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from the if-you-think-healthcare-is-expensive,-try-going-without-it dept.
A new analysis by researchers from Brown University and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation has found that nonfatal injuries in the U.S. in the year 2013 cost more than $1.8 trillion.
And nearly all injures are preventable, said Dr. Mark Zonfrillo, an associate professor at Brown University's Warren Alpert Medical School and a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Hasbro Children's Hospital.
The study, led by Zonfrillo, found that in 2013 about one in 10 individuals in the U.S. was treated for an injury at a hospital, resulting in an annual cost of $1.853 trillion. The findings were published on Monday, Oct. 8, in the journal Injury Epidemiology.
Annual price tag for non-fatal injuries in the US tops $1.8 trillion
[Also Covered By]: EurekAlert
(Score: 2, Troll) by bob_super on Monday October 08 2018, @06:06PM (14 children)
We could save a lot of money by just finishing off most people with major injuries.
That's both the most humane and most cost-effective thing to do.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday October 08 2018, @06:30PM (3 children)
Define humane, because I'm not sure your version syncs with mine.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday October 08 2018, @06:40PM (2 children)
They ain't suffering no more.
(Score: 3, Touché) by bzipitidoo on Monday October 08 2018, @06:46PM (1 child)
So why are you still alive?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 08 2018, @07:13PM
masochists, the lot of ye
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 08 2018, @06:58PM
Agreed, but only if /you/ go first... (of course the usual legalese applies: we reserve the right to re-evaluate after our pilot program, you have no right to sue, you basically will do as you're told)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 08 2018, @07:03PM (7 children)
To put it one way, if you like Monty Python:
Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the socialism!
Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the socialism! Help, help, I'm being repressed!
If you prefer William Shakespeare:
What's in a name? That which we call a death panel
By any other word would smell as vile
This is how it goes, always, when somebody else is paying. There will be euphemisms for euthanasia and eugenics. Some treatments will be deemed to be not cost-effective. Sometimes this only applies to undesirables, like old people or the mentally retarded. This is what many modern socialized systems do, and it is literally how Hitler (a nationalist socialist) started his killing spree. Another tactic is to make underfunded promises, letting people die on a waiting list, of course with some people jumping the queue because some animals are more equal than others.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Monday October 08 2018, @07:09PM (4 children)
So you prefer privatized death panels where accountants with no medical training make those decisions behind a wall of corporate bureaucracy that makes sure the people who die and their loved ones never get to see the death panelists face to face?
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 08 2018, @09:10PM (3 children)
With private death panels, I can shop around for one that meets my personal choice to trade cost against chance of death. Even when they say "no", I might still find some way to raise the funds.
With government death panels, there is no escape unless you leave the country. The UK is notorious for blocking escape, with a pair of babies having made headlines in the past couple years. The government won't allow treatment, and the government won't let you go elsewhere for treatment. I guess it would be embarrassing if the treatment worked after the parents are told that their baby is to die.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday October 09 2018, @02:02AM (2 children)
Citation needed. "Pair of Babies" is not useful even as a Google term.
But at this point, if you're trying to raise funds for something insurance won't cover, odds are you'll need to leave the country anyway to be able to afford it.
Note: if you're talking about Alfie Evans, no doctor anywhere in the world suggested anything but palliative care. The very best possible outcome based on any known treatment would have been a prolonged vegetative state. I don't blame the parents due to their understandably desperate emotional state, but this miracle result you seem to think was just across the border is part of fantasyland. It's sad, but that's the fact.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 09 2018, @05:26AM (1 child)
This is about Alfie Evans and Charlie Gard. That "miracle result" is a straw man. Nobody was expecting a miracle. People are expecting freedom, parental rights, autonomy, the right to die peacefully at home, the right to go elsewhere for a second opinion, and the right to go to a hospital that is willing to put in more effort.
So what if no doctor anywhere in the world suggested anything but palliative care? Why can't the baby get care elsewhere, as had been offered? What justifies the legalized kidnapping and imprisonment of a sick baby?
Charlie Gard had been offered free care in the USA. The NHS determined that he absolutely must die in an NHS hospital.
Alfie Evans was even given Italian citizenship in a failed attempt to get her out. As with Charlie, the NHS fought to have her die in an NHS hospital.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday October 09 2018, @08:07AM
For the same reason it would be illegal to sell miracle radium water to someone with a terminal disease.
The straw man belongs to you:
More like it would be utterly earth shatteringly amazing if a baby with practically no remaining brain beyond the brain stem did anything but vegitate and then die.
As for the Charlie Evans case, the treatment was not free, the parents had to raise the funds. NHS, the hospital, and finally the courts acted to protect the parents and potential donors from predatory vultures who had anything but the child's best interests in mind.
But before you decide that this is because of socialism, note that there have been cases in the U.S. where a hospital has attempted to wrestle custody away from parents or even attempted to hold a legal adult that wanted to go elsewhere (and was competent to make that decision) where other doctors in good standing disagreed with the diagnosis or even the need for further treatment. In the cases I am aware of, the patients recovered after ultimately getting the other treatment.
In one case at the Mayo clinic [cnn.com] the parents of an 18 year old actually snuck her out to the curb and ended up leaving with her with tires screeching as nurses and orderlies attempted to pull her from the car. After a multi-day debacle where the family was wanted for "kidnapping" the daughter was taken to a hospital in another state where she was pronounced well enough complete her recovery at home. Ultimately, police decided the kidnapping report was without merit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 09 2018, @01:29AM (1 child)
Victors Care brings class-based medical care to University of Michigan hospital [wsws.org]:
After all, it is only fair that those who can pay more, if they like their doctor, can keep their doctor. /s
(Score: 1) by ChrisMaple on Wednesday October 10 2018, @01:26AM
$200/month for cable TV. $100 month for smartphone service. That's $3600/year.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday October 08 2018, @09:02PM
Or... (shudders)... you could save a lot of money by reducing the price of heath care. [cnbc.com] in line with the rest of the world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford