"hospice for everyone"

A while back, I waxed venomous about a hospital administrator who raised as a specter the idea of "hospice for everyone", which might result from cost control, rationing, or whatever bogey had crawled up their ass the day they were interviewed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/health/01brod.html

Jane Brody's recent column on hospice suggests that hospice for everyone isn't something that people actually experiencing hospice think is all that bad. And the numbers support the idea that the kind of care people receive in hospice helps them live longer -- and much more comfortably and happily -- than expensive, hospital based interventions (or even the other stream of care in nursing homes -- granted, nursing homes have hospice options as well). True, these are not just the sickest in our population: they are clearly and unequivocally dying (altho, honestly, we all are, every day, we just don't like to think about it that way), and hard cases make bad law.

Still. Worth a read.

Amazon.com service now officially creepily fast

Yesterday, I ordered a couple Xmas/holiday songbooks (lyrics and piano arrangements). I'm pretty sure it was in the mid-late afternoon, because by the time the kids were in bed I was shopping for a filing cabinet.

Today, the songbooks arrived before 2 p.m.

I'm happy. It's just a little odd.

Other arrivals today: the stroller! I'm pretty happy about the stroller, altho interestingly, Maclaren has handled their little fingertip amputation problem on new strollers by just shipping the recall fix with the stroller; it still has to be applied.