propaganda designed to justify the atrocities people of your benighted political persuasion have visited on a once-thriving-now-moribund society.
HAPPY NEW YEAR anyway, you cockamamie commie, you! ;-)
~ FT
We are largely in agreement FT regarding end of life health issues.
ReplyDeleteMassachusetts defeated an "assisted death" ballot measure by a small margin this year.
Somehow passing peacefully rather than experiencing God's mercy through an inoperable brain tumor damages out puritan heritage.
I wouldn't pass out the cyanide and I'd construct the social welfare state to allow seniors a basic level of comfort and dignity. It can be done fairly easily.
As a point of order I must remind you I'm no commie. My take on Marxist economics is more accommodating.
Duck,
ReplyDeleteI know for a fact that here in Virginia one can set up an advance medical directive with a designated medical proxy -- a directive that specifies a morphine drip in the event of an illness from which one can have no meaningful recovery.
I'm not sure why this provision in Virginia isn't termed assisted death, but it isn't -- even if the doses of morphine are so massive as to directly result in death.
As a society, we delay "the conversation" for far too long. In Mr. AOW's case, he and I decided back in 1993 exactly what extraordinary measures we would allow or not allow; he had brain surgery in 1993, and Georgetown University Medical Center insisted that we delineate end-of-life wishes prior to surgery.
My father, upon the advice of a very expensive but outstanding attorney, set up the legal documents To fulfill Dad's end-of-life wishes after my mother died. I was Dad's medical proxy, and, along with the long-time family physician, made the final decision for Dad according to his wish of "No nursing home EVER!"
I should mention that it takes a very strong family member to carry through a loved one's end-of-life wishes.
ReplyDeleteBack when Mr. AOW had his stroke in 2009, I refused to allow intubation. I know enough about medicine to know that intubating a person immediately after a stroke can lead to consequences that are horrendous: the brain will "forget" how to breathe. The ICU was pressuring me to allow the intubation -- never mind that Mr. AOW's oxygen levels were just fine. I suspect that a lot of medical measures are taken or proposed out of fear of litigation.
Wow... In the workers paradise of Germany...
ReplyDeleteI thought they had all these social services issues all worked out?
Of course, this is the model Obama and the Progressives are driving us to.
On the other hand I have given a great deal of thought to doing what some native Americans did at one time. When I can no longer be of productive use to society just taking a blanket, go up in the mountains and give it up. Simple, cost effective, with extremely low burial costs.
ReplyDeleteMy time may ne sooner rather yhan later. Very progressive line of reasoning wouldn't you say Ducky?
SF is right....Britain needs not heed this any more than we should.
ReplyDeleteAnd, of course, Americans still think "German healthcare is free" when my 41 yr old stepdaughter pays $1000 a month. Some 'free'..it's always been like this, but Americans have used Germany as the land of free health insurance like some kind of model. Some model...it's NOT TRUE.
Personally, I think building homes outside Germany for their elderly is a perfect idea. If health care is cheaper in Slovenia, so be it. Let the Germans build homes there, employing Slovenians,...you can rest assured it's the Germans paying for those elderly, not dumping their bills on Slovenia. Something not mentioned here.
I wouldn't be surprised if, with Obama care, Americans won't be going to Canada for their retirements...
I can't wait for some of the laws to kick in and watch Americans learn what they voted for! YIPPEEE!! Then we can MAYBE fix it?
Not likely. The train has left the station. Throttle wide open. Engineer and Conductor partywwing over their great achievement. Whoppee, let he good times roll.
ReplyDeleteMe, I have a mountain awaiting.
" ... I think building homes outside Germany for their elderly is a perfect idea. If health care is cheaper in Slovenia, so be it. Let the Germans build homes there, employing Slovenians ..."
ReplyDeleteAll well and good, Z, but -- seriously -- how would you feel if it were YOU who was forced to move to -- let us say Nicaragua -- or Iceland -- because you couldn't afford t live out the remainder of your years in sunny California?
This is why I advocate dying a bit early while I still have something to say about where, how and with whom I may live.
I do know several people who are thinking seriously about leaving the USA. Apparently, there ARE places -- in Mexico and Central and South America -- where a modest monthly income buy you a HELLUVA lot more than it can here.
But I'd rather DIE than be forced to leave my home. And I think I ought to have the right to make that choice -- for MYSELF.
HAPPY SCREW YEAR! ;-)
~ FT
Life is very difficult even under the BEST of circumstances, but every Socialist Workers Paradise on earth presents a fine living example of HELL.
ReplyDeleteAbandon Hope, All Ye Who Subject Yourselves to Marxism.
FT,
ReplyDeleteYou might want to read THIS ARTICLE: Revealed: 3 in 4 of Britain's danger doctors are trained abroad
Ooh! I'd love to move to Iceland! ;)
ReplyDeleteBut you are correct, the same thing does go on here, vis a vis Belize, Costa Rica, etc.
Would you believe Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, has started a subsidiary company, Companion Global Healthcare, to offer medical tourism services to individuals and businesses?
Cheers!