ObamaCare and Bankruptcy

[whell]

Here's a better example than a "car crash", because this diagnosis and treatment happens much more frequently:

Increasing incidence of overweight and obesity in adults has caused another medical issue to blossom (along with heart disease, diabetes, etc.): sleep apnea. Over the last 10 - 15 years a whole new discipline that has sprouted up in medical centers and hospitals to "treat" it. Many local medical centers in our area have "sleep centers" for folks to be evaluated. These lead to the sale of c-pap devices which are the leading treatment methodology for sleep apnea.

Except that the whole practice is cock-eyed. According to Harvard Medical School, the best treatment for sleep apnea is weight loss. But since weight loss is "so hard", the c-pap device is prescribed.

C-pap is not a cure, and its so bloody uncomfortable to wear during the night that most patients abandon treatment over time. But treatment is abandoned long after the doctor has been paid, the hospital where the sleep center evaluation was completed got paid and the c-pap device was paid for by the health insurance carrier, Medicare, whatever. Sometimes the patient experiments with multiple masks to try to get one that feels / fits the best, and all of those got paid for too, BEFORE the patient abandons treatment.

Everyone gets paid, the patient still has sleep apnea, is still overweight, and the medical industry continues to send new patients to sleep centers and prescribe c-pap devices because THAT'S WHAT THEY GET PAID TO DO.

If the docs/hospitals/medical device manufactures were reimbursed based on successful outcomes, I suspect we'd have fewer overweight / obese patients (because weight loss leads to other many healthy outcomes) to begin with, we'd have far fewer "sleep centers", and the c-pap would be prescribed only in very limited cases. And, more important, the costs incurred to get to that healthy outcome would be far less.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by whell

Yet, you're wrong again Finn. There are solutions out there, and they've been around a while. The problem is that the left and the AMA hate them, and them. You spout the lefty party line every time, for example, the topic of Health Savings Accounts/High Deductible Health plans are brought up. But that is certainly one element of the fix that needs to be implemented.

Health Savings Accounts do nothing to help the poor who cannot afford them to begin with. They only help those with high enough marginal income tax rates and disposal income to take advantage of them. Basically, it is yet another scheme to reduce taxes of those with higher incomes at the expense of the poor at a time when income disparities continue to get larger.

The conventional supply and demand relationship in health care doesn't exist when the consumer is removed from the equation. You cite examples of emergency medical treatment, but the decisions that are made between a doctor and a patient in an office setting occur far more frequently and account for significant costs in Medicaid, Medicare and private health insurance plans.

Correction - The conventional supply and demand relationship in health care cannot exist without an informed consumer. Unless all Americans get medical degrees and have complete cost information in advance to evaluate their options as to provider and therapies, a conventional supply and demand relationship cannot exist. Moreover, health care has fairly inelastic demand (a patient will pay whatever it takes to save their own life or health).

In summary, you seem to have bought into the conservative fiction that health care can be sold like widgets. It can't. Consider for a moment that virtually all first world industrial democracies offer comprehensive health care at about half the cost of ours. Without exception, this isn't achieved by unleashing free market choices in the health care sectors of these countries.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by whell

Here's a better example than a "car crash", because this diagnosis and treatment happens much more frequently:

Increasing incidence of overweight and obesity in adults has caused another medical issue to blossom (along with heart disease, diabetes, etc.): sleep apnea...

Virtually all "western diseases" result from our western diets and sedentary lifestyles. Yet, look at the conniption that the Right had when Michele Obama took on healthy eating and lifestyle choices as her pet project. Moreover, your support for denial of insurance coverage for CPAP use is essentially the "death panel" that your heartthrob $arah railed against.

[Pio1980]

Originally Posted by whell

Always wanted a pick up, but we're a minivan family. Alas, no good place to hang a confederate flag from a mini van.

Dunno what a ref to displaying a notorious symbol of white supremacy has to do with the discussion.
With respect to the rolleyes, I saw too many couplings of it with Trump campaign banners and knew exactly what meant re the previous POTUS' lack of support with that demographic. Trump was well aware and played it.

[whell]

Originally Posted by finnbow

Virtually all "western diseases" result from our western diets and sedentary lifestyles. Yet, look at the conniption that the Right had when Michele Obama took on healthy eating and lifestyle choices as her pet project.

That's the best retort you can come up with? You're agreeing but come up with this lame example as a way to disagree? You're hilarious.

The "Right" had lots of fun with the efforts to replace school lunches with "healthy choices.", but got lots of help from kids who were forced to eat the gruel that replaced the "unhealthy choices." In typical heavy handed big government style, rolled out a that program was "fiercely resisted by some school lunch program administrators, who say it's costly and forces schools to sell food students don't want to eat." And the kids noticed, and posted lots of photos of their....um....food. Even WaPo reporting that the program was a failure.

Of course, Michelle's efforts have no bearing on any efforts to reform payment for medical services. But if that's the best you've got to respond to my post, its proof that no response is sometimes better than a lame response.

[whell]

Originally Posted by finnbow

Health Savings Accounts do nothing to help the poor who cannot afford them to begin with. They only help those with high enough marginal income tax rates and disposal income to take advantage of them. Basically, it is yet another scheme to reduce taxes of those with higher incomes at the expense of the poor at a time when income disparities continue to get larger.

There are already solutions available for the "poor". The rest of your post is BS Dem talking points. As I've already pointed out, HSA/HDHP plan membership is expanding and enrollees in these plans have pretty high satisfaction with these plans. Enrollment is NOT limited to high income folks. Our family is a good example. We've got a couple of kids who frequently access the health care system, and we have had a lot of success with the plan / account. So, put your talking points aside and try taking a look around.

Originally Posted by finnbow

Correction - The conventional supply and demand relationship in health care cannot exist without an informed consumer. Unless all Americans get medical degrees and have complete cost information in advance to evaluate their options as to provider and therapies, a conventional supply and demand relationship cannot exist. Moreover, health care has fairly inelastic demand (a patient will pay whatever it takes to save their own life or health).

Yet its the health insurers, who the left loves to hate, that has taken the lead in making benchmark cost and quality information available to consumers. They've made this info available so individuals can make informed decisions about medical care. Here's one example that's easy for folks without medical degrees to understand, and there are plenty of similar example out there.

https://www.uhc.com/individual-and-f...cost-estimator

Originally Posted by finnbow

In summary, you seem to have bought into the conservative fiction that health care can be sold like widgets. It can't. Consider for a moment that virtually all first world industrial democracies offer comprehensive health care at about half the cost of ours. Without exception, this isn't achieved by unleashing free market choices in the health care sectors of these countries.

In summary, you seem to have bought into the Dem talking points, but have no desire to look beyond those talking points to see whether they are fact or fiction. You then suggest that anyone who disagrees with you traffic in "fiction". I hope you enjoy your "ignorance is bliss" approach to this topic.

[whell]

Originally Posted by Pio1980

Dunno what a ref to displaying a notorious symbol of white supremacy has to do with the discussion.

You'd have to ask that closet racist Potts. He wants me to buy pickup truck, and hang a confederate flag in it.

[MrPots]

Originally Posted by whell

You'd have to ask that closet racist Potts. He wants me to buy pickup truck, and hang a confederate flag in it.

No, I assumed you already had both.

[whell]

Originally Posted by MrPots

No, I assumed you already had both.

Only a racist would assume that.

[merrylander]

Choices my ass. One night when I was draining the fluid from her pleura after 300 ml I noticed bright red blood in the PluerX tube. I called for help, and the EMTs said afterward that her blood pressure dropped precipitously so the took her to Medstar Montgomery as it was the nearest hospital. I had thought they were going to Howard County General where our doctors were on staff and by the time I found where she was and got there some idiot doctor had cut the end of the PleurX catheter and she rigged up some MacGyver deal to the hospital's vacuum system.\

She was delirious the whole time she was there and it took me two days to get her moved to Howard County. At first they had her on the regular pavilion in a nice quiet private room. I stayed with her long enough to see her settled in and sleeping quietly. The next day when I went to her they had moved her to the ICU. Now when my first wife had undergone surgery in Montreal the ICU was as quiet as an empty church. Here the bloody ICU was noisier than Union Station at rush hour, how was she supposed to get well in those conditions? The only food she ate was what I brought in - why hospitals specialize in lousy food I will never know.

But here is the kicker Howard County General is affiliated with Johns Hopkins - their cancer unit even sent her a letter after she died asking for a donation.

So Mike how does one get a loved one into a hospital where any doctor they use is not recognized? How does one doubt that a hospital affiliated with such a renowned medical institute is incompetent, or will kick you out because Medicare and a supplement will not pay their obscene prices?

To Ottawa where our son was living at the time when the stress of the divorce was causing Atrial Fibrillation. At first he had a couple of attacks but the EMTs with the paddles sufficed. But he had one really bad attack at work where he had been working out (he ran marathons). They rushed him to the Ottawa Heart Institute - it occupies one whole floor of the Ottawa General and is world renowned. They kept him for ten days, gave him every test in the book, discovered and cured the problem, and did not present him with a bill. You see there they are more concerned with curing the patient - not how much they can clean out of his/her bank account.

Don't bother answering this because frankly you mind is so warped by your extreme right wing ideology that your fucking opinion is not worth the electrons it consumes.