Re: Socialized medicine at its best ...

On 3/2/2010 8:18 PM, Alex W. wrote:
On Tue, 2 Mar 2010 11:35:21 -0800, Miss Elaine Eos wrote:

On 2010-03-02 11:00:12 -0800, "Alex W."<ingilt@xxxxxxxxxxx> said:

You present as if doing a CAT scan means NOT doing 200 diabetes tests.
The way things work (at least here in America), is everyone gets the
testing they need...

(Say it with me...)

...Regardess of whether or not they are insured, and regardless of
their [in-]ablity to pay.

Do you really?
Unless you present with full-blown symptoms (possibly a coma) at
the local ER, who will give you that test for free?

Any hospital in the country, provided it's warranted.

No, you can't just walk in, Paul-esque, and demand your free
colonoscopy 3x/day. If you need an MRI, you get an MRI. If you need a
CAT scan, you get a CAT scan.

If you need a colonoscopy 3/day, I'd suggest you urgently need a
shrink for some serious psychosexual kinks....
:-)

Well, I did say "Paul-esque" ;)


As I understand it, a hospital will provide such tests and
services free of charge if necessary if they come under the
definition of "emergency care".

Two things:

Thing 1: I don't think it's "free of charge" so much as "we'll do the
treatment now& worry about payment later."

Thing 2: You're arguing with proffesional medical personel about
whether or not you need a CAT scan or MRI again. Do Mickey and I need
to come and start overseeing your medical care to demonstrate what a
Bad Idea this is?<G>

Then I did not express myself clearly enough. I was referring to
the practice of postponing precautionary and preventative
measures until they turn into acute medical problems. You can
order a full bloodwork every year, or have it done when your
patient presents with a full-blown disease. In both cases, the
professional medical staff can justifiably make the call that
such test are needed -- but only in the latter instance will you
not have to cough up the cash, when it is too late to head off a
deterioration of the patient's health.



If it doesn't, you get a bill.

Oh, you ALWAYS get a bill -- make no mistake about that! It's just
that (a) treatment will not be denied on the basis of your inabiilty to
pay or lack of insurance and (b) now that you have the treatment under
your belt (so to speak), payment of the bill is highly negotiable. THE
PATIENT is the one in the position of power, here. And the system
works mostly because folks are (by and large) at least semi-reasonable
about it.

I'm sure they are, given the level of cost.

They usually end up that way, or even below cost (people are generally pragmatic, they'd rather recoup some of it rather than none of it).

That is actually one problem with your current setup: it
encourages too many people to treat emergency care like primary
healthcare

No arguements here!

But you present dire, extreme circumstances -- actual emergencies -- so
it makes no sense to then slip back to talking about hangnails&
bruised shins.

...And vice versa. If we're talking about a sniffle on a kid whose
parents can't afford Nyquil, then there's no point in bringing MRIs and
emergency heart surgery into the discussion.

I am talking about taking a good look at sniffles before they
turn into full-blown pneumonia. This is actually what happened
to my grandmother (even though it was her own fault for refusing
to see a doctor until she literally keeled over and we had to
call the ambulance). If caught and treated earlier, she would
have avoided two weeks in hospital.

Small stuff has a tendency to turn into a big, serious mess if
you don't take care of it....

I actually agree with you. We differ on how we get to it. I suggest subsidizing truly poor people who need to get regular checkups. The not truly poor people who are making bad financial decisions will end up postponing things until they are really bad. Then they'll get walloped with a huge bill. Maybe they'll learn from it. Probably not, though. They'll be the ones crying loudest for other people to pay for their health care which is their "right".


(Yeah, you DO do that. Frequently. It makes you difficult to follow,
sometimes, and lends to the "oh, he's just bitching about nothing in
particular" sense people sometimes get reading your rants.)

Misc "not that my rants are any better -- just sayin'. :)"

Hey, this is ASC. IF I can't make long, pointless rants, where
can I? Sure, I could head down to the pub, but I rant better
when not blind drunk....
:-)

You hold your own.

--
The Cigar Diary: http://www.cigardiary.com
ASC Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=138059489225
.

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