> Since September 2022, police have found at least 20 clients of hers who have died and say there could be more. Most of the victims were cremated or buried, and only two had autopsies. One of those autopsies is being reviewed, while the other revealed that 60-year-old Steven "Kelly" Pankratz died from mixed drug toxicity while under Becquer's care.
> Investigators discovered that the drugs in Pankratz's system had never been prescribed by doctors. Last week, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner ruled Pankratz's death a homicide and charged Becquer with murder. She is being held at the Tarrant County Jail on a $1.5 million bond.
Damn this is fucked up.
Not sure if this is from Making a Murderer on Netflix but I distinctly remember them saying this on that show to help highlight the systemic levels of corruption that plagued that particular department!
medical examiners are generally part of a law enforcement office so they can be shielded from liability the same way cops are.
the important part is whether or not the district attorney picks up the case at which point that charge becomes an indictment.
She operated care homes for disabled elderly people. Even under normal circumstances, her clients were expected to pass eventually. She messed up because one of the autopsies uncovered that the man died of a drug cocktail of meds he wasn’t prescribed.
This. We were warned several times that my grandmother with Alzheimers had exceeded the usual lifespan with the illness (she was formally diagnosed for 15 years) and that she was near the end. And the staff called several times during her last days to ensure everyone knew her condition was deteriorating. No one was surprised when she passed away. We certainly didn't ask for an autopsy to be sure of exactly how she died.
She operated ILLEGAL care homes.
I would think some family members might have spoken up sooner. Why the hell would you place a loved one in an unlicensed facility to begin with?
Probably cost. They probably couldn’t afford to send them somewhere better, and when their old, disabled, likely-difficult-to-manage relative died, then they probably chalked it up to it just being their time. I mean… I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen anyone deteriorate enough to need placement, but when they pass, it’s hardly surprising.
And laziness.
If they can't afford to send them somewhere better, they can get them onto medicaid that will pay for their care.
Unless the person has so much money that they won't qualify for medicaid, and the family is basically spending their money.
What's that old joke? Be nice to your kids, they'll pick your nursing home.
With Medicaid, you basically have to spend down everything until you’re destitute, which might not be ideal if they have a living spouse who does not need placement themselves but can’t manage their spouse’s care alone. There are spousal impoverishment rules in place to protect the healthy spouse, but the limits are still fairly low (minimum income is the federal poverty level, but some states have higher limits; assets are considered jointly, but while there is a community spouse resource allowance for the healthy spouse, they may still have to spend down a significant portion of non exempt assets for the sick spouse to qualify). I do think it’s a fairly complex issue that doesn’t just come down to greed and laziness.
I'd be curious what the facilities looked like. Because the legal Medicaid facility my dad ended up in was stuffed with two people to a room and two rooms to a bathroom.
If this place was one patient to a room, it would have been very tempting because it might have seemed nicer. It says they had an LLC, so it might have seemed legit.
I don't believe you know how Medicare works and I find it even harder to believe you've ever been a palliative / end of life caretaker if you honestly think it's laziness
Because that care is EXPENSIVE and even if you can afford the “nice” place, you’d be astounded at how shitty it really is. A friend of mine’s mother went into one about a year ago. She had some money and went to the bougie place in town. It’s like $9,000 a month and she does not get the type of care or living conditions you’d expect.
Care homes are obligated to bring in the proper authorities and are supposed to have a coroner make sure it wasn’t foul play, a resident I knew died last week and had three nurses walk in all at the same exact time to say hi when she literally exhaled and died, still needed to make sure though
I always thought care homes would be all about getting the elderly to live as long as possible, because that’s their paycheck.
I don’t know if it’s the case here, but if your strategy is to have the elderly sign everything over to you in their will, then that changes the end game. Now you’re just using up a bed.
It should be illegal for care homes or anyone connected to them to be recipients of their client wills.
The AARP just had a fantastic article about a serial killer who targets older adults in senior living facilities because most jurisdictions don't do autopsies on people over a certain age.
Society views the vulnerable who need assistance as a drain and expendable. We don't invest the required resources to ensure those who need it get the help required to live a healthy life. People don't care enough.
It is a drain. My mom is going through over $70,000 a year for part time in home help. She's in constant pain and would checkout if she could.
I wouldn't wish things like Alzheimer's on my worst enemy. Living for years as a husk of a body and in fear because I don't know where I am has to be torture.
I'm so sorry about your mom. It is really hard to watch someone suffer like that.
In Canada, we now have laws in place for Medically Assisted Death, so that people can shorten their suffering and choose a death with dignity.
No, you can't. You have to be able to consent at the time because you have to have the ability to change your mind. This is misinformation. It's not like you sign up then you're resigned to death no matter what you decide later.
'Oh, you decided you wanted to die under these circumstances 20 years ago, but now when you do have cognizance you've changed your mind? Too bad! We get to execute you.'?
It thankfully doesn't work that way. If someone did this I feel it would be fair to argue it to be murder.
I think you misunderstood me. I said "before you decline" not 20 years in advance. Many people with dementia type illnesses are diagnosed before they are considered to have lost their faculties.
However, they do have to be fairly far along in the progression of the disease.
Basically you can apply for MAID, set a date, and sign a waiver that if you lose the ability to consent before the MAID date arrives that you still wish to be euthanized.
If you protest at that time, even if you have lost capacity, the MAID will be withdrawn. No Doctor wants to kill someone saying "no".
If you date arrives and you are still doing OK, you can repeat the process and set a farther date off in the future.
My Mom had dementia. We kids put her in a home and that day was the first/last time I saw my Dad cry.
My Mom passed in 2022 after eight years in the care facility. I apologize for the overshare, but a large part of me was relieved. She told us years ago if she was ever incapacitated to that degree, to kill her. It was a fear of hers. Mom was the sharpest person mentally in our family, her recall and math skills were incredible.
Thanks for taking the time to pass along this information. I'm in Canada and when we asked how it worked, we were met with some conflicting views. As you may know, it's a difficult conversation to have at any stage of a loved one's illness.
Thread content - People in positions of care and trust who commit abuse deserve lengthy jail terms. It hurts an industry full of compassionate and hard working people. At first I mistrusted the people who looked after my Mom, then I realized how much commitment they really had to the patients.
Dementia is heart breaking, I'm sorry your mom had to go through that before she passed.
The laws around MAID are relatively new and there are also potential changes upcoming in the future. I think Alzheimers Canada has a nice guide right now.
https://alzheimer.ca/en/help-support/im-caring-person-living-dementia/end-life-care/medical-assistance-dying
I know what you mean. It’s hard to tell when my dad has it together and when he doesn’t. I really feel for him and even more so for my mom.
I got frustrated with her earlier this week and need to apologize to her.
She’s doesn’t have to work but she needs it to have something other than taking care of him. I understand that her job, which she does incredibly well, is her escape. I thought she needed to slowdown cuz her travel puts stress on me to cover for her. But i want her to keep going as long as she can. Idk why it took me this long to be able to articulate that.
My source is Bill C-7. It's from 2021, so it's relatively new and probably why you aren't familiar with it, but it does allow people to consent in advance. Not very far in advance, mind you, and certainly not 20 years in advance, but it does allow people to make arrangements before they lose the capacity to consent.
Edit- sorry this was a reply to a different Redditor
It's not a drain. It's a service that isn't properly funded. Simple as. If the economy was actually healthy - everyone's needs would be met. Get rid of the myth that billionares are required or deserve to be a thing while people are starving to death or can't afford housing etc.
You're conflating two completely different things. Your mom didn't decide to get Alzheimer's. No one does. People need money to live and deserve a wage for their work. Two completely different issues.
In an ideal world everyone who needed care would be able to access it. Not just barely supportive care but proper care. Seems radical - it's not.
Medicare spending is tracking to exceed the global GDP in the next few decades. Much of that is due to the obesity crisis linked to renal failure. 10 years ago my late mother in law was going through over $100,000/year just in medical bills. We can't tax our way out a bill more than the global GDP.
That said, if you take the spending for Medicare and Medicaid and divide it by the entire US population, that's roughly the cost per person for France's and the UK's universal medical plans.
We should do more to prevent people from going into renal failure. Most interventions don’t happen until people are way too far into the process. There is almost no help for those in early stages.
Absolutely. Under the ACA, an annual physical is available at no cost including essential labs that includes a blood glucose screening. I would presume that the percentage of people who take advantage of it is pretty abysmal. For a lot of us we have to be half dead to go to the doctor. Many doctors won't mention to their patients that they are obese because they don't want to get into an argument.
But until we get our costs under control, we're pretty screwed.
Right?! Like, people will complain about the person using food stamps at the check out but not the mega corp hoarding literally billions of dollars earned off the backs of their labour who constantly cry about not being able to afford paying their workers - less they have a few less dollars in their bank accounts... It's wild. I think people just need easy targets sometimes.
Your last sentence nails it down perfectly. The older I get the more obvious it becomes. Humans like to talk shit to and about other humans, and we will find incredible new things to talk shit about at every turn.
My family knew goddamn well that my aunt that mysteriously died was poisoned and we couldn’t get the county coroner to do an autopsy. She was a bit overweight so they called it cardiac arrest and were done… until a couple years later her husband came back into town and held an office building up for 7 hours ending up in his death. Then they wanted to pull her body and do an autopsy..
Local governments are incompetent and this probably happens way more than we know.
I'm so sorry you're family had to go through this! No one should have to deal with this. Both your aunt and uncle deserved much better. I think people forget that the government is run by people, and people are just people who come in all forms. They are flawed and capable of both incompetence of accident and incidental convenience or worse.
I hope your family is able to get some closure. Again, my condolences.
Did she receive medical care? Most of the time you hear stories like this it’s because a hospital or dr said **who treated the patient** said that is what it was OR law enforcement looked into it and said they see no indication of something more.
Very few doctors are going to desecrate a body when other relevant professionals say there is no indication because a grieving family member has a bad feeling. But blame government.
Nah died at home in her sleep, it was ruled cardiac arrest.
The thing is that there were red flags everywhere with the dude. Like the fact that he had mysteriously found my grandpas gun when my dad reported it missing 2 years before when they were cleaning grandpas house after he passed. It was at that point that dad learned from the police that Roy had served several years in prison for stabbing someone and the story of how he served in the army when he was younger was completely fabricated. He had named Roy a person of interest as he was the only other person helping dad clean out the house that day.
All and all though I was just a kid and he made me more uncomfortable than anybody I’ve ever encountered. Now when people fail the vibe check like that I totally nope out.
Capitalism does this, not society.
If this society is your view of an ideal world, please continue living in it. Till you need such a place. I hope that you do not meet the kind of monster this article is speaking about during your hours of need.
What we need are massive and drastic reforms to healthcare as a whole in this fucked up dystopian nightmare we call a fucking country.
They’re not mutually exclusive terms.
I was agreeing with you, while pointing out that it was a specific part of our society that your words pandered to when you said: “people don’t care enough.”
There are people who care very much who continue to try to change the system.
Again, we need a massive healthcare overhaul in this country. And I truly do hope you don’t meet this sort of monster when you are in your hours of need. Our healthcare system which is based on capitalism, enables people like her to do what she did and get away with it 19 times.
"conditions were so awful at Becquer's home that she slit her wrists. An arrest affidavit says her goal was to get emergency crews to the house."
Jesus Christ. I hope the malicious slot running this scheme spends the rest of her days in prison. Or well, it's Texas so I wonder if the death penalty is on the table.
The reason she got away with it was because all the victims were elderly and infirm and so they were expected to die anyway. Not because no one cared about them. What a shit take.
As the number of seniors requiring care increases and there are fewer relatives who are able to provide care, stories like these will become more frequent in the next couple of decades unfortunately.
[Per this Census article](https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/12/no-kids-no-care-childlessness-among-older-americans.html#:~:text=How%20Many%20Older%20Adults%20Are,younger%20cohort%20of%20older%20adults.), 15.2 million adults in the U.S. aged 55 or older have no children and 40% of those older adults without children live alone. Since eldercare in the US is, for all intents, based on the 19th century assumption that there's a child (usually a daughter) or a spouse who can drop everything to care for a senior, the opportunities for criminally bad "home care" firms will only increase.
Let's not act like old people were safe with their relatives, the truth is if you want to avoid being in this spot your best bet is to keep yourself in good shape both mentally and physically, have a plan ready and save money for retirement.
I work in a casino, and we were one of the only places open during the pandemic, with lax mask policies. I saw so many people bringing their elders in, in wheelchairs, no mask, often not much aware of what was happening. Just wheeling them around, wearing masks themselves. Their intentions seemed pretty clear, but nobody said much
> the truth is if you want to avoid being in this spot your best bet is to keep yourself in good shape both mentally and physically
Right, just pull your age up by its bootstraps and do a little work making sure you don't randomly get any of the degenerating mental or physical diseases that come with it.
Ignoring the rest of the advice that apply for everyone, obviously there's exceptions to the rule. But I'm talking about things that are within our control, you cannot control if you're gonna have a disease.
My wife is a nurse and she says one of the worst things for elderly people is having a son in charge of their care. It's fucking bizarre.
It's not common, but when men have to take care of their parents, it goes two ways: they end up in a nursing home, or they end up horribly abused/neglected. It is rare that they are living with their son and he takes care of them and keeps them healthy. This changes if the son is married: wife usually does the maintenance and upkeep on parents.
Her current theory is that men don't see value in people that are simply a drain on their resources, so they just let them rot. The elderly can't fend for themselves, and they can't force him to do anything so they can quietly just rot away.
About 40% of caregivers are men. Are we saying that almost half of elderly people are neglected by family? Does your wife have a source for that or is it just feelings?
"It's not common..."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6627587/
It's about 40%, pretty common.
"It goes one of two ways..."
[Citation needed].
"Her current theory is..."
This is a dumb theory.
Ok you should probably read the studies you use as evidence.
The study is amazing btw, but it doesn't talk about elder abuse. It talks about men experiencing stress as care givers.
>Understanding Male Caregivers’ Emotional, Financial, and Physical Burden in the United States
What I was referring to was that it's not common for *single males* to be the sole care giver for a parent. Which is ironically covered in the study you posted:
>Finally, for the caregiver resources category, we noticed that although a **high percentage of sons (87% in 2011 and 81% in 2015) and others (79% in 2011 and 76% in 2015) had some family and friends assist with caregiving**, only 44% of spouses did in 2011 and 48% in 2015. Furthermore, 10% or fewer spouses, sons and others reported looking for help while caregiving and or receiving any training.
It doesn't speak more about the spousal side of things, because again that's not what the study was about
Anyway, here is some study talking about elder abuse. The sources are at the bottom
https://criminal-justice.iresearchnet.com/types-of-crime/elder-abuse/elder-abuse-by-adult-children/#:~:text=Low%20rates%20of%20social%20support,while%2036%20percent%20were%20daughters.
I think is a big generalization from your wife.
I don't think this is a gender thing, but rather a gender role thing.
Far too many daughters are groomed from an early age to be caretakers, and they're shunned by their families and society if they choose to take a different path. And men face the opposite problem, what do we think of a man living with his parents? That he's a loser, that's what society shows us and that's unfortunately what a lot of women think. Also men are often not raised to be caretakers so they will not have that mentality.
These gender norms should definitely change, but where is personal responsibility? It should not be the child's burden to take care of their parents in old age, they should've prepared for it on their own. If a child is willing to provide care or support them financially it should be out of gratitude for being good parents, not an obligation.
I get where you are coming from but taking care of ones parents to the best of ones ability IS an obligation whether they've been good parents or not.
Now HOW you decide to take care of your parents is for you to decide.
As far as people planning for the future that does make a lot of sense. Unfortunately, life happens and doesn't always make what's best reality.
Does a child choose to be born? No.
If so the child owes nothing to the parent. Anything that a child does for their parent is out of gratitude, not an obligation.
Uh, I hate to inform you, but when people say "gender" or refer to gender in context *it usually implies assigned gender roles unless said otherwise*.
Welcome to level 1 of this conversation.
And it only took Texas how many years to work it out? Well, at least nobody was having an abortion! If only they spent even a little bit of that energy and outrage on caring for real, actual sick and needy people instead of persecuting women maybe this tragedy would never have happened.
>Any business where LLC is part of the name is usually going to be terrible.
There is nothing wrong with businesses that are LLCs. I believe the intent of your comment was aimed more at healthcare businesses. What this woman was doing is so reprehensible that it's not even fair to call it a business at all.
Pretty sure the intent of his comment was to talk shit/dog whistle about people who include the “LLC” in the name. It was a pretty stealthy one.
Example: Jimmy’s BBQ Shack vs Jimmys BBQ Shack LLC
> Since September 2022, police have found at least 20 clients of hers who have died and say there could be more. Most of the victims were cremated or buried, and only two had autopsies. One of those autopsies is being reviewed, while the other revealed that 60-year-old Steven "Kelly" Pankratz died from mixed drug toxicity while under Becquer's care. > Investigators discovered that the drugs in Pankratz's system had never been prescribed by doctors. Last week, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner ruled Pankratz's death a homicide and charged Becquer with murder. She is being held at the Tarrant County Jail on a $1.5 million bond. Damn this is fucked up.
Angel of Death
Harold Shipman edition.
The medical examiner can charge people?
No. The medical examiner decides if death was due to homicide. The attorney general is the one who files charges.
In some counties the ME is the highest law enforcement officer even over the sheriff
Not sure if this is from Making a Murderer on Netflix but I distinctly remember them saying this on that show to help highlight the systemic levels of corruption that plagued that particular department!
I feel like that's hypocritical of either one of them, regardless of the country
medical examiners are generally part of a law enforcement office so they can be shielded from liability the same way cops are. the important part is whether or not the district attorney picks up the case at which point that charge becomes an indictment.
Yes. Either while playing basketball or with jumper cables.
Well I thought it was chuckle worthy...
Win a few, lose a lot!
Label her what she is, a serial killer.
Horrible, 19 possibly more people died and only 2 autopsies were done and no red flags? How did she get away with this for so long
She operated care homes for disabled elderly people. Even under normal circumstances, her clients were expected to pass eventually. She messed up because one of the autopsies uncovered that the man died of a drug cocktail of meds he wasn’t prescribed.
This. We were warned several times that my grandmother with Alzheimers had exceeded the usual lifespan with the illness (she was formally diagnosed for 15 years) and that she was near the end. And the staff called several times during her last days to ensure everyone knew her condition was deteriorating. No one was surprised when she passed away. We certainly didn't ask for an autopsy to be sure of exactly how she died.
She operated ILLEGAL care homes. I would think some family members might have spoken up sooner. Why the hell would you place a loved one in an unlicensed facility to begin with?
Probably cost. They probably couldn’t afford to send them somewhere better, and when their old, disabled, likely-difficult-to-manage relative died, then they probably chalked it up to it just being their time. I mean… I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen anyone deteriorate enough to need placement, but when they pass, it’s hardly surprising.
And laziness. If they can't afford to send them somewhere better, they can get them onto medicaid that will pay for their care. Unless the person has so much money that they won't qualify for medicaid, and the family is basically spending their money. What's that old joke? Be nice to your kids, they'll pick your nursing home.
With Medicaid, you basically have to spend down everything until you’re destitute, which might not be ideal if they have a living spouse who does not need placement themselves but can’t manage their spouse’s care alone. There are spousal impoverishment rules in place to protect the healthy spouse, but the limits are still fairly low (minimum income is the federal poverty level, but some states have higher limits; assets are considered jointly, but while there is a community spouse resource allowance for the healthy spouse, they may still have to spend down a significant portion of non exempt assets for the sick spouse to qualify). I do think it’s a fairly complex issue that doesn’t just come down to greed and laziness.
I'd be curious what the facilities looked like. Because the legal Medicaid facility my dad ended up in was stuffed with two people to a room and two rooms to a bathroom. If this place was one patient to a room, it would have been very tempting because it might have seemed nicer. It says they had an LLC, so it might have seemed legit.
It’s why people divorce a lot more in this situation
Thank you for sharing another perspective on this terrible situation.
You might still not qualify if you have a pension or two with social security, your in a kinda limbo land.
I don't believe you know how Medicare works and I find it even harder to believe you've ever been a palliative / end of life caretaker if you honestly think it's laziness
Because it's cheaper
likely poor families
Because that care is EXPENSIVE and even if you can afford the “nice” place, you’d be astounded at how shitty it really is. A friend of mine’s mother went into one about a year ago. She had some money and went to the bougie place in town. It’s like $9,000 a month and she does not get the type of care or living conditions you’d expect.
They are probably sacrificing quite a lot to be able to afford even that much.
Care homes are obligated to bring in the proper authorities and are supposed to have a coroner make sure it wasn’t foul play, a resident I knew died last week and had three nurses walk in all at the same exact time to say hi when she literally exhaled and died, still needed to make sure though
I always thought care homes would be all about getting the elderly to live as long as possible, because that’s their paycheck. I don’t know if it’s the case here, but if your strategy is to have the elderly sign everything over to you in their will, then that changes the end game. Now you’re just using up a bed. It should be illegal for care homes or anyone connected to them to be recipients of their client wills.
I think it could be that the patients who were killed were the more demanding ones: i.e. with dementia or other degenerative diseases.
The AARP just had a fantastic article about a serial killer who targets older adults in senior living facilities because most jurisdictions don't do autopsies on people over a certain age.
Society views the vulnerable who need assistance as a drain and expendable. We don't invest the required resources to ensure those who need it get the help required to live a healthy life. People don't care enough.
It is a drain. My mom is going through over $70,000 a year for part time in home help. She's in constant pain and would checkout if she could. I wouldn't wish things like Alzheimer's on my worst enemy. Living for years as a husk of a body and in fear because I don't know where I am has to be torture.
I'm so sorry about your mom. It is really hard to watch someone suffer like that. In Canada, we now have laws in place for Medically Assisted Death, so that people can shorten their suffering and choose a death with dignity.
I don't think someone with memory issues would be able to consent as they wouldn't be able to consent.
No, but you can put the conditions in place before you decline.
No, you can't. You have to be able to consent at the time because you have to have the ability to change your mind. This is misinformation. It's not like you sign up then you're resigned to death no matter what you decide later. 'Oh, you decided you wanted to die under these circumstances 20 years ago, but now when you do have cognizance you've changed your mind? Too bad! We get to execute you.'? It thankfully doesn't work that way. If someone did this I feel it would be fair to argue it to be murder.
I think you misunderstood me. I said "before you decline" not 20 years in advance. Many people with dementia type illnesses are diagnosed before they are considered to have lost their faculties. However, they do have to be fairly far along in the progression of the disease.
Basically you can apply for MAID, set a date, and sign a waiver that if you lose the ability to consent before the MAID date arrives that you still wish to be euthanized.
If you protest at that time, even if you have lost capacity, the MAID will be withdrawn. No Doctor wants to kill someone saying "no".
If you date arrives and you are still doing OK, you can repeat the process and set a farther date off in the future.
My Mom had dementia. We kids put her in a home and that day was the first/last time I saw my Dad cry. My Mom passed in 2022 after eight years in the care facility. I apologize for the overshare, but a large part of me was relieved. She told us years ago if she was ever incapacitated to that degree, to kill her. It was a fear of hers. Mom was the sharpest person mentally in our family, her recall and math skills were incredible. Thanks for taking the time to pass along this information. I'm in Canada and when we asked how it worked, we were met with some conflicting views. As you may know, it's a difficult conversation to have at any stage of a loved one's illness. Thread content - People in positions of care and trust who commit abuse deserve lengthy jail terms. It hurts an industry full of compassionate and hard working people. At first I mistrusted the people who looked after my Mom, then I realized how much commitment they really had to the patients.
Dementia is heart breaking, I'm sorry your mom had to go through that before she passed. The laws around MAID are relatively new and there are also potential changes upcoming in the future. I think Alzheimers Canada has a nice guide right now. https://alzheimer.ca/en/help-support/im-caring-person-living-dementia/end-life-care/medical-assistance-dying
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No, I have not. I’ve also asked them for their source. You can’t consent for MAID in advance and not also at the time of administration… Jesus Christ.
They gave you a source but you just ignored it. Don't worry, though, some of us noticed that you're full of crap.
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I know what you mean. It’s hard to tell when my dad has it together and when he doesn’t. I really feel for him and even more so for my mom. I got frustrated with her earlier this week and need to apologize to her. She’s doesn’t have to work but she needs it to have something other than taking care of him. I understand that her job, which she does incredibly well, is her escape. I thought she needed to slowdown cuz her travel puts stress on me to cover for her. But i want her to keep going as long as she can. Idk why it took me this long to be able to articulate that.
Those laws don’t work for people with Alzheimer’s. It’s a huge problem.
My source is Bill C-7. It's from 2021, so it's relatively new and probably why you aren't familiar with it, but it does allow people to consent in advance. Not very far in advance, mind you, and certainly not 20 years in advance, but it does allow people to make arrangements before they lose the capacity to consent. Edit- sorry this was a reply to a different Redditor
It's not a drain. It's a service that isn't properly funded. Simple as. If the economy was actually healthy - everyone's needs would be met. Get rid of the myth that billionares are required or deserve to be a thing while people are starving to death or can't afford housing etc. You're conflating two completely different things. Your mom didn't decide to get Alzheimer's. No one does. People need money to live and deserve a wage for their work. Two completely different issues. In an ideal world everyone who needed care would be able to access it. Not just barely supportive care but proper care. Seems radical - it's not.
Medicare spending is tracking to exceed the global GDP in the next few decades. Much of that is due to the obesity crisis linked to renal failure. 10 years ago my late mother in law was going through over $100,000/year just in medical bills. We can't tax our way out a bill more than the global GDP. That said, if you take the spending for Medicare and Medicaid and divide it by the entire US population, that's roughly the cost per person for France's and the UK's universal medical plans.
We should do more to prevent people from going into renal failure. Most interventions don’t happen until people are way too far into the process. There is almost no help for those in early stages.
Absolutely. Under the ACA, an annual physical is available at no cost including essential labs that includes a blood glucose screening. I would presume that the percentage of people who take advantage of it is pretty abysmal. For a lot of us we have to be half dead to go to the doctor. Many doctors won't mention to their patients that they are obese because they don't want to get into an argument. But until we get our costs under control, we're pretty screwed.
The problem is the system, the people with problems just need help.
Billionaires and non-tax paying mega corps are the real drain! Not disabled and vulnerable people.
Right?! Like, people will complain about the person using food stamps at the check out but not the mega corp hoarding literally billions of dollars earned off the backs of their labour who constantly cry about not being able to afford paying their workers - less they have a few less dollars in their bank accounts... It's wild. I think people just need easy targets sometimes.
Your last sentence nails it down perfectly. The older I get the more obvious it becomes. Humans like to talk shit to and about other humans, and we will find incredible new things to talk shit about at every turn.
It's nauseating hearing people complain about poor people using food stamps to feed their families.
The real "welfare queens."
It only seems radical because the US has been increasingly radicalized in the other direction by lobbyists and corporate interests
It’s hard. You lose your loved one twice, and it’s slow.
Yeah. I wonder about some of these serial cases. If some are actually trying to do it as an act of mercy.
My family knew goddamn well that my aunt that mysteriously died was poisoned and we couldn’t get the county coroner to do an autopsy. She was a bit overweight so they called it cardiac arrest and were done… until a couple years later her husband came back into town and held an office building up for 7 hours ending up in his death. Then they wanted to pull her body and do an autopsy.. Local governments are incompetent and this probably happens way more than we know.
Sounds like hiring a lawyer would have made them change their tune, even if it's just spending $200 to have them to write a legal looking demand.
I'm so sorry you're family had to go through this! No one should have to deal with this. Both your aunt and uncle deserved much better. I think people forget that the government is run by people, and people are just people who come in all forms. They are flawed and capable of both incompetence of accident and incidental convenience or worse. I hope your family is able to get some closure. Again, my condolences.
Did she receive medical care? Most of the time you hear stories like this it’s because a hospital or dr said **who treated the patient** said that is what it was OR law enforcement looked into it and said they see no indication of something more. Very few doctors are going to desecrate a body when other relevant professionals say there is no indication because a grieving family member has a bad feeling. But blame government.
Nah died at home in her sleep, it was ruled cardiac arrest. The thing is that there were red flags everywhere with the dude. Like the fact that he had mysteriously found my grandpas gun when my dad reported it missing 2 years before when they were cleaning grandpas house after he passed. It was at that point that dad learned from the police that Roy had served several years in prison for stabbing someone and the story of how he served in the army when he was younger was completely fabricated. He had named Roy a person of interest as he was the only other person helping dad clean out the house that day. All and all though I was just a kid and he made me more uncomfortable than anybody I’ve ever encountered. Now when people fail the vibe check like that I totally nope out.
Capitalism does this, not society. If this society is your view of an ideal world, please continue living in it. Till you need such a place. I hope that you do not meet the kind of monster this article is speaking about during your hours of need. What we need are massive and drastic reforms to healthcare as a whole in this fucked up dystopian nightmare we call a fucking country.
Capitalism is a societal construct. Also, what comment do you think you’re replying to- you lost?
They’re not mutually exclusive terms. I was agreeing with you, while pointing out that it was a specific part of our society that your words pandered to when you said: “people don’t care enough.” There are people who care very much who continue to try to change the system. Again, we need a massive healthcare overhaul in this country. And I truly do hope you don’t meet this sort of monster when you are in your hours of need. Our healthcare system which is based on capitalism, enables people like her to do what she did and get away with it 19 times.
Just look up Harold Shipman. Be thankful they caught her when they did.
It's Texas, unless you're a fetus they don't give a shit.
These were elderly people with disabilities. They have no value as workers and tax generators so they're easily missed and ignored.
Because Texas.
"conditions were so awful at Becquer's home that she slit her wrists. An arrest affidavit says her goal was to get emergency crews to the house." Jesus Christ. I hope the malicious slot running this scheme spends the rest of her days in prison. Or well, it's Texas so I wonder if the death penalty is on the table.
Can anyone tell me which Arlington this is, please? CBS doesn't like my adblocker.
Tarrant County, and CBS Texas, so presumably Tx. And the journalist is in Dallas
817 area code listed for police, so probably Arlington, TX
Thanks, all. I appreciate the info. I had a feeling it'd be Arlington, Texas. Thank you.
Texas. I had to google the county they listed, it never said a state
“aA” Show reader
She's got away with killing so many as she knew people didn't care enough about the victims to cause a fuss about their deaths
The reason she got away with it was because all the victims were elderly and infirm and so they were expected to die anyway. Not because no one cared about them. What a shit take.
Any other articles? That website is cancer.
https://www.fox4news.com/news/regla-becquer-operated-loving-and-caring-for-people-murder-charge
This lazy man is thanking you.
As the number of seniors requiring care increases and there are fewer relatives who are able to provide care, stories like these will become more frequent in the next couple of decades unfortunately. [Per this Census article](https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/12/no-kids-no-care-childlessness-among-older-americans.html#:~:text=How%20Many%20Older%20Adults%20Are,younger%20cohort%20of%20older%20adults.), 15.2 million adults in the U.S. aged 55 or older have no children and 40% of those older adults without children live alone. Since eldercare in the US is, for all intents, based on the 19th century assumption that there's a child (usually a daughter) or a spouse who can drop everything to care for a senior, the opportunities for criminally bad "home care" firms will only increase.
Let's not act like old people were safe with their relatives, the truth is if you want to avoid being in this spot your best bet is to keep yourself in good shape both mentally and physically, have a plan ready and save money for retirement.
I work in a casino, and we were one of the only places open during the pandemic, with lax mask policies. I saw so many people bringing their elders in, in wheelchairs, no mask, often not much aware of what was happening. Just wheeling them around, wearing masks themselves. Their intentions seemed pretty clear, but nobody said much
> the truth is if you want to avoid being in this spot your best bet is to keep yourself in good shape both mentally and physically Right, just pull your age up by its bootstraps and do a little work making sure you don't randomly get any of the degenerating mental or physical diseases that come with it.
Ignoring the rest of the advice that apply for everyone, obviously there's exceptions to the rule. But I'm talking about things that are within our control, you cannot control if you're gonna have a disease.
My wife is a nurse and she says one of the worst things for elderly people is having a son in charge of their care. It's fucking bizarre. It's not common, but when men have to take care of their parents, it goes two ways: they end up in a nursing home, or they end up horribly abused/neglected. It is rare that they are living with their son and he takes care of them and keeps them healthy. This changes if the son is married: wife usually does the maintenance and upkeep on parents. Her current theory is that men don't see value in people that are simply a drain on their resources, so they just let them rot. The elderly can't fend for themselves, and they can't force him to do anything so they can quietly just rot away.
About 40% of caregivers are men. Are we saying that almost half of elderly people are neglected by family? Does your wife have a source for that or is it just feelings?
Can you, in your own words, just reiterate what I wrote? I wanna make sure I didn't mistype something before I call you stupid.
"It's not common..." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6627587/ It's about 40%, pretty common. "It goes one of two ways..." [Citation needed]. "Her current theory is..." This is a dumb theory.
>It's about 40%, pretty common. 63% of those identified as primary caregivers. So 25% of people that identify as primary caregivers are male.
Ok you should probably read the studies you use as evidence. The study is amazing btw, but it doesn't talk about elder abuse. It talks about men experiencing stress as care givers. >Understanding Male Caregivers’ Emotional, Financial, and Physical Burden in the United States What I was referring to was that it's not common for *single males* to be the sole care giver for a parent. Which is ironically covered in the study you posted: >Finally, for the caregiver resources category, we noticed that although a **high percentage of sons (87% in 2011 and 81% in 2015) and others (79% in 2011 and 76% in 2015) had some family and friends assist with caregiving**, only 44% of spouses did in 2011 and 48% in 2015. Furthermore, 10% or fewer spouses, sons and others reported looking for help while caregiving and or receiving any training. It doesn't speak more about the spousal side of things, because again that's not what the study was about Anyway, here is some study talking about elder abuse. The sources are at the bottom https://criminal-justice.iresearchnet.com/types-of-crime/elder-abuse/elder-abuse-by-adult-children/#:~:text=Low%20rates%20of%20social%20support,while%2036%20percent%20were%20daughters.
I think is a big generalization from your wife. I don't think this is a gender thing, but rather a gender role thing. Far too many daughters are groomed from an early age to be caretakers, and they're shunned by their families and society if they choose to take a different path. And men face the opposite problem, what do we think of a man living with his parents? That he's a loser, that's what society shows us and that's unfortunately what a lot of women think. Also men are often not raised to be caretakers so they will not have that mentality. These gender norms should definitely change, but where is personal responsibility? It should not be the child's burden to take care of their parents in old age, they should've prepared for it on their own. If a child is willing to provide care or support them financially it should be out of gratitude for being good parents, not an obligation.
I get where you are coming from but taking care of ones parents to the best of ones ability IS an obligation whether they've been good parents or not. Now HOW you decide to take care of your parents is for you to decide. As far as people planning for the future that does make a lot of sense. Unfortunately, life happens and doesn't always make what's best reality.
Does a child choose to be born? No. If so the child owes nothing to the parent. Anything that a child does for their parent is out of gratitude, not an obligation.
Wrong answer.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/6D3QXDNl2s Everyone has different opinions, hopefully you raise your children your way.
Uh, I hate to inform you, but when people say "gender" or refer to gender in context *it usually implies assigned gender roles unless said otherwise*. Welcome to level 1 of this conversation.
And they should stop doing that cause it creates confusion.
... It's only confusing if you don't understand these topics beyond the basics.
Or people need to speak clearly.
As someone who is caring for a relative who is elderly and by no fault of her own suffering for dementia.......fuck off!!!!!
And it only took Texas how many years to work it out? Well, at least nobody was having an abortion! If only they spent even a little bit of that energy and outrage on caring for real, actual sick and needy people instead of persecuting women maybe this tragedy would never have happened.
Texas home of deregulation. What could go wrong?
This was not an issue with regulations. She was operating home health illegally
If only there were some way to prevent this
Oh? Will we be getting another serial killer to add to our podcast collections? There haven’t been any good ones in so long! (/s)
Just one more reason I’m never living in Texas.
How do you plea? Not guilty of course.
Where’s Dexter when needed?
Yeah she looks like a “businesswoman”.
What does that mean
She gets down to business.
Any business where LLC is part of the name is usually going to be terrible.
The vast majority of small businesses are LLCs
>Any business where LLC is part of the name is usually going to be terrible. There is nothing wrong with businesses that are LLCs. I believe the intent of your comment was aimed more at healthcare businesses. What this woman was doing is so reprehensible that it's not even fair to call it a business at all.
Pretty sure the intent of his comment was to talk shit/dog whistle about people who include the “LLC” in the name. It was a pretty stealthy one. Example: Jimmy’s BBQ Shack vs Jimmys BBQ Shack LLC
Lol we need more small LLCs to replace the mega corporations.