{"id":1709,"date":"2009-10-20T17:41:40","date_gmt":"2009-10-20T17:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/astrologicalmusings\/2009\/10\/the-hard-health-care-choices.html"},"modified":"2009-10-20T17:41:40","modified_gmt":"2009-10-20T17:41:40","slug":"the-hard-health-care-choices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2009\/10\/the-hard-health-care-choices.html","title":{"rendered":"The hard health care choices"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Lynn Hayes<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An article in USA Today<\/a> highlights the difficult choices that must made as we face the spiraling costs of health care.  This is the lesson of Saturn (tests and challenges) traveling through Virgo (the care and maintenance of the body):<\/p>\n

Within a year of starting dialysis, more than half of older nursing home residents die, and nearly another third experience a significant decline in their ability to perform simple tasks, such as feeding themselves, researchers report today.
\nThe fastest-growing group of U.S. patients starting dialysis is those 75 and older, many of whom have health problems other than kidney failure, such as dementia or heart disease. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some observers have questioned whether dialysis, which typically is performed three days a week for three or four hours at a time, is the best option for such patients.
Many doctors assume that palliative care is “a death sentence” for patients with permanent kidney failure, internist Robert Arnold, director of palliative care at the University of Pittsburgh, and nephrologist Mark Zeidel, of Harvard University, write in an editorial accompanying the study. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But, they write, small studies of frail elderly patients with permanent kidney failure suggest that death rates and quality of life don’t differ much between those who go on dialysis and those who don’t. “We must define who among this population will benefit most from dialysis and who will benefit most from conservative therapy.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n
<\/blockquote>\n

Conservative punduts decrying the use of “death panels” ignore the fact that such panels actually exist today<\/a>. It’s unfortunate that politics have gotten in the way of a serious conversation about these matters, which are crucial to a real understanding of what is needed to improve the quality of end of life care as well as health care for everyone else. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Lynn Hayes An article in USA Today highlights the difficult choices that must made as we face the spiraling costs of health care.  This is the lesson of Saturn (tests and challenges) traveling through Virgo (the care and maintenance of the body): Within a year of starting dialysis, more than half of older nursing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healing"],"yoast_head":"\nThe hard health care choices - Astrological Musings<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2009\/10\/the-hard-health-care-choices.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The hard health care choices - Astrological Musings\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"by Lynn Hayes An article in USA Today highlights the difficult choices that must made as we face the spiraling costs of health care.  This is the lesson of Saturn (tests and challenges) traveling through Virgo (the care and maintenance of the body): Within a year of starting dialysis, more than half of older nursing…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2009\/10\/the-hard-health-care-choices.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Astrological Musings\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-10-20T17:41:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lynn Hayes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The hard health care choices - Astrological Musings","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2009\/10\/the-hard-health-care-choices.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The hard health care choices - Astrological Musings","og_description":"by Lynn Hayes An article in USA Today highlights the difficult choices that must made as we face the spiraling costs of health care.  This is the lesson of Saturn (tests and challenges) traveling through Virgo (the care and maintenance of the body): Within a year of starting dialysis, more than half of older nursing…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2009\/10\/the-hard-health-care-choices.html","og_site_name":"Astrological Musings","article_published_time":"2009-10-20T17:41:40+00:00","author":"Lynn Hayes","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2009\/10\/the-hard-health-care-choices.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2009\/10\/the-hard-health-care-choices.html","name":"The hard health care choices - Astrological Musings","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-10-20T17:41:40+00:00","dateModified":"2009-10-20T17:41:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/#\/schema\/person\/0267afd41b8c0ee7204a5063b003a35f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2009\/10\/the-hard-health-care-choices.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2009\/10\/the-hard-health-care-choices.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/2009\/10\/the-hard-health-care-choices.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The hard health care choices"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/","name":"Astrological Musings","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Lynn Hayes","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/#\/schema\/person\/0267afd41b8c0ee7204a5063b003a35f","name":"Lynn Hayes","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d66\/d66c632862817d88a0ce2af3a36c4050x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d66\/d66c632862817d88a0ce2af3a36c4050x96.jpg","caption":"Lynn Hayes"},"description":"Lynn Hayes has been a practising astrological consultant in beautiful North Carolina for over 25 years, working with clients all over the world both in person and by phone. She focuses on therapeutic and healing approaches which encourage greater empowerment and personal growth. Visit www.astrodynamics.net for more information.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/author\/lynnhayes"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/astrologicalmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}