HEALTHCARE THREAD

bell labs: what are the so many things, though??? like, i don't find the fact that you have to PAY for healthcare to be appalling in any way whatsoever. you have to pay for everything else in the world, why not healthcare? why should it have to be free?

also: preventative medicine is NOT that expensive, but ignoring it or being denied access to it IS.

xp Jordan they definitely DO absorb the costs---but they don't EAT them, they just get passed on

gr8080: exactly. ppl in America have come to expect the very best healthcare in the world (in the cutting-edge, pulling-out-all-the-stops sense), and suddenly making that free to everyone would cost serious $$$$

Maybe we should just require everyone to go to death acceptance therapy. jk xpost moocow etc.

I can only speak from my own experience - the care I have received on my healthcare plan here in the US was no better than the care I have received under the NHS - in terms of wait times, information, quality of staff and access to medication. I've also had fairly major surgeries/procedures in both countries. The US might not be fertile territory for a European-style plan, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Americans are being lied to about the relative/potential quality of care under alternative systems.

RW, preventative medicine IS that expensive for a lot of people. I have no insurance, so my sole provider are Doc in the Box outfits (CareNow, specifically). $105 just to walk in the door. Another $75-100 if I need a shot. Another $15-100+ if I need a prescription.

One doctor's visit for something relatively minor can easily eat up an entire paycheck.

I was once told that on medical collections (like from the ER), as long as you paid a small sum every month (even if not their minimum), it could never go into default/screw up your credit. True?

Only if you have worked this plan out with the hospital and stick with it scrupulously.

i don't find the fact that you have to PAY for healthcare to be appalling in any way whatsoever. you have to pay for everything else in the world, why not healthcare? why should it have to be free?

I'm a socialist at heart and I do believe along with a quality education this is something that should be provided at no direct cost to citizens (I realize taxes fund social programs).

another thing that you are paying for when you go to the doctor aside from medical procedures is the doctor's malpractice insurance, which is often hundreds of thousands of dollars a year...democrats seem to hate to talk about this but doctors are already getting pretty fucked over w/r/t income and expanding low-cost coverage is not going to make this any better :/

river wolf can you break down the costs of a stay in the ICU under observation? I mean is it like lots and lots of overhead for 24/7 staffing and equipment that doesn't depreciate in a helpful fashion? Because if that's generally the case then socialized systems should be able to absorb those costs really well, I would think.

i'm not too crazy familiar with the way it works stateside but don't hmo's basically add another level of cost to the overall heath care equation there?

more xposts

ppl in America have come to expect the very best healthcare in the world (in the cutting-edge, pulling-out-all-the-stops sense), and suddenly making that free to everyone would cost serious $$$$

people are getting it now and our economy isn't dead, what's the harm in cutting out the insurance companies, spanking big pharma, adding some cost effective preventative medicine and inviting the poor along for the ride?

NOT THAT I THINK THAT WILL HAPPEEN LOL

not enough ventilators

spanking big pharma,

TOTALLY. For starters, stop with the TV ads for every fucking symptom under the sun.

as an aside, some beefs with the NHS:

-- aunt waited for MONTHS before she was able to see a specialist about her bizarre illness (woke up paralyzed one morning...totally terrifying). then, when she did, no one knew what was up. they took spinal taps to get at her CSF, and she got awful, post LP headaches that lasted for weeks. i had a conversation with a PA here the other day, and dude not only correctly diagnosed her from my poor description, he also asked why they didn't give her a blood patch, which is an extremely routine treatment for post-LP headaches that is pretty much guaranteed to work. asked my uncle, and he said that when he brought up blood patches, the docs flatly refused to do it, with no explanation

-- uncle fell and broke his hip for the third time, was not given morphine for TWO DAYS. paramedics hand that shit out like candy over here, wtf

i agree that big pharma needs to be dealt with, i'm just not sure how

xp - Malpractice insurance is only 2-3% of our total healthcare cost and more a function of insurance co. profitability than anything else.

yeah shit like that happens aaaaaalll the time here too

xxp

In many cases, doctors really are paying upwards of 100k/year. moreover, the ones carrying the most are the kind we're running out of: OBs, in particular

my wife likes to yell at the TV when an ad comes on, and she claims that there is only one other country in the world that allows pharma ads. i wonder if that's true.

At least health care IT in the U.S. is improving and, I think, >>> other places :>

And make sure you don't have any behavioral health problems while uninsured, you will be blacklisted for life by insurance companies. Even under a group healthcare plan, they will fuck you over and make it extremely difficult to get a claim filed. The insurance companies want you to give up.

jhoshea: not really, dude. i mean, certainly not the morphine thing.

price caps for starters.
xpost to big pharma

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Direct-to-consumer_advertising

Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) is the promotion of prescription drugs through newspaper, magazine, television and internet marketing. Drug companies also produce a range of other materials, including brochures and videos, that are available in doctors offices or designed to be given to patients by medical professionals or via patient groups.

The only two developed countries where DTCA is currently legal are the U.S. and New Zealand. (See Direct-to-consumer advertising in the United States and Direct-to-consumer advertising in New Zealand for more country-specific details). While banned elsewhere, the drug industry is mounting major lobbying campaigns to have DTCA allowed in Europe and Canada. (See Direct-to-consumer advertising: The Campaign To Overturn Europe's Ban and Direct-to-consumer advertising: CanWest's Bid to Overturn Canada's Ban for further details).

Fucked up.

bell labs: what are the so many things, though??? like, i don't find the fact that you have to PAY for healthcare to be appalling in any way whatsoever. you have to pay for everything else in the world, why not healthcare? why should it have to be free?

i have no problem having to pay for it, but individual health policies are NOT affordable b/c of the way that insurance works. group policies are not available to everyone, and to those who don't have access to group policies paying for procedures and hospital visits are unfairly inflated.

maybe were generous w/the morphine - but sloppy misdiagnoses, yes

xp

yeah, most of the cost of an ICU stay is the fact that you're paying for facilities as much as care. i'll see if i can find a breakdown (which may prove difficult? i had to yell at peeps to get one for my ER visit)

i'm not too crazy familiar with the way it works stateside but don't hmo's basically add another level of cost to the overall heath care equation there?

more xposts

-- The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Monday, June 18, 2007 4:52 PM (Monday, June 18, 2007 4:52 PM) Bookmark Link

I think the argument wrt that is that HMO's add an extra level of administrative costs/waste?

More than anything I'd like to see pharma companies BANNED from advertising to the general public. These commercials that don't even really tell you what the drug is for/talk about it in a way that makes it sound like YOU MUST HAVE IT need to stop. Bad for doctors, bad for patients. :(

CON: GB healthcare misdiagnosed my grumbling appendix for 8 months
PRO: When they finally got around to extracting my burst appendix, they did not kill me
DECISIVE PRO: They also gave me the morphine button

I think the argument wrt that is that HMO's add an extra level of administrative costs/waste?

also, plz note guys that i'm totally open on this issue at the moment. like, something's definitely wrong, but i'm not entirely sure what the solution is here in the US

xp totally, jessie: while patients should absolutely have a say in how they're cared for, they really shouldn't be telling docs they NEED to have $DRUGSEENONTV

an argument I've heard for single-payer in the US is the drastic reduction in administrative bullshit. there'd simply be one bill that the patient would never see, and entire billing depts would no longer be necessary

I don't think I'd have the guts to ask a doctor for a specific drug (but maybe that's because the drugs I'd ask for fall into the possible-fun category).

I have an aunt who always conveniently "has" whatever disease is currently being pushed by big pharma.

the flipside is: you now have one entity that decides how much every checkup, procedure, and so on, is worth. if the gov't decides that a Whipple is now worth $200, then that's how much it'll cost, period.

gr8080: exactly. ppl in America have come to expect the very best healthcare in the world (in the cutting-edge, pulling-out-all-the-stops sense), and suddenly making that free to everyone would cost serious $$$$

yeah but even if the system stays where it is it could still destroy the economy.

meaning: we as a society will need to make some hard decisions in the next decade or two as to how long we choose to keep people alive.

but then its only another generation or two before the results of the human genome project wipe the slate clean and we all look like uma thurman and ethan hawke in gattica, right?

pharma and insurance lobbies are honestly too big to expect much of anything to change w/r/t those things in particular. any universal healthcare is going to involve a low-cost basic coverage through a private insurer.

like Julianne Moore and Clive Owen in Children of Men, more like

pharma R+D should be separated from the manufacturing and marketing side. license formulas out to various companies and make guaranteed money while they compete to push their brand at the lowest cost. the end.

i'm baffled that there hasn't been a huge geeky push for open-source EMRs yet (that i know of). if EMRs get locked into proprietary software, then we're really fucked, esp if different groups/hospitals use different systems. like, what'd be the fucking point

I don't know what you Americans are getting so worked up over:

Some U.S. hospitals offer gifts for long emergency-room waits

I mean, check it. You might have an aneurysm in your artery, but dude, FREE TIGERS TICKETS.

isn't that what the generic system is for? and wouldn't it require an overhaul of patenting? xxpost to tombot

and BTW we could chuck all the life-support systems in the ocean and let boomers all just get old and die but the economy's going to be destroyed anyway by a little thing called the dependency ratio (ESPECIALLY if we implement tax-supported single payer)

isn't that what the generic system is for?

Doesn't it take like 6-7 years for a drug to become generic?

yes, due to patent laws.

I think. Some kind of fancy law.

and they're working on overhauling the patent system as we speak, but for techno stuff, i think it passed the house?

from what i understand, the wait is 7 years for generics. however, SNEAKY DRUG COMPANIES have figured out that if they REPURPOSE a drug for a different, possibly made-up disorder, then they get another 7 years

jessie: no. patents are patents. the R+D labs would make money up front for licensing implementations to big manufacturing contractors. probably another company would pay the contractor and label/market the pills as they come off the line. it's just like 21st century modern business, instead of 19th century business.