Hospice needs to get back to what it was

This is one of the best examples of how contemptible the for-profit privatizers are.

From the beginning, hospice was as much an ethos as a health care job. The earliest providers were uniformly nonprofit endeavors. With the 1982 advent of full Medicare reimbursement, hospice came to provide exceptional and humane end-of-life ministration, with nurses and counselors prepared for everything from palliative care to bereavement support to spiritual advice for families.

Yet in the last two decades, at first slowly and then in an onslaught, the field of hospice has been transformed. An influx of for-profit operations, drawn to potentially vast profit margins, dominates the field. Now, in some corners, cost-cutting and profiteering are the order of the day, with direct consequences for patients. And of course, Medicare, the public dollar, is underwriting their extraordinary returns.

There are well-operated, humane for-profit hospices, to be sure. But for the more cynical operators — and there are many — compassion, and a peaceful and dignified death, are no longer the care standards; the aim is profit alone. - Truthout