I think it’s time to ask “the hard questions” about entitlement reform. Alongside the news stories about the debate over medicare entitlements, we are starting to see news stories like this one crop up on DrudgeReport: Baby boomers fueling boom in knee, hip surgeries
“They think if they’ve got a sore knee they’re entitled to having it replaced,” he said. “I think surgeons are overdoing it too, to try to meet that expectation.”
Dr. Ronald Hillock, an orthopedic surgeon in a large practice in Las Vegas that does about 4,000 joint replacements a year, sees the demand from patients.
“People come in and say `this is what I want, this is what I need,'” he said. “They could buy a cane or wear a brace,” but most want a surgical fix.
The numbers tell the story. There were 288,471 total hip replacements in 2009, nearly half of them in people under 65, according to the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which tracks hospitalizations.
Knee replacements soared from 264,311 in 1997 to 621,029 in 2009, and more than tripled in the 45-to-64-year-old age group.
The hard questions: Do we make the elderly pay for all the 45 year olds knee replacements because they want to keep playing tennis? I have no problem saying that a poor child with an ear infection is entitled to our collective care, no one should go deaf because their parents can’t afford to take them to a doctor. And I have no problem saying that no one is entitled to knee replacement surgery. Instead of subsidizing knee replacements, I think we should tax the heck out of them, they should pay extra for diverting the medical resources toward their own private benefit. Rich people will always be able to afford knee replacements, and they’re entitled to spend their own money on them, but the rest of us shouldn’t have to subsidize them. They should subsidize everybody else.
Perhaps there could be companies that offer loans to pay for joint replacement surgeries, or people could purchase private insurance plans that cover joint replacement after ten years paying for the plan (obviously they couldn’t just wait until they need the surgery). But I don’t think we all should have to pay for everyone to become cyborgs with artificial joints all throughout our bodies. It’s not hard to draw lines between basic health care that we should expect to be entitled to, and stuff that they do on Star Trek.
Immobilizing joint issues lead to inactivity and inactivity leads to obesity. Repairing joints can reduce all sorts of other social costs.
What gives anyone the idea that pain-free joints are some kind of frilly luxury?
Um, why is it that both obesity AND joint replacement are peaking at the same time? There was a time when people didn’t get joint replacements at all, and obesity wasn’t a problem back then. I suppose you could say that modern convenience is why there is so much obesity today, but I think it’s because of the sense of entitlement, both for food and medical care. Everyone thinks they deserve a ride to the mall, lunch at Friendly’s, and both hips replaced these days. Replacing their hips isn’t going to get anyone to lose weight if their obesity is a result of social psychological entitlement. An in-shape person whose knees start hurting is probably going to put on a little weight if they can no longer play tennis, but not much, because they don’t have a sense of entitlement to food and health care.
we consume that are causing these problems. It’s easier and cheaper, as well as safer for the polluters, to blame regular people for all of these ailments. The obesity problem especially has me curious.
What gives is that some people begrudge everyone else anything that they themselves don’t need. In some cases (cough Scott Brown cough), they begrudge others things that they themselves actually did need.
are considered entitlements. Entitlements is such a dirty word these days, as if people are getting something for nothing. These programs are insurance policies that we pay for our entire lives. Every week a payroll tax is deducted from my paycheck to ensure that I will have medical and income protection when I retire. I will pay this tax for 50 or more years before I can use the benefits. Many retired people continue to work so they can meet their basic needs, since Social Security really doesn’t go that far. Many grandparents care for their grandchildren to help out their children who are now parents. I think the whole tennis thing is something you only see on TV. It is not the reality of many retired folks. They are still working, and need to be able to do so. So while you say we should tax the hell out of them, I say we already have taxed the hell out of them, for 50 or more years. They have the right to draw from the insurance they have paid for over their lifetime.
Absolutely you should have medical care, but you won’t be able to have medical care when you actually get sick and need care, if we have destroyed medicare by paying for hip and knee replacements and IVF and a million other new things that didn’t exist when you were working and paying a payroll tax for your basic health care.
We should tax the hell out of knee replacements, for people that have the money. Everyone that wants a joint replacement should have to pay for two, and the other one should be for someone who is in excruciating pain and doesn’t have any money. No one who owns a big house, is putting money aside for their children, and investing money for leisure, should get free knee surgery, whether it’s medicare or private insurance paying for it. They should pay double, so that they aren’t diverting money away from necessary medicine.
Social Security and Medicare are entitlements, because we’re entitled to them – we paid for them. Unfortunately, the Right-Wing Attack machine has demonized the word “entitlements” so that it’s become synonymous with “welfare”.
It might be good if we all started saying “earned benefits” instead of “entitlements” to avoid this confusion. Because these are earned benefits.
I think the word is used incorrectly in the context of medicare and SS, as well as my bank account, or my car insurance or health insurance. I agree Medicare and SS should be called “earned benefits”. So why aren’t the Democrats calling them earned benefits. They are on the entitlement bandwagon and validating the right wings misuse of the word.
thanks : )
Damn, not sure why this keeps happening. We are working on it – in the meantime, if it happens again, please email me so that I get to it sooner! Sorry for the trouble.
When we were paying into those funds, there wasn’t the expectation that everyone would be getting new knees and hips and living until 100. Life expectancy was 72 or something, and most people died with their own joints still in use. We were paying for a much lower standard of living, but now we feel those payments we paid for a Dodge Dart entitles us to a Cadillac.
The bargaining power of Medicare is what could really save Americans lots of money on healthcare but conservatives & Republicans won’t allow that–thus conservatives & Republicans force deficits higher.
As for these hip-replacement surgeries, the Affordable Care Act has a plan to create a panel of actual experts to judge the efficacy of medical practices, so that panel will help influence whether there are too many hip-replacement surgeries, or when they ought to happen. But the Republicans & conservatives want to defund that panel, too.
It’s like they don’t care about saving money or making gov’t work efficiently…
I don’t think you really want that.
My dad’s had both hips replaced. He just wanted to be able to keep walking.
The bigger problem is that we refuse to control the costs of these procedures. We spend far more per procedure as compared to people in other countries. This is silly and wasteful.
Just that people should have to pay for them if they can. And they shouldn’t be so that 45 year olds can keep playing tennis, as in the article, at least not for free. Rich people can do that if they have the money, but they should have to pay for it, plus a tax, not get it for free, paid for by the elderly and poor’s basic health care.
I encouraged my pop to get his knees done, even if his insurance wouldn’t cover it, but unfortunately they said he was too old and should have done it ten years ago. Why didn’t they tell him that then, since they could tell he was moving slow back then, I guess he was too timid to complain until it got really bad. He’s been walking real slow with a cane for five years now, it takes him ten minutes to go up stairs.