Fun statement of the day...enjoy! by Wishimay

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Fun statement of the day...enjoy!

POSTED BY: WISHIMAY
UPDATED: Sunday, October 14, 2012 11:18
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VIEWED: 1348
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Friday, October 12, 2012 3:34 AM

http://now.msn.com/romney-says-people-dont-die-because-they-dont-have-
insurance

I guess someone should tell this guy's family that....
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/insurance-24-year-dies-toothache/story?id
=14438171

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Friday, October 12, 2012 3:53 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

"In 2007, 12-year-old Deamonte Driver also died when a tooth infection spread to his brain. The Maryland boy underwent two operations and six weeks of hospital care, totaling $250,000. Doctors said a routine $80 tooth extraction could have saved his life. His family was uninsured and had recently lost its Medicaid benefits, keeping Deamonte from having dental surgery."

This is interesting given Romney's plan to decrease Medicaid spending (bottom red dotted line):

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Friday, October 12, 2012 5:58 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

I haven't DIED from it, but I'm 61 ( too young for Medicare), was out of work for 16 months, and am now working but uninsured. Every couple of months it's a struggle to afford a Doctor's office visit to get my prescriptions renewed for 2 meds I've been taking for years- one is a BP & Heart med that I would die without, only costs me $4 a month at WAlmart, but I gotta keep getting the RX renewes.

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Friday, October 12, 2012 6:13 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Shit, Newold, that sucks. Shame they can't re-up it without a visit, but I guess BP & heart is different than mine, which I know are permanent and need no office visits to re-up...like bone-density stuff, thyroid & reflux, etc. I'm currently titrating OFF my bipolar meds because my husband is FINALLY going to quit work (at 74!) and the meds we HAVE are going to be expensive enough! I don't think I need them anymore, anyway, I think at my age and with the quiet, isolated life I lead, being bipolar II isn't going to pose a danger to anyone...

I HATE that story, and, like so many others, it doesn't need to be. Makes me want to punch someone.

Quote:
it's paid for, either by charity, the government, or the hospital.

Idiot. If paid for by the government, it's our taxes; if by the hospital, rates just go up! He is so PATHETICALLY out of touch, has no concept whatsoever what it's like to live down here in the trenches, he scares the living SHIT out of me!

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Friday, October 12, 2012 2:39 PM

OONJERAH

As near as I can tell, at the clinic I visit twice a year, my provider has no
interest in my health. I am just supposed to show up so they can be paid
for the visit and can order routine tests for which their lab is paid. When it
comes to tests, one size fits all; one's history and family history are not
relevant.

I fired my heart doctor a few months ago and haven't looked for a new one.
He was a drug pusher, IMO, and wanted me to have stents I didn't need.
The way they do it up here: You go to the lab for an angiogram & lie there
for a long time. After a while they give you a shot to relax you. When you are
relaxed, they present a form to sign. There you give the doctor permission to
perform the angiogram. After that, the doctor has permission to put you under
anesthetic and insert stents as he sees fit, no discussion.

I don't believe this practice has anything to do with my good health but everything
to do with the hospital & doctors getting paid.

Am I off topic?

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Friday, October 12, 2012 5:36 PM

WISHIMAY

Quote:
Originally posted by Oonjerah:

As near as I can tell, at the clinic I visit twice a year, my provider has no
interest in my health.

Last time I went to my gyno I heard him blabbing to a friend for about 15 minutes and since he was oblivious that the walls are mainly there for decoration I heard the whole thing... And at the end was "Oh crap, let me GET RID of this *sigh* patient next door and I'll call you right back"

My father would still be alive were it not for his crap doctor. Four times in six months he went for E.D., urinary problems, ect...Not once was there a PSA done, even though he told them several times the previous four generations of men all died of prostate cancer. BY the fifth visit he was already stage 3.

I don't understand why we have all this tech, but we can't program computers to give medical advice based on known statistics and family history and personal history. All it would do is make physicians jobs easier, not take away their jobs... A computer can remember EVERY symptom of every disease and can learn all the stats, a doc CAN'T. But, whatev. Can't do nuthin' about nuthin'. Story of MY LIFE.

And yeah, most people don't NEED stents and it IS a racket. You can have an artery mostly closed, but if you have no symptoms still be better off without one. I think a lot of em do it as a pre-emptive against litigation and to make it look like they are doing something proactive...

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Friday, October 12, 2012 6:37 PM

OONJERAH

I have a terrible opinion of American medicine ... guess that shows.
I believe that's why so many who can afford to travel see Doctors in other countries.

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Saturday, October 13, 2012 4:45 AM

WISHIMAY

Every country has specialties on what they will or are allowed to do to people. I've wondered who gets the most medical tourist trade now. I can imagine a lot of experimental stuff doesn't get performed here anymore.

Here's the wiki entry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism

Germany is interesting. 50% our costs with double the amount of hospitals, hmmm. And apparently, it says since 9/11 people ARE having a harder time getting in for things.

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Saturday, October 13, 2012 5:39 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Yep, that's Maryland for you - but the sad damn thing is that even if he HAD Medicaid it would not have made much difference, they do not cover dental as a rule and even critical emergency stuff they woulda dug in, dragged their heels and balked at covering it.

I hadda rip out a tooth like that myself (root and all) with no more tools than a craft knife and set of jewelers screwdrivers and the only painkiller I had to do it with was a half quart of malt liquor... while it was seriously nasty it wasn't actually as bad as you'd think cause once you get past the mess, past a certain point the nerves max out and it can't really hurt any WORSE than it already does, although if you've ever had a wisdom tooth pulled you're famaliar with just how iccky that crackling/crunching noise/feeling is when you break the root loose, yuck!
I wound up bribing/blackmailing a disreputable local veternarian to pick out any fragments I missed and patch the hole, and she was less than happy about it.

Or how about being pitched out on the streets of midwinter Baltimore with THIS monstrosity pounded into your flesh ?

Folks living paycheck to paycheck, being laid up for a week is a fast route to utility shutoff and eviction, at which point just TRY climbing back out of that friggin hole, especially half dead, then-unemployed, what with the so-called "safety net" stonewalling you waiting for you to conveniently die - that WAS a major problem back then and much as I can't stand the lady it was Hillary Clinton who chewed some ass about it and forced SSI and Medicare to change their policies in regards to stonewalling obviously terminal cases, which at the time I seemed to be.

Oh, and being pitched out of the ER, untreated - that DOES happen.
After their just-enough-to-get-away-with patchwork (plated fibula and external brace) came all apart, leaving me with my leg all crumpled up and held together with ace bandages like quasimodo, my lawyer (pro bono), after being roundly and thoroughly cussed out by the local medicare supervisor, insisted on sending me to the University of MD hospital ER, which promptly chucked me out the door cause they knew by then how badly they'd screwed it all up and wanted nothing more to do with me.
That incidently HELPED matters cause up till then I couldn't get any other doc to work on the mess for fear of being sued by the first ones, and once they washed their hands of it I could parlay that as evidence they weren't likely to do that.

I could go on, but suffice it to say the Medical Care System is pretty screwed up, top to bottom, and complicated immeasurably by for-profit motives and the involvment of "insurance", which is a scam any way you slice it.

None too happy with University of Michigans prosthetics dept either, my old prosthetic is barely servicable and falling apart, and my former provider doesn't exist any more...
See, Medicare has a thing where they catch someone defrauding the system and then force them to service Medicare contracts at a cut rate in lieu of prosecution, which despite the good it does strikes me as putting foxes in charge of the henhouse and tough luck for them which fall through the cracks - anyhow they needed an advance to avoid bankruptcy cause of lawsuits and so when Medicare forked it over they bought out my provider (to eliminate that pesky competition problem) and pinkslipped the lot of em, leaving me rather bereft cause I would about chew off my own arm before letting THOSE dickheads work on my stuff.

And so, stuck with University of MI at this point, who's best effort at a reverse engineered prototype was so piss-poor I thought they were having me on, cause their supposed "best" is inferior to the homemade hackjob that Dankmeyer cranked out for me back in 1995 fer crying out loud.
Worse, it fails the critical and most important test, technicalities aside - it DOES NOT WORK.
The casting is sloppy, the fit is terrible, it wobbles, and is unserviceable in use, having attempted to force the issue on a work shift I wound up having to call out another guard to bring me the piece of my old prosthetic and some tools, and slammed that mother back together right there on the damn sidewalk, grrrrr.

They got two weeks to do better - or else we're gonna have "issues", cause these bastards cost as much as a midsize luxury car and if i don't get my moneys worth here I see no cause that they've earned it, cause guess who gets pounded with a massive deductible for this crap, ehe ?

Oh yes, and then there's that whole choice between medical care and stuff like rent and food, that kills people too, a lot of em - they just keep it off the paperwork, of course.

And lets not even GO there with that latest round-and-round with acute febrile whateverthehellitwas and just how badly the local hospital fubared that one, sending me home initially with a bad diagnosis and the wrong medicine cause they got all confirmation biased and ego involved and won't listen to the goddamn patient till the "crazy" one of em they were all ignoring was proved right via a test he snuck into the paperwork when they weren't looking.

It's a sad damn commentary that my first pre-requisite for a doctor is a penchant for mad science and enough mental instability to challenge the system - cause frankly, the system sucks.

-Frem

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Sunday, October 14, 2012 4:53 AM

WISHIMAY

Wow, someone built a medieval tinker toy on yer leg! Did it come with an 8-track deck??

Damn, I can tell that wouldn't work I know next ta nothin' about stabilizers...

Hubby passed by when I looked at it and he said (he likes Shadowrun) "Whoa...See, this is what happens when you go to that Streetdoc at the corner of Tacoma and Everett and you pay him in secondhand cyber-ware........"

I have no idea what that means, but I think it was supposed to be funny...

Actually, we know someone who kinda went through the same thing. They got into a little accident with a train and the docs did several surgeries trying to save a foot I'm sure they pretty well knew they were never going to be able to and now has other health problems from prolonged high-dose anti-biotics and steroids (they took it off eventually anyways)...

I'm pretty sure most docs just wing it through their days, because thinking ahead hurts. It's amazing after two run-ins that you're still pluggin' along...

I'm not sure I could deal with some apathetic third party to grant me my mobility, I'd either flog 'em with the broken leg, or build me a rigged one out of spare parts from a Buick. Good luck, either way...

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Sunday, October 14, 2012 7:39 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

I know I'm lucky, but even I don't get as good treatment as I think we would if they fixed the system. My "gatekeeper" has been a friend of both Jim's and mine for decades, but she IS just a gatekeeper--we have to see her to get referrals to anyone else, and rarely see her for more than 15 minutes. Tho' she does take a personal interest and spends time talking to us and asking questions about how we're doing, so in that aspect I know we have it better than many.

Given the permanent screwed-uppedness of Jim's back due to bad surgery, among other things, we're not stupid enough to take doctors at their word, but even THEN we get screwed. I saw a podiatrist I've seen before for my current foot problem; he took x-rays and said nothing was wrong. Given the swelling hadn't gone down for over a month, I saw another podiatrist the next week; he took x-rays and found TWO broken toes! That's kind of the way it is these days; you take your chances and hope for the best. Sad to come to this, especially given the amount of money spent on medical treatment in this country!

I've been very lucky and had a LOT of successful treatment over time, so I guess I can't complain. But from all the horror stories I hear from others, I know just how bad it can be. And it's pretty bad.

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Sunday, October 14, 2012 11:18 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Wow, someone built a medieval tinker toy on yer leg! Did it come with an 8-track deck?? Damn, I can tell that wouldn't work I know next ta nothin' about stabilizers...

Oh that woulda been nice...
Not only did I find out that those particular external fixators generally caused more problems than they were worth, with the sole exception of neck injuries - but that in cases with a gap that large they were a big no-no.
Either someone was unfamilar with policy, or trying to be a hero there, and not a ONE of em listened to the patient whatever, which you mighta noticed is a big pet peeve of mine and as a result I have become progressively more "aggressive" about it to the point where docs tend to stay OUT OF REACH after reading my file.

It was actually kind of amusing seeing them standing all the way at the back wall this last go-around cause they *knew* I was pissed, but once their "crazy" co-worker scalped them with a PROPER diagnosis and bought my respect by helping me ensure my cats were fed and rent was paid, that went away - because that condition is something nobody seems to "know" any damn thing ABOUT, I was far more willing to put up with being poked and prodded and tested and vampirized (jeepers, eighteen vials in one DAY? and they came back for more? paging Buffy Summers!) cause it mighta helped someone down the line and I kinda owed the doctor asking.

Quote:
Hubby passed by when I looked at it and he said (he likes Shadowrun) "Whoa...See, this is what happens when you go to that Streetdoc at the corner of Tacoma and Everett and you pay him in secondhand cyber-ware........"

LMAO, oddly enough, no.
THAT is what happens when you go to the aboveboard, conventional medical "professionals"...
THIS is what you get when you go to the back alley psycho docs and do a little trade!

So far, the back alley mad scientists are 4-0 against the establishment in regards to decent prosthetics, and unless Univ of MI steps up their game hard, it's gonna stay that way.

Quote:
Actually, we know someone who kinda went through the same thing. They got into a little accident with a train and the docs did several surgeries trying to save a foot I'm sure they pretty well knew they were never going to be able to and now has other health problems from prolonged high-dose anti-biotics and steroids (they took it off eventually anyways)...

Ayep, I don't make as much of it as the other problems, but extended medical neglect, malnutrition, exposure, prolonged meds - some of which were more or less street drugs bought on the sly, all of that takes a toll, and I spend more time in a wheelchair these days than I am comfortable admitting.
Strangely though, my immune system went from being run down so far it was technically considered "compromised" to eventually becoming as of late both damn tough, but also crazy-aggressive.
That recent round and round was complicated by an autoimmune reaction where my immune system went freaking berserk and started attacking me/itself, something that only stopped when the one crazy doctor decided to reboot it by causing severe system shock via high doseage IV steroids - the other weenies were totally sure that was gonna half kill me all by itself.
These days I stay AWAY from any credentialed little weenie who seems all full of themself - convential medicine has never really availed me... but if he's a giggling nutjob with wild hair, I am so totally hiring the bastard.

Quote:
I'm not sure I could deal with some apathetic third party to grant me my mobility, I'd either flog 'em with the broken leg, or build me a rigged one out of spare parts from a Buick. Good luck, either way...

The flogging ALMOST happened - I kinda did throw it at them, not consciously intentionally, but I think my subconscious added more force than necessary to that toss, yeah.
And I am in fact THISSSSsss close to trying exactly that, or at least doing a rebuild on my old one without their useless "help".

Oh, and did I mention there's currently a HUGE three way brawl between Medicare, Insurance Companies, and Patients over whether FUNCTIONAL LIMBS are a "Medical Necessity" ?!
So I got that goin on too, grrr.

-Frem

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