Living

When I first read the report “Act 167 Community Engagement: Recommendations”, I almost laughed because I had a pretty good idea of how hospitals would react. The passage of Act 167 was a recognition that Vermont’s health care system needs serious change if it is to survive and this report was commissioned to find out what to do. It focused on the state’s hospitals.

Many of the recommendations make sense, but what I find difficult to understand is how all of the affected hospitals could possibly make the changes called for in the report. They talk about regional centers of excellence where only certain hospitals would do specific procedures. There could be fewer hospitals doing joint replacements and those who continue would become more expert at the procedures.

There is also a call for hospitals to share staff. That makes sense from an intellectual perspective, but how many nurses are going to want to travel an extra hour or more to work each day just to fulfill the aims of systemic restructuring?

In a recent article in vtdigger it was noted that Vermont health insurance rates are among the highest in the nation. Just another painful fact for people to digest who live in a state that is also among the highest for property taxes.

Subsidies do lower the cost of insurance for many Vermonters who pay, on average, $243 a month for an individual marketplace plan. The article describes many of the details about the costs of health care but the only important information comes at the end of the piece when Mike Fisher, Vermont’s health care advocate, states, “Many of us have been looking at this health care financing ‘not-system’ – the way we finance care- have been saying for a number of years that it’s unsustainable and that it can’t possibly continue. But it feels like we’re in a much more acute stage of that.”

Serious Illness Program

Support for Those Going Through Life-Altering Illnesses

Have you or someone you love been diagnosed with a serious illness, or coping with an exacerbation of an ongoing serious illness such as organ disease or cancer?

The time of a new diagnosis, or treatment for a recurrence or exacerbation of an ongoing illness often calls for added support. If you or your loved one are going through cancer treatment, or experiencing a healthcare crisis due to cancer or organ disease we can help.

I make no claim of being a therapist or an expert on human behavior. But when you have been around for nearly eight decades you do come to understand a few things. I have learned that people who are unhappy about the course of their lives, people, who feel they are trapped in their lives with no way out and people who feel that the world around them will not allow them to succeed, often turn to drugs and/or addictive behaviors to ease their pain.

This is not a judgment call but simply an observation. I suspect that if you were to do a survey among people who have turned to drugs or alcohol or who have any kind of addiction at the center of their life, you would find most of those people to be among the unhappy.