Quote:
Originally Posted by tophcfa
This is a very important and relevant topic. Inferior medical care is the number one reason we are reluctant to become full timers. It’s a difficult situation to resolve, a large population of senior citizens predominately on Medicare is a health care nightmare. The population requires a significantly higher amount of health care than the general population. Additionally, the low Medicare reimbursement rates make quality health care providers reluctant to work in a market serving that demographic. It’s not a good situation with a simple solution.
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Not much that can be done about the Medicare situation, unfortunately. Medicare D is the same quagmire that it has been since it's (ill-advised) inception and Medigap policies to help cover what Medicare doesn't, aren't free--or even in many cases, reasonable. The only consolation, if you can call it that, is that that particular situation is the case, more or less, no matter where you live. But when it is concentrated, such as it is here in TV, the problem is much more apparent, if only because it affects a large majority of the population here.
I've never been in the hospital here and hopefully never will be, so I can't say that the observation that the hospital here is sub-standard. Suffice it to say that I've heard the precise same thing from a lot of people here. But, again, The Villages isn't alone in that particular boat. Back in Minnesota hospitals are far from full, but in many cases cannot provide the care that is needed because of a chronic nursing shortage. Same thing in Nevada: my sister living there was recently hospitalized and her bed was in the hall, even though there were unoccupied rooms. Made it easier for the caregivers to monitor the patients, and of course unoccupied rooms don't have to be cleaned on a daily basis. Seems like a throwback to maybe 1880.
Our health care system in my opinion has declined overall.