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from the think-of-the-children's...-mother dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The US has a shameful record when it comes to caring for its moms. As Ars has reported before, the rate of women dying during pregnancy or childbirth is higher—much higher—than in any other developed country. By some estimates, mothers die in the US at a rate six-times that seen in Italy and three-times the rate in the UK, for instance. And of those that survive, tens of thousands suffer devastating injuries and near-death experiences each year.
Nevertheless, health researchers, hospital organizations, policy makers, and state task forces have been working to understand and reverse the horrific numbers—often doing so with limited resources and reliance on volunteers. While reports have offered glimpses of the problem, a new investigation by USA Today provides one of the sharpest pictures yet.
Many of the pregnant women and mothers who suffer and die in this country do so from easily preventable, common complications—and hospitals know exactly what safety features and practices are needed to spare mothers' lives and suffering, they just aren't using them. Women are left to bleed to death because doctors don't bother monitoring blood loss. Women suffer strokes and seizures and even die because doctors and nurses fail to treat their high blood pressure in time. The bottom line is stunning, simple negligence.
[...] While high blood pressure is one of the top causes of maternal deaths and complications, experts estimate that up to 60 percent of hypertensive deaths are preventable.
Hemorrhaging is another common but easily treatable complication. Women can bleed to death in as little as five minutes during childbirth. Yet experts estimate that 90 percent of maternal deaths from extreme blood loss are preventable. Such strategies to avoid harms are simple things, like weighing bloody pads to monitor blood loss (not relying on inaccurate visual estimates), having medications and supplies to curb blood loss readily available in a mobile cart, and responding promptly to signs of trouble.
Such simple steps have been recommended by experts for years. But in interviews with USA Today, many hospitals admitted they weren't following guidelines.
To put the data in real terms, USA Todaytold the story of 24-year-old Ali Lowry, who bled internally for hours after delivering by Cesarean section in an Ohio hospital in 2013. Her blood pressure registered at alarmingly low levels—52/26, 57/25, 56/24, 59/27—for more than three hours before staff responded. By the time she was airlifted to another hospital for life-saving surgery, her heart had stopped and she needed a hysterectomy. She eventually settled a lawsuit with her doctor and the hospital, which denied wrongdoing.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 03 2018, @11:31AM (66 children)
You're missing the point. Doctors and nurses would much rather be seeing patients than playing secretary but they can't or they don't get paid. Thus the recent occurrence of cash-only healthcare facilities. Out in Oklahoma right now you can either go to a hospital and get knee surgery that is going to cost you over $6K even with insurance or you can go to the cash-only surgery center down the road, get the operation done by a couple guys who do nothing but knee surgery, and hand them $2k cash; no insurance company involved because they do not accept any form of insurance, medicare, medicaid, or anything else. You also have the added benefit of being able to see a price list and shop around between it and other cash-only places.
Every piece of paperwork reduces quality of care and increases cost. And there is an absurd number of pieces for every patient.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday August 03 2018, @12:24PM (10 children)
This makes a lot of sense, and if I were king of the U.S. of A. I'd be instituting "Medicare for all" but trying to drive it toward the cash-only level of paperwork. Shopping doctors makes sense. Basic affordable healthcare makes sense. If you want the latest in joint replacements, advanced cancer treatments, heart transplants, etc. - get yourself into the insurance game, but for basic healthcare there should be a simpler way.
I did an ER visit in Dusseldorf in 1990 with blood poisoning starting in the left hand. It was the most efficient medical experience I've ever had, and mostly because the money side of the equation was trivialized. There was a 35 marks (about US$20) cash charge for the visit which included 1 hour's attention of an MD and nurse, a cast, a tetanus series, antibiotics, etc. Sure, it cost far more to deliver the care than that, that's what the taxes are paying for: to keep the hospital open and the people on staff, the trivial cash charge for usage is similar to office visit copays when you have insurance in the US.
I did a very similar visit to an ER in Florida in 2010, and it was the fiasco you would imagine if you've ever been to a U.S. E.R. - 6 hours in total, 5 minutes with the doc, 30 minutes with the billing officer, 4 trumped up pre-doc visit tests that told him nothing of value, but ran up the bill to the insurance, $200 out of my pocket, something like $6000 on the initial bill to insurance - god knows how that shook out after negotiation, probably something like $400 from the insurance company to the hospital in the end, but now we've got integrated insurer/provider companies who are starting to book those big bills as if they are actually getting paid. It's time to start dragging the heads of these institutions into the streets and showing them the guillotine.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @02:10PM (9 children)
Why does it have to be Medicare? Let communities (including groups spread out across different governmental jurisdictions) form their own damn groups with their own damn definitions of obligation.
The problem with the U.S. is that the government has made health care into a political creature, and the lawyers treat health care as a big cash cow for their litigious nature.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @02:23PM (8 children)
Medicare has first mover advantage.
Surely a capitalist would understand first mover advantage!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @02:28PM (7 children)
That's it. The only "advantage" is that Medicare can use the men with guns to extract money from you.
That's sounds totally un-American, and it's certainly anti-Capitalist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @04:16PM (1 child)
You have no idea what first mover advantage is or why it's relevant here, do you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @04:39PM
First mover advantage. Just ask Friendster about it.
That's why we're all Egyptian.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @06:48PM (4 children)
No, the "advantage" of Medicare is that it pools risk. With everyone in one pool, the average cost per person goes down, because the risk is spread across the entire population, it ends some types of rent seeking, and because there is only one "plan." True, some people will pay more, but we are already subsidizing people's healthcare, so that is a super small percentage (i.e. less than 5%). Multiple studies, even by Libertarian and right-wing groups show that Medicare for All would be less expensive, etc. because it is more efficient, among other benefits. This is even when you add it as an additional option for buy in. There is a reason why almost everyone who is eligible signs up for Part B, C, and D, and doesn't get private insurance, despite being available.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @06:53PM (1 child)
You prove it by competing in the market place. May the best pool win.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @03:27AM
I would if I could, but the law won't allow them to do so. But as I said, in the demographics where enrolling in Medicare is allowed, they routinely stomp the competition in terms of sign-ups.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @07:21PM (1 child)
Yes, that's a good point. I saw a couple hilarious (or at least I try to laugh here because otherwise I will be consumed by despair) pieces on Common Dreams and Alternet reporting this. Here's one: Reporting on Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All Plan Makes the Media Forget How Math Works [alternet.org] [FAIR].
My point about first mover was that medicare is a well-understood program. None of the private insurance providers have anywhere near the experience working with populations near or below the poverty line or experience with the level of governmental oversight we'd expect out of single payer healthcare that medicare does. Additionally, many social workers (for example, people at HHS offices and people who are involved in charity programs currently run by hospitals and community foundations--they pretty much all know each other in any given community too, that is, the professional networks are established and close-knit) have a lot of institutional knowledge about medicare.
Medicare for all is a no-brainer if there ever was one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @04:06AM
Sadly the no-brainers still find it perplexing.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Friday August 03 2018, @12:25PM (37 children)
I got misread terribly!
Its not the doctors I blame at all! Those are those schmoes in the trenches trying to do the best they can under the environment they are commissioned to work within. Another profession with almost identical restraints are Teachers.
Its the Employment Environment which I consider at fault. Its all about profit. Not care.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @02:13PM (2 children)
Someone, somewhere in society needs to be making a profit so that it's actually possible to pay to care for people.
The bean counters are actually quite important; it just so happens that the government has decoupled the economics of health care from reality, and so the bean counters are also behaving increasingly stupid.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 03 2018, @03:17PM (1 child)
Bean counters have been over rated for decades now. A hospital needs to at least break even, or make a little profit. But a hospital should never be ABOUT profit. The United States took a wrong turn somewhere.
Damned near everything about a hospital is overpriced, to pay for Big Pharma, "insurance", lawyers, and those damned bean counters. Add in a profit motive, and the average American simply can't afford to get the sniffles. If you do get sick or injured, you better have some other plan. The VERY LAST THING you want to do, is go to the ER.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @04:19PM
Nobody knows what that sweet spot is; society must find it continuously.
That's the whole point of a market: To find what society needs/wants and who's going to pay for it.
The problem with health care (down to the very foundation) has been virtually detached from market forces, including clear lines of obligation and responsibility; there's no good way to find that sweet spot, and so it has become a political issue—the outcome is arbitrary and capricious, and depends on people making the best sounding speeches rather.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 03 2018, @02:14PM (33 children)
It's about profit at the cash-only places too. Profit is not a dirty word. It just means the people providing the product or service don't have to work for free and might even be able to grow their business. There's not even anything wrong with making as much profit as you possibly can (Overall, not on each individual transaction. Ask Wal-Mart or Amazon about this.); if a free market with real competition exists, it just means that you've found the optimally correct price for your product or service.
The problem is when you start getting into monopoly and quasi-monopoly situations like non-cash healthcare, insurance, and government programs. It fucks that optimal pricing ability all kinds of up. Not having fixed and published prices is some quality shitwaddery as well but that's not entirely on the healthcare providers. The way insurance and government programs work, it fairly well requires them to either play that particular type of silly buggers or go bankrupt.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @02:26PM (30 children)
On your medical bill, your insurance company will FINALLY tell you what something cost: Without them, you would have paid "$142" for that shot/jab you received, but not only did the insurance company pay the bill for you, but also only paid the low, negotiated price "$12".
So, there you go.
You have no idea what anything costs until afterwards, and you find out that if you'd paid in cash, you might have been charged $142 rather than $12. All of this basically makes it impossible for people to interact with this part of the economy unless they integrate themselves into socialistic governmental programs, or their political creatures, the insurance companies.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 03 2018, @03:17PM (29 children)
Experiment: Go in with insurance and pay for a tetanus shot for one of your children. Then go in and pay for the same treatment for your other child with cash at the exact same facility. I guarantee you the two bills won't look remotely similar and I'll buy you a beer if the cash bill comes to more than what the insurance company statement reads. That's not a bet, by the way. I'll buy you a beer either way for opening your mind up and testing your assumptions.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @04:19PM (27 children)
I've tried this before with labwork. The cash cost is always around an order of magnitude higher.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @05:13PM (26 children)
Yup, insurance can collectively bargain for cheaper prices and hospital administrators realized they can charge the people who pay directly any amount they want. It is almost guaranteed to be more expensive to fight the charges than to just pay up.
Uzzy do YOU get it yet? The "free market" is not actually quite so free and often you get price gauging because the average Joe rarely has the time to research everything and price collusion is certainly something that has happened before, is happening now, and will continue to happen as long as a business is unethical and thinks they can pull it off. Most government regulations are there to protect the people, the insurance/billing is the REAL problem adding a shit ton of overhead with the bean counters.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @05:49PM (13 children)
Governmental regulation makes such competition unlikely.
I'll take Freedom over your Paternalism, thanks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @06:33PM (12 children)
Take a look around you. Everything you see is contoured by the elite who own 80% of everything, and your "competition" concept is laughably naive. Git educated son.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @06:56PM (11 children)
The point is to have a culture and a legal framework in place that allows for at least the possibility of competition.
Under such a system, it doesn't matter if control over society's resources collects under a few elite; those few will have proven themselves good stewards of society's resources. The same can never be said of an organization that commandeers stewardship at the point of a gun.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @07:47PM
Ah, so then we can have a one world government that is proven to generate philosopher-kings. Perhaps even kings with healing hands who are angelic in nature! These wise angels governing over us would also gladly allow alternatives to flourish, and it would never occur to their pure hearts to use anti-competitive tactics to shut down competition.
It's almost as though somebody has already analyzed this argument before.... It's like something that came up a few episodes ago on the hit Netflix series SoylentNews: Of Men and Angels.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @09:41PM (9 children)
That is what we have now genius. Technically if you can secure the funding you are able to create just about any business you'd like. You're 100% free to do so, just find the $millions to even get on the same level as your competition. Sadly this system also allows for the shady few assholes to corner markets and do lots of shady shit to make you go under. That is the result of your "possibility of competition". Technically it is true, but in reality that competition you so value becomes collusion and pseudo-monopolies.
The only real way for the average person to compete is to create tax payer funded alternatives, this lets them cut out the rent-seeking profiteering behavior and create more efficient services. However people such as yourself cry foul and support the corrupt POSSIBILITY of competition system we have now. You're so naive it hurts replying to you.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 04 2018, @01:20AM (8 children)
You have an extremely limited mind.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @04:09AM (3 children)
Or you suck at reading comprehension. Possibly you just glazed over everything else until you saw something you could criticize. My money is on you being too dumb to understand the reality unfolding around you.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 04 2018, @04:24AM (2 children)
Nah, see I have this thing called an "imagination" that I can use to come up with new ideas completely out of the blue. I know it hurts when you first start using your brain but it does get easier after a little bit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @05:55AM (1 child)
Maybe it hurt you, that first bout of usage must have created some serious damage that never fully healed.
#reeeeeeeetard
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 04 2018, @09:48PM
That's some weak shit even by your normal can't-troll-your-way-out-of-a-paper-bag standard. Practice more.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @04:18AM (3 children)
We're waiting for you to propose an alternative that is not tax funded and does not suffer from the inherent contradictions of capitalism.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 04 2018, @04:21AM (2 children)
Sorry, until I see some individual thought from you lot, I'm not pitching in to help on something that isn't my problem. Help yourselves or you get no help from me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @05:57AM (1 child)
Can we just settle for no help from you? Safer that way >:D
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 04 2018, @09:49PM
Nice one. +1 for you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Friday August 03 2018, @06:40PM (5 children)
Additionally, many medical problems need to be treated *immediately*. You don't have time to "shop around", presuming you are sufficiently mobile to do so. When an ambulance delivers you somewhere, you can't change your mind and ask to be delivered somewhere else. (And an ambulance ride across the street can run $2000. One hospital I know put in an overhead corridor over a street, with all the costs and paperwork that involves, to save itself the cost of having an ambulance take people from their ward to the XRay center.)
Some of this is regulations. Some is insurance companies. Some is lawyers. Some is "other unreasonable charges". You can't point to any one place and be either right or wrong. When being discharged from the hospital my wife was always required to wait for a wheelchair to carry her down to the street, even though she was being discharged as fully mobile. (This wasn't always true, but she could walk a mile on a flat surface, and all the hospital corridors were flat.) Well, this was handled by volunteers, so there was no expense, but the requirement was there to protect the hospital. (That said, it was often a good idea, as when she left the hospital she always tired easily. Lying in bed for a week does that to you.)
Other people have had other experiences, but my experiences say that shopping for medical assistance is often impossible. You've got to take what is immediately presented. Later in the process you may be able to transfer to another facility. Now this is clearly a different circumstance than surgeries that can be done "when convenient", but I've had many more experiences with "care is needed NOW!!!" than with "do it when it's convenient"....outside of scheduled doctor visits.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @06:58PM (1 child)
The Free Market is NOT about immediate results; it's about iteration; it's about evolution by variation and selection.
People talk about their experiences, and thereby shape other people's future decisions.
People pay insurance companies to do that research for them in advance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @07:18PM
No, YOURS is a tired line of reasoning. Like these base principles will magically work out with complex human behaviors and artificial constructs such as labor and service markets.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @10:16PM
The Free Market is NOT about immediate results; it's about iteration; it's about evolution by variation and selection.
People talk about their experiences, and thereby shape other people's future decisions.
People pay insurance companies to do that research for them in advance.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @01:27AM
The Free Market is NOT about immediate results; it's about iteration; it's about evolution by variation and selection.
People talk about their experiences, and thereby shape other people's future decisions.
People pay insurance companies to do that research for them in advance.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @03:28PM
The Free Market is NOT about immediate results; it's about iteration; it's about evolution by variation and selection.
People talk about their experiences, and thereby shape other people's future decisions.
People pay insurance companies to do that research for them in advance.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @06:48AM
Clearly different AC here. One who actually works in the healthcare industry.
That collective bargaining isn't free for the healthcare providers to endure.
In addition to delaying payment for services rendered, said bargaining and extra work to otherwise get payment ties up enough staff to create dedicated departments. An appalling amount of resources are spent fighting insurance to actually pay for things. That being said, Insurance refusing tests isn't entirely uncalled for as there are plenty of opportunistic doctors who will take advantage of the system any way they can. Without some insurance pushback, insurance would function like a lever a provider could pull and it puts cash in their pocket.
What would be less expensive than funding entire departments? People walking in with cash. My particular area of the country(US) is full of 501c3 healthcare entities. Cash payment is around 40-45% of the official stated cost for SOME service lines and Lab isn't necessarily one of them. Lab involves a tremendous amount of manual work, specialized analyzers, and consumables.
Lab work, in a general case, isn't particularly simple. There is neither a single analyzer one can throw samples into and just get results or a magic stain one can apply under a microscope. Assuming that whatever lab you went to can even do the necessary test so it isn't sent somewhere else, you still have to fund an enormous staff and pay for all those FDA regulated reagents/consumables. Imagine having to constantly buy HP printer ink to run your business but you absolutely have to buy your "ink" from Siemens or GE Healthcare. Lives are at stake; as are lawsuits.
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Saturday August 04 2018, @01:34PM (4 children)
A group here started publishing actual going rates for medical services so patients would know that the $25k service they were just billed for is normally $2.5k. (Using numbers from an actual bill of mine)
The state house leapt into action to fix this obvious problem!
They banned informing consumers about the customary pricing. Hurts profitability and the negotiating power of insurance companies dontcha know...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 04 2018, @09:53PM (3 children)
Nice. I think you know the solution to that particular problem though. When your employee (state rep) is fucking shit up instead of doing their job, you fire them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday August 05 2018, @01:51AM (2 children)
I've held that position for a long long time. Trouble is, they get to keep their jobs too long. What think ye if we voted much more often. Maybe even a running tally of approval and at some reasonable sampling period we oust them. Cut way down on the waste of campaigning- if we don't like you, you're gone quick, before you do much more damage. Just like real employment.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 05 2018, @02:44AM (1 child)
Just be more literal. Use real fire.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday August 05 2018, @03:12AM
Great idea, but be careful, golem wood fires rage.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday August 03 2018, @05:45PM
Yeah, sorry, direct experience here. Some years ago I had a tiny problem that needed a CT scan, no insurance. They billed me for $2,800 for just the CT. I won't go into the rest. I did research and found Medicare would pay $600 for that exact same CT. Insurance companies use Medicare "Codes" and payments for reference. The rest, cash patients, pay "suggest retail price".
It's much like auto parts- you'll go to a 3rd-party shop, they'll put in whatever part they feel like, and you'll pay dealer list price, even if the shop paid 1/20 for the part, and it's legal in USA. (one of the main reasons I do most if not all my own work).
I don't drink much, but a Bitcoin would be an acceptable substitute.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @12:17AM (1 child)
I'm a US-ian, and I've never heard of cash-only medical facilities. Usually, having insurance coverage is a requirement just for scheduling an appointment. An ability to pay must be demonstrated.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 04 2018, @01:21AM
They exist but they're fairly new in this incarnation. They've only really cropped up since Obamacare.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Friday August 03 2018, @03:15PM (14 children)
That's great, but what are you going to do if you need heart surgery? Or some time in ICU?
All that money you spent in the cash only clinics won't count towards your deducible, so there is little reason to use the cash-only clinics if you think you might need to use your insurance.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 03 2018, @03:20PM (13 children)
That's where things like an HSA and cash-only facilities that are willing to finance the debt for you (most are from what I hear) come in. It's still going to be massively less expensive.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @05:16PM (7 children)
So we're still back to square one with many people unable to afford insurance, but if they can't then one health crisis and they are ruined.
Great system! The best! The only metric we care about is doing gangbusters! Oh what metric? People not getting a free lunch! Hands outta my pocket bitch, die in the gutter you worthless moneyless scum!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 04 2018, @01:23AM (6 children)
What part of get the treatment and then pay it out says no healthcare to you? Wait, did you want someone else to pay for what you receive? Okay, I get you now.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @02:56AM (5 children)
With health insurance you are paying for what you aren't getting. You're paying for the armies of MBAs to skim off most of your payments to line their pockets and build up a useless paperwork empire. You're paying for the armies of MBAs that get in the way of the nurses and doctors by understaffing the crews. You're paying for armies of MBAs to block and even override the decisions experienced doctors regarding treating patients. You're paying for armies of MBAs that collude with insurance companies to rip you the fuck off [propublica.org]. Notice a common thread in that?
You of all people should be a big fan of single-payer.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 04 2018, @04:01AM (2 children)
You've got yourself a fallacy going there. It is not a binary choice. There are as many options as you can think up.
What gives you that idea? If it's compulsory it's no way in hell ever going to get my backing. I'm about individual liberty. If it's not compulsory, it's not single-payer because generally healthy folks are going to opt out rather than pay for something they're not going to be using.
All that aside, I fundamentally dislike insurance of any kind. Given the choice, I prefer the route of personal responsibility for myself. What you do is your business but I strongly dislike the ideas of others paying my way or of wasting money.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @04:13AM (1 child)
Because single payer is more efficient and has better health outcomes for the entire country. If you are against it then you are an idiot. It is that simple, and for someone qho cries "taxation is theft" it seems like you would especially appreciate more efficient usage if your tax dollars.
I know what you'll argue, "that requires more money taken out of my pockets by the barrel of a gun!!!" but that is stupidly short sighted.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 04 2018, @09:55PM
More efficient use of money stolen from my pocket is not a good thing or a bad thing, it's an irrelevant thing.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @04:20AM (1 child)
That's not the system he proposed.
However, the system he does propose constitutes slavery. If you get sick, you become enslaved to paying back the capitalists (with interest, compounded) if you want to get well again. Or you could just die. Your choice.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 04 2018, @04:26AM
Slavery? Really? Idiot.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Friday August 03 2018, @05:51PM (4 children)
And when I have a crushingly high bill? I know, perhaps someone could sell insurance to cover those events? Do those cash clinics provide ICUs and all manner of specialized services?
Look, I am not defending the current situation, but these cash clinics are not a solution either. You are going to need to go to a traditional (insurance driven) medical provider some time, and without insurance, you will be bankrupted if you don't have insurance. So, you need to address my comment of deductibles.
I believe that the root of the problem is that there is too much profit in medicine. The excess profit allows insurance companies to siphon off approximately 1/3 of all medical costs while massively distorting the market. That distortion prevents meaningful change.
The other part of the problem is that too many idiots in the USA believe that the current situation actually provides the best medical care: it doesn't. It frequently provides more expensive but less effective treatments (speaking from personal experience). The only way medicine in the USA is greater than in other countries is cost.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday August 03 2018, @06:45PM
That's not strictly true. Many experimental tools were first used in US medicine...though possibly only in the hospitals associated with an engineering college, I'd need to check that.
However, it is broadly true...depending on which country you are comparing it with, and which medical specialty.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 04 2018, @01:36AM (2 children)
Let me answer that question with another question. What makes you think you deserve millions of dollars worth of treatment?
Seriously, if you were contributing millions of dollars worth of value to society, you would be being paid millions of dollars. You're not, so what makes you think that you deserve that much value worth of the products of other people's labors?
Regardless, you're looking to pick a fight where there isn't one to be had. If you want insurance, pay for insurance and go to a facility that accepts it. I personally think you'd be better off using an HSA and cash-only facilities and taking an insurance policy designed strictly for catastrophic issues but whatever blows your skirt up.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @04:26PM (1 child)
Because they are a living breathing human being you fucking sociopath.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 06 2018, @07:41PM
That you so obviously cannot pin down my emotions regarding this issue tells me that you're the one with a lack of empathy. Care to try again?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by tfried on Friday August 03 2018, @09:26PM (1 child)
While that is a very promising concept, indeed, it simply cannot be generalized (enough). It only works for procedures where what needs to be done and how is known beforehand with high confidence, and there is no significant time pressure. Then - and only then - patients can ask for a definite price beforehand, and shop around, if they do not like the price tag. Similarly, then and only then, doctors will be able to cut down on their bureaucracy, radically. Essentially because they only need to do it once, and then just copy the calculation to the next patient.
There are plenty of situations where this may apply, but there is absolutely no shortage of situations where it does not. In many cases there will be real or perceived pressure to act quickly, while the patient is not in a state to go shopping around. In the vast majority of cases, an unknown number of diagnostic procedures will be needed to determine what is actually the issue, before, and even during therapeutic measures.
"Doctor I'm kinda feeling funny, today. What's it going to cost to fix me?" I guess I should try that line on my next check-up. But realistically, a lot of medical costs cannot be quantified in advance. But if there is going to be any kind of retroactive control over the billing in those situations, it's going to be done by professionals. Such as an insurance.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 04 2018, @01:39AM
I didn't say it was a perfect solution to all the healthcare needs of the nation. It's damned nice to have around as an alternative though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.