EFF Co-Founder Announces Benefit Concert to Pay His Medical Bills (twitter.com) 195
An anoymous Slashdot reader reports:
"I was dead for about 8 mins. on Wed. eve," EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow posted last year on Facebook. "total cardiac arrest...sad to report, no Ascending Light." The cyber-rights activist told the San Francisco Chronicle that he had gone "down the tunnel of eternity and it turned out to be a cheap carnival ride." He paused for a moment. "Probably not cheap, though."
Yesterday Barlow posted a Twitter update announcing a big benefit concert in Mill Valley, California to help pay his mounting medical bills on Monday, October 24th. Performers will include Bob Weir (also of The Grateful Dead), Jerry Harrison (of The Talking Heads), Lukas Nelson, Members of The String Cheese Incident, Sean Lennon and Les Claypool, plus 85-year-old folk singer Ramblin' Jack Elliott, as well as "special guests."
Barlow's family describes the last 18 months as a "medical incarceration" with "a dizzying array of medical events and complications" that has depleted his savings and insurance benefits. They've also set up a site for donations from "his fellow innovators, artists, cowboys, and partners-in-crime, to help us provide the quality of care necessary for Barlow's recovery."
Yesterday Barlow posted a Twitter update announcing a big benefit concert in Mill Valley, California to help pay his mounting medical bills on Monday, October 24th. Performers will include Bob Weir (also of The Grateful Dead), Jerry Harrison (of The Talking Heads), Lukas Nelson, Members of The String Cheese Incident, Sean Lennon and Les Claypool, plus 85-year-old folk singer Ramblin' Jack Elliott, as well as "special guests."
Barlow's family describes the last 18 months as a "medical incarceration" with "a dizzying array of medical events and complications" that has depleted his savings and insurance benefits. They've also set up a site for donations from "his fellow innovators, artists, cowboys, and partners-in-crime, to help us provide the quality of care necessary for Barlow's recovery."
Glad I don't live in the US... (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously, complain as much as you want about it, socialized health care is the best thing a country can do for its people.
That and actually regulating the pricing on medical hardware/drugs, it's ridiculously overpriced in the US compared to the same service in say, Canada, without insurances.
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Drug companies spend about 60 BILLION per year on R&D.
MY drug costs are crazy because I have a rare condition and I'm shocked to have ANY drugs developed for me and mine. The small company that "robs" my peeps puts half a BILLION back into R&D.
There are several other companies lining up trying to make better drugs.
Socialism certainly isn't doing this. Otherwise it would be Finland doing all the work.
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Drug companies spend about 60 BILLION per year on R&D.
MY drug costs are crazy because I have a rare condition and I'm shocked to have ANY drugs developed for me and mine. The small company that "robs" my peeps puts half a BILLION back into R&D.
There are several other companies lining up trying to make better drugs.
Socialism certainly isn't doing this. Otherwise it would be Finland doing all the work.
If it's that rare, then it's covered by the orphan drugs program. The company got PAID to develop it via direct government subsidies, So what's that about socialism again? Because the government paying industry to develop drugs certainly sounds socialist to me.
Re:Glad I don't live in the US... (Score:4, Interesting)
So you think every drug in existence was developed in the usa?
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Drug companies spend about 60 BILLION per year on R&D.
They spend far more on marketing. And through lobbying, they have created a system that actually reduces drug quality year by year. The way it works is that the bar for bringing a derivative of an existing drug to market is much, much lower than bringing a new drug to market. You don't have to prove that it works even as well as the old drug; indeed, you don't have to make any proof of its efficacy at all. You only need to "show" in a FDA-approved clinical trial that it doesn't kill more people than the old
Re:Glad I don't live in the US... (Score:4, Informative)
Socialized Heath Care is more efficient too. The waiting rooms double as morgues!
Socialised health care is not perfect, but it typically has a much better outcome for the average patient - both per dollar and absolutely. The US is neck and neck with Cuba in health care effectiveness (see e.g. this Forbes article [forbes.com]). It spends 17.9% of the GDP on health care - Cuba spends 10% And since GDP per person is around US$55000 for the US, US$6700 for Cuba, the Cuban system is about 15 times more efficient.
Good luck to him (Score:2)
I wonder, though how likely it is that any regular person would be able to get anyone else to pay their bills.
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I wonder, though how likely it is that any regular person would be able to get anyone else to pay their bills.
Survival of the richest/most popular!
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See my post above. Although most people cannot motivate ex-Grateful Dead artists it seems to be something of a cottage industry at various Elk Clubs, American Legion Posts and social institutions of similar persuasions.
And that's pretty sad.....
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People put up charity drives all the time. If you're particularly sympathetic, or you can draw from some tight knit ethnic group, you can attract a great deal of money.
Some idiot lawyer from California that should have known better is probably not terribly sympathetic.
torn on this one. (Score:1, Insightful)
On one hand, this guy has done more for humanity than most, given he's a founder of the EFF, which is fighting the good fight around internet based human rights.
On the other, most people don't get to have their own "benefit concert" when they rack up big medical bills. (Yeah, yeah, I'm sure the US healtlh care system will be hashed within an inch of its life in this thread).
So... are some people more deserving than others, based on what they've accomplished? They're asked for voluntary contributions, and
Re:torn on this one. (Score:4, Insightful)
There most certainly is preferential treatment. If you have money, you can get lots of treatment. If you have social contacts, you might get some help (better to have money, it's more consistent).
Even in the Socialist Democracies with government controlled health care systems, the Golden Rule still applies. You can always pay extra for shiny stuff. The sad part about American Healthcare is that you really need to be in the top 5% before you can be assured that a medical issue won't bankrupt you. That's a pretty damning number.
For most Americans in this sort of condundrum, the most effective thing to do is to declare bankruptcy. Of course, that is a harsh punishment in an of itself but it seems to be the preferred way to go.
Then you can get on Medicaid (the State / Federal low income medical insurance system) and get free - and fairly high quality** - healthcare for life.
** Can depend dramatically on your location, religious preference and citizenship status. YMMV. Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball.
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I'm not aware of a fully socialist country, much less a fully socialist democracy. No, really, look it up. The wikipedia still has the clear, original definition of "socialism": the government owns every store, factory, and farm. Every business and employment of every kind is a government department. That's what Russia was "soviet socialist" republic. "Communism" is about living communally, eating communally, like the Spartans and the Amish.
So Americans looking to denigrate promoted both words downward. Soc
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More Class Privilege (Score:2)
So he's exploiting his class and privilege to "benefit" whom? Himself. How noble of him. Is his continued delay of inevitable death at this late stage of his life so crucial to civilization that it warrants exploitation of funds from a massive benefit concert that could likely save hundreds or thousands of "less important" lives if used more ethically?
Sorry man this is America (Score:5, Funny)
Why don't you just roll over and die like the rest of us who can't afford medical bills?
Or just move to a country with a sane health system, rather than the best health system in the world*.
*As voted by the US Medical magazine.
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I was going for -1 Sad , but got +5 Funny. Man we live in a fucked up world.
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America = dead without money (Score:5, Informative)
How utterly barbaric is the USA ? One of the most technologically advanced societies on the planet yet you can die because you have no money and are unfortunate enough to need medical treatment..
And all you stupid brainwashed Yanks claim your health care is better than the rest of the world ? Really ? You must love the taste of that Kool aid.
Oh sorry I forgot socialism (or all joining in to do something together) = bad in your tiny minds.
Thank fuck I live in England where we have the utterly civilized NHS. Thankfully I've been lucky enough (so far) to only pay into the system without needing much myself but I know people who've needed treatment, sometimes quite expensive treatment, and I'm proud to say that my taxes helped pay for them. I will be happy to spend my whole life paying into the NHS without ever needing it myself.
Your American medical "system" is a fucking joke. It's like something out of the middle ages.
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That would be the same utterly civilized NHS where expensive cancer drugs are denied to patients. The same NHS where doctors need to go on strike. The same NHS where you need to pay for your own diagnostic procedures. The same NHS where orthopedic surgeries are being rationed.
The same NHS where I personally know someone who had to get a mortgage on his house to pay for treatment.
Europe is great so long as you've never been there, have no friends or family there, or have never read their own press.
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The same NHS where you need to pay for your own diagnostic procedures.
Wow. You just replied with THAT in THIS article?
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I've lived in both and used both medical systems. I'd take the NHS over United/Cigna/BCBS and all the other crooks over here any day. I've no idea where you get your info about the UK but it's wrong.
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That would be the same utterly civilized NHS where expensive cancer drugs are denied to patients
Fortunately the same US healthcare options are also available in the UK, so if you don't feel the NHS is meeting your needs, pay for private cover too.
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Dig deeper. Some of those expensive cancer drugs have a cure rate of zero and on average buy 3 months worth of agonizing semi-conscious death in exchange for literally everything you and your children have. Most doctors who have seen someone on them fill out a living will to make sure they'll never be put on them.
They only exist because when the time comes, few who are personally involved can quite bring themselves to affirmatively let a loved one die even if that death is inevitable and actually the best o
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Your American medical "system" is a fucking joke. It's like something out of the middle ages.
Rather like a monarchy... ;)
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We Need Single-Payer (Score:2)
Nobody in the USA should have to worry about paying medical bills. We need a single-payer health care system [sparksremarks.com].
A single-payer system would:
—Cover everybody
—Eliminate co-pays and deductibles making health care affordable and accessible to everybody
—Increase freedom by allowing people to choose any doctor or hospital
—Reduce overall medical costs for the nation
—Prevent the nation going bankrupt from excessive health care costs
Eventually, we will move to a single-payer system b
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Having lived in a country with single payer health care, and now being a permanent US resident, I think it's a little oversimplifying.
While the benefits of a single payer system is obvious to me, the US isn't a simple country. Some shit doesn't work here for the same (unfortunate) reasons a lot of things don't work in China or in African nations.
All governments are corrupt to some degrees, but the US is really corrupt. All countries have some form of immigration related challenges, but among 1st world count
Two Years Ago, This Happened to Me (Score:5, Interesting)
The doctors were surprised that I had survived - bi-ventricle failure has a very minute chance of survival. I was fortunate, though. I coded at the hospital as I had checked myself in thinking I just had pneumonia (I also hadn't slept in a month). I woke up a week later. Barlow said there are no angels, cherubs, etc. He's right. There's nothing - and if there was something it was straight out of that hallway in Beetlejuice. But that was really just me barely conscious while I was medically sedated. I will say that if you have a bad doctor they can kill you all the same even if you do code there. The ED doc was ignoring me and a friend (who is a also a doctor - and could pass for Greg House) showed up to take charge when the ED doctor tried to brush my friend off and said, "Everyone here is sick." That ED doc was let go not long after that.
I was on ECMO then I was put on a bi-vad and expected to have one path: to transplant. But I was fortunate, I recovered and the bi-vad was explanted. That's just as rare to happen as surviving massive cardiac arrest. At my hospital, I was one of four patients out of ~100 who were explanted without a transplant over 15 years. I was on the transplant list, however and the transplant team was ready to promote me to 1A when my echo and right-heart cath showed massive improvement. Not everything is perfect, I'm still on the list - it's just something that I'm going to have to deal with further down the line. Over a calendar year, I totaled maybe 10 or 11 weeks in the hospital. ICU, step-down and physical therapy for the first go around because I had atrophy from being immobile for 8 days.
With insurance, I was fortunate. I was fully covered. I might not have a ridiculously paying job, but my company did go for the best benefits packages. My out of pocket for all of this was less than $1,000 (most of that was meds and follow up appointments - none was the actual stay in the hospital). It's scary to me that when the time actually comes for a transplant (for me it's not if, it's just when) that my insurance situation will have changed. With my current plan, I've been approved. I don't need one right now, but when the time comes, what then?
What's even worse, IMHO, is that the doctors, nurses, transplant team, etc. know this and really can't do anything except to tell you to fundraise if you don't have the money. They even have seminars and tell you to use gofundme and other crowdsourcing avenues to raise money. All the people I've met who had been on the list for years on various VADs or pic lines for a near constant stream of medicine who couldn't afford to live was humbling when I had it relatively easy. The anger, pain, and confusion of the unknown is just starting to sink in for me now that I'm actually planning long term for this and it's changed what I thought was a plan to get married and have a family. Now I'm second guessing that entirely because I can't stand the thought of someone potentially being burdened financially or emotionally with what I have to deal with.
I wish Barlow all the best and hope he succeeds in his fund raising for his costs. I wish it was that easy for more people who end up in situations like this.
Wow, I did not expect to write all of this. I just realized I've never spoken publicly (even anonymously) about what I've been through.
You aren't a consumer here (Score:3)
US spends more, gets less (Score:2)
https://ourworldindata.org/the... [ourworldindata.org]
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"Affordable" in the Affordable Care Act is very much akin to "unlimited" in unlimited bandwidth in a mobile phone contract. It's not so much an adjective as it is a branding label.
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"Affordable" in the Affordable Care Act is very much akin to "unlimited" in unlimited bandwidth in a mobile phone contract. It's not so much an adjective as it is a branding label.
Still. Every insurance plan has an out-of-pocket maximum and the law prevents life-time limits on benefits. While it's possible for deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums to be quite high, I'm dubious about the claim, "depleted his savings and insurance benefits" -- unless he's not good at managing his own money. To be fair, the summary did say this happened over 18 months, so there could be some cost build up due to his case exceeding a calendar year and the deductible and out-of-pocket fees being reset
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"Affordable" in the Affordable Care Act is very much akin to "unlimited" in unlimited bandwidth in a mobile phone contract. It's not so much an adjective as it is a branding label.
Still. Every insurance plan has an out-of-pocket maximum and the law prevents life-time limits on benefits. While it's possible for deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums to be quite high, I'm dubious about the claim, "depleted his savings and insurance benefits" -- unless he's not good at managing his own money. To be fair, the summary did say this happened over 18 months, so there could be some cost build up due to his case exceeding a calendar year and the deductible and out-of-pocket fees being reset (I don't know if it works that way for a continuing treatment).
Universal single-payer health plans don't (for the most part) have deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses.My first encounter with an out-of-pocket expense was last week - $5 for a DVD with a copy of my dental x-rays. First time in 60 years. I've literally spent months in hospitals, had a bunch of operations, dozens of treatments, and there's never been a co-pay or a deductible. The only time I ever saw even a copy of any bill was when Workman's Compensation sent me a copy of the bill they paid for one work
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You're missing zeroes. The actual leading edge cancer treatments are terribly expensive. They also represent an improvement in the state of the art. They've managed patients where everything else failed.
That's assuming you weren't just talking about some shaman or some other form of quackery.
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Steve Jobs?
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Then why are you commenting on what is predominantly a US site?
Fuck off, Canuck dyke.
All butt-hurt because you don't want to hear the truth about how the Affordable Care Act is the worst health-care plan in the western world, and that even Cuba has free health care for everyone?
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All butt-hurt because you don't want to hear the truth about how the Affordable Care Act is the worst health-care plan in the western world, and that even Cuba has free health care for everyone?
Don't forget that they have similar health outcomes for what was it, $5.70/yr/citizen or something?
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It's kinda like hollywood accounting where no movie produced in the last 100 years made a dime, yet they keep making them for some reason.
That's why you never see a simple plan like we pay 80% and that's that. YTou see we pay 80% of 70% of the bill after x amount but below y amount provided this that and the other condition are met within x time but not more than y time so long as it happens because of z, but not on alternate Tuesdays or during the gibbous moon on Friday.
One dirty trick is that the out of p
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Before Obamacare, there were catastrophic plans that were "you pay, then we pay". They were nice and simple and fairly cheap. Obamacare banned them. Dems also seem hell bent on banning health savings accounts too.
As far as disagreements about treatments go, you can appeal.
Try doing that with a government beaurocracy.
Which reminds me... don't even get me started on the US disability system. Or Medicare. Or Medicaid.
We need to fix the half-assed attempts at socialized medicine we already have before creating
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As far as disagreements about treatments go, you can appeal.
You mean you can ask to be told no in another voice? And then you get the bill because the treatment was already done?
The problem in the U.S. is that it IS half assed. The solution is to do the other half. Then there's a single entity with enough bargaining power to keep us from spending 4 times more per capita than any other developed country for healthcare.
The rest of the world manages, are you claiming Americans are uniquely too stupid to manage it?
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If you are in your twenties or early thirties, you can get a good individual plan for about $250/month, even in the most expensive part of the USA, I know, because that's how much my daughter pays.
However, for myself and my wife, my employer pays almost $2000/month for a high deductible plan.
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so there could be some cost build up due to his case exceeding a calendar year
Insurers need to be prohibited from resetting deductibles for further treatments required for a condition that
has arisen just because a calendar year has hit.
Or, for insurance liability purposes: law should be changed to make sure insurers always liable to pay for all ongoing treatment
at least as much as if the bill was made on the date which the condition was diagnosed (Even if the insurance has been
cancelled since then;
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The most obvious are that taxpayers shouldn't be forced to sub
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> If you smoke and get lung cancer, tough shit. Drink and ruin your liver, same deal. Obesity related medical issues are your own responsibility as well.
this used to be my opinion until i learned that the cigarette tax in UK brings in so much money it can more than cover the cost of the necessary healthcare for smokers. alcohol is taxed similarly.
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Dozens of countries have solved the problems in the second paragraph by taxing unhealthy shit higher to offset healthcare costs and through encouraging people to volunteer organ donation by educating them loudly on the good you can do after death. The better countries also heavily regulate advertising of unhealthy things, funding healthy eating and exercise programmes and providing preventative healthcare. In these places, the libertarian "anyone should be able to persuade anyone into becoming addicted to a
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In the U.S. we have the sin taxes but the money isn't being applied to treat the associated health problems.
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Um, you do realise you're talking about booze and cigarettes, right? Not exactly necessities of life, and nobody's talking about forcing anyone to buy them, are they?
Re:Why not covered by insurance? (Score:5, Insightful)
> I won't outright object to a single-payer tax supported medical system, but it's pretty obvious that we'd need to put some rules into place as it's not financially viable to provide the unlimited care that people are capable of consuming.
And yet countries like Canada where I live have a lower healthcare spend per capita, we have a longer life expectancy, and nobody here goes bankrupt from medical conditions. The problem in the US isn't that the people will "consume too much healthcare", the problem is you have a system built where several levels of companies have their hands out to gouge as much as they can. In the US the hospitals and the insurance companies negotiate prices for everything and with several companies in the mix everyone wants (and gets) their piece. In Canada, we have a single payer system where the government runs a board of doctors who determine what a procedure should cost and that is what a doctor or hospital will be paid for that procedure or visit. Period.
>The most obvious are that taxpayers shouldn't be forced to subsidize the consequences if your unhealthy lifestyle.
Hello slippery slope. What's an unhealthy lifestyle? Obesity sure, same with smoking and drinking. But what about other things? Play football, hockey, basketball? Go skydiving, rock climbing, biking or kayaking? Skiing? Construction? All of those activities and more can lead to very expensive injuries. If premiums go up for unhealthy lifestyles, why not risky ones too? Hell for that matter what about using a car, driver or passenger? Statistically the average person will be in 2.7 significant car accidents in their lifetime. So really if you use vehicles it's not a matter of if, but when you will become a burden to your healthcare provider. Better bump those peoples' premiums too....
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True, though it isn't THAT simple. And this is where it gets complicated.
The national healthcare doesn't pay for dental maintenance (if you have an infection or a car accident and your teeths get knocked out, yeah. But a simple cavity? Fuck you). There is still an amount to pay on medication, and a lot of medications aren't covered. Countless people don't have a family doctor to get the preventive medicine they need.
Line at t
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And yet countries like Canada where I live have a lower healthcare spend per capita, we have a longer life expectancy, and nobody here goes bankrupt from medical conditions.
I think you just described all other developed countries too.
While true that US healthcare is exceptionally expensive, there is not evidence it is to blame for the lower life expectancy in the US.
More road accidents, violence (notably guns), racial mix, and obesity do appear to be factors.
i.e. US healthcare is very effective, just horrifically expensive, both to individuals, and as a percentage of GDP.
Re:Why not covered by insurance? (Score:5, Informative)
> You have inferior care that gets people killed.
Holy shit, it's a real in the flesh idiot who has bought the US healthcare astroturf hook line and sinker. You don't live here, you don't use our system and yet you feel comfortable slinging bullshit like that around?
> You have arbitrary limits on expensive care that are a death sentence.
We don't no. But do look into US healthcare providers' lifetime limits and until the ACA those "preexisting conditions".
> You don't develop the interesting new treatments.
Horse. Shit. Insulin, Rhogam, the Salk polio vaccine trial, T - cells, AIDS medications, the ebola vaccine, etc.
You should really educate yourself. You're kind of an embarrassment.
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All this proves is that the insurance lobby has a deathgrip on politics.
Kowtowing to it is not the right answer. What the US needs to do is break up the cartel and introduce some competition. Insurance companies make obscene profits.
Re:Why not covered by insurance? (Score:4, Informative)
Hi random internet person. The WHO who isn't some random person on a forum rank Canada 7 nations ahead of the USA in its global rankings. These include first and foremost the quality of life (ability to live, ability to live well, and ability to receive healthcare).
So... You're talking out of your arse.
Thanks. That is all.
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The WHO who isn't some random person on a forum rank Canada 7 nations ahead of the USA in its global rankings.
I've never understood why a band [wikipedia.org] is making these kind of decisions.
Re:Why not covered by insurance? (Score:5, Informative)
There are several areas in which the USA provides world class care. To the rich. In most areas, it's rather depressing to look at the figures though.
Here is the summary from a report by The Commonwealth Fund, which was set up to improve healthcare in the USA in 1918: US healthcare from a global perspective [commonwealthfund.org]
Highlights:
- High U.S. health care spending due to greater use of medical technology, health care prices
- U.S. spends more on health care than other high-income countries but has worse outcomes
- Health care spending as % of gross GDP, USA vs Canada: 17.1% versus 10.7% (2013)
Some causes:
"Data published by the International Federation of Health Plans suggest that hospital and physician prices for procedures were highest in the U.S. in 2013.10 The average price of bypass surgery was $75,345 in the U.S. This is more than $30,000 higher than in the second-highest country, Australia, where the procedure costs $42,130. According to the same data source, MRI and CT scans were also most expensive in the U.S. While these pricing data are subject to significant methodological limitations, they illustrate a pattern of significantly higher prices in many areas of U.S. health care.
Other studies have observed high U.S. prices for pharmaceuticals. A 2013 investigation by Kanavos and colleagues created a cross-national price index for a basket of widely used in-patent pharmaceuticals. In 2010, all countries studied had lower prices than the U.S. In Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, prices were about 50 percent lower.11"
But perhaps, if you pay more, you get more?
"On several measures of population health, Americans had worse outcomes than their international peers. "
Okay, but we know a lot of Americans have been smoking more than other folks, and are more... big-boned. Right?
"The Institute of Medicine found that poorer health in the U.S. was not simply the result of economic, social, or racial and ethnic disadvantages—even well-off, nonsmoking, nonobese Americans appear in worse health than their counterparts abroad."
But cancer care is top notch in the USA.
"One area where the U.S. appeared to have comparatively good health outcomes was cancer care. Other research based on survival rates also suggests that U.S. cancer care is above average, though these studies are disputed on methodological grounds."
However: "The opposite trend appears for ischemic heart disease, where the U.S. had among the highest mortality rates in 2013—128 per 100,000 population compared with 95 in the median OECD country."
To summarize: if you state that Canada has inferior care (imploying that it goes across the board), despite research suggesting the opposite is true, I'd like to see citations.
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I'll repeat: "The Institute of Medicine found that poorer health in the U.S. was not simply the result of economic, social, or racial and ethnic disadvantages—even well-off, nonsmoking, nonobese Americans appear in worse health than their counterparts abroad."
It's not just the lifestyle, even though it *is* worse than that of almost everyone else, but it's *also* the way in which the healthcare is structured that makes it more expensive and still provides a worse outcome for people with health compara
Re:Why not covered by insurance? (Score:4, Insightful)
The most obvious are that taxpayers shouldn't be forced to subsidize the consequences if your unhealthy lifestyle. If you smoke and get lung cancer, tough shit. Drink and ruin your liver, same deal. Obesity related medical issues are your own responsibility as well. Also, mandatory requirement that if you want to use the system, you're automatically an organ donor. Throw in some tax deductions (or alternatively just higher taxes for anyone who wouldn't get the "deduction") for people who generally try to stay in reasonable health and it's a reasonable system.
At this point I think it would be wise to point out that everybody dies sometime, somehow and old people tend to have a lot of medical problems. Most people dying from "lifestyle diseases" make it through most their taxable income years, if you drop dead from cardiac arrest at 60 you're still probably cheaper than a fitness freak that goes down fighting at 90 after a decade of deteriorating health going in and out of hospital. And to put it bluntly, very often it doesn't matter how or when it's a matter of whether there's something to be done. I've heard stories of apparently healthy people going to bed and simply not waking up, game over. Very cheap, very easy just issue the death certificate and move on. Others are caught in critical condition and spend days or weeks on the brink of death. There's a huge, huge variation that means the risk and payout won't correlate well no matter what you do.
The other part is, do you really want a society counting the number of beers and smoke and BMI and any risky or stupid activity you do? Orwell would love it, but no just no. I think you should realized that the main reason it won't get crazy abused is that being sick and injured is not fun and generally painful and uncomfortable. And you will spend a lot of time waiting in line unless you're in critical need and in general, you just don't cut yourself to get a free band-aid. Not when it's only going to be put on a bleed wound, it's not like you can keep them and sell them. Now benefits, there's a lot of fraud with disability benefits, a little with some highly regulated drugs that are monitored carefully... but healthcare in general? People are there because they need it, not because they want to.
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it's not financially viable to provide the unlimited care that people are capable of consuming
So we're back to fuck it and let them die if they are expensive?
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The most obvious are that taxpayers shouldn't be forced to subsidize the consequences if your unhealthy lifestyle. If you smoke and get lung cancer, tough shit.
Smokers who die of lung cancer tend to have lower lifetime health care expenditure than people who live to a riper, older age. Because, guess what? If you extend people's lives out long enough, they tend to hit the cancer wall anyway. And lung cancer has a higher mortality rate than many of these other cancers (your lungs being quite important) so it kills people quicker. If you want socialized medicine to be cheaper you should encourage smoking.
Obesity related medical issues are your own responsibility as well.
Obesity is curable in at least some situations. It really is n
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Socialized medicine doesn't somehow equate to free and unlimited health care. We could spend 100% of GDP on health care and people would still eventually get to a point where there's nothing that can be done.
The most obvious are that taxpayers shouldn't be forced to subsidize the consequences if your unhealthy lifestyle.
People need to be more realistic about medical outcomes and doctors need to be more straight-forward with patents. According to many articles, a LOT of health care spending in on (usually) elderly people during their last year of life. From the articles mentioned below: (Google: end of life care costs [google.com]:
Medicare, the health insurance program for the elderly, spends nearly 30 percent of its budget on beneficiaries in their final year of life. Slightly more than half of Medicare dollars are spent on patients who die within two months.
But the costs of patients in critical care with chronic disease and multi-organ failure — heavily the elderly and those for whom death is a common but not an immediate outcome — are exceedingly high. The top 5 percent of such patients account for nearly half of spending (more than $600 billion a year), ... Those patients are typically the ones whose doctors do not level with them or their families that their chances are not good, and who are put in hospice programs much later than they should be.
My wife Susan d
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It doesn't really matter. Unless you're living paycheck to paycheck with no savings or credit, it really shouldn't be a problem. This is not the kind of guy we should be throwing a pity party for.
You have an out of pocket limit for the year. After that, stuff should be free. If that's not the case, then how did he manage that?
This is a non-trivial issue.
My medical bills probably make his look puny. I have been sicker over a longer period of time. I probably have been in the hospital more. I have been on ver
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From the HHS website [hhs.gov]:
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You highlight one of the problems: too much complexity. Nobody should have to worry about "deductibles" or "calendar years" or any of that shit.
Things are about to get a little simpler. According to this NY Times article: HealthCare.gov Will Add ‘Simple Choice’ Plans in Effort to Improve Value [nytimes.com]
“All Simple Choice plans in the same category (like Silver) have exactly the same core benefits, deductibles and co-payments,” states a message to be displayed on the federal website. “When viewing Simple Choice plans, you can focus on other important features that may be different: monthly premiums, additional services covered, doctor and hospital networks.”
Under the standardized version of a silver plan, co-payments would be $30 for a visit to a primary care doctor, $65 for a visit to a specialist, $15 for a generic prescription drug, $50 for a preferred brand-name drug and $100 for a non-preferred brand-name drug. Consumers may be responsible for up to 40 percent of the cost of specialty drugs, including certain high-cost medicines for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.
For the lowest-income families, the charges would be lower.
Re:Why not covered by insurance? (Score:5, Informative)
The Affordable Care Act did a couple of things - dropped the 'pre existing condition' clause for private insurance (if you're sick, we aren't going to cover you, but you're certainly welcome to pay into the program in the event you get some other illness down the road - while you're still healthy enough to pay the premium), made insurers create lower (not low by any means) marginally useful insurance policies and tried to force everyone to get some sort of medical insurance. It also gave insurers the ability to lock in double digit profits for another decade. And gave me even more reasons to write run on sentences.
We don't know just what insurance he had (TFS implies that he had some) but if he had a standard commercial policy with a 1-2 million dollar limit, let me point out two interesting points:
- A year long illness can easily kick you into the million dollar club. A bad MI, a couple of weeks in the ICU, a couple more weeks in a step down unit, rehab, a few more procedures, a couple of expensive drugs and a host of billing errors and you're there. Hell, I'm an ER doc and I can run up $100,000 easy peasy. That's for the first couple of HOURS.
- MOST insurances have a 20% copay. Crappy ones don't drop the copay until you get to the quarter million dollar range although most have an out of pocket limit of at most $10,000 or so.
So, lets say he had 'OK' insurance. He's limited to $10K out of pocket plus an enormous number of 'little' expenses. Things that weren't covered, billing errors (did I mention that before>?), lost time, wages, home assistance, family issues .....
He's a lawyer, but probably not that kind of lawyer that has 20K sitting in his savings account.
Yeah, the money goes fast. The most popular thing at our local Elk's Club is drinking, the next most popular is various fund raisers for somebody or others medical bills.
USA! USA! USA!
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The Affordable Care Act did a couple of things - dropped the 'pre existing condition' clause for private insurance (if you're sick, we aren't going to cover you, but you're certainly welcome to pay into the program in the event you get some other illness down the road - while you're still healthy enough to pay the premium), made insurers create lower (not low by any means) marginally useful insurance policies and tried to force everyone to get some sort of medical insurance. It also gave insurers the ability to lock in double digit profits for another decade. And gave me even more reasons to write run on sentences.
We don't know just what insurance he had (TFS implies that he had some) but if he had a standard commercial policy with a 1-2 million dollar limit, let me point out two interesting points:
- A year long illness can easily kick you into the million dollar club. A bad MI, a couple of weeks in the ICU, a couple more weeks in a step down unit, rehab, a few more procedures, a couple of expensive drugs and a host of billing errors and you're there. Hell, I'm an ER doc and I can run up $100,000 easy peasy. That's for the first couple of HOURS.
- MOST insurances have a 20% copay. Crappy ones don't drop the copay until you get to the quarter million dollar range although most have an out of pocket limit of at most $10,000 or so.
So, lets say he had 'OK' insurance. He's limited to $10K out of pocket plus an enormous number of 'little' expenses. Things that weren't covered, billing errors (did I mention that before>?), lost time, wages, home assistance, family issues .....
He's a lawyer, but probably not that kind of lawyer that has 20K sitting in his savings account.
Yeah, the money goes fast. The most popular thing at our local Elk's Club is drinking, the next most popular is various fund raisers for somebody or others medical bills.
USA! USA! USA!
So maybe lead the charge as an ER Doc to bring those costs down? 100,000$ for a few hours? That's criminal, nothing on Earth can possibly cost that much without someone committing a crime. The fact is hospitals charge the fuck out of everything they can. I've never seen people so rich as hospital administrators. They know they have everyone by the balls and don't care because the ones their billing are to sick to do anything about it.
People bitch about Martin Shkrelli but he's got nothing on the hospital ad
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Exactly right. The anti-competitiveness of hospital, drug, and doctor prices in the USA is the problem.
Nobody else gets away with charging these prices without disclosing them up front. (Try that with car repairs)
Nobody else gets away with charging different prices based on how you pay. (Try that with car repairs)
Nobody else gets away with forcing you to buy 'protection' from the racket. (aka health insurance)
Nobody else gets away with doing it under duress.
They are criminals!
Re:Why not covered by insurance? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep, criminal and insane but nothing I can do about it. My particular charges are pretty modest, maybe $1000 or so for a couple of hours of work. But that helicopter gets expensive, the nice cardiac team has six highly paid professionals tending to it in three shifts 24 x 7, not to mention the suite costs several million dollars itself. ICU beds typically run several thousand per day. There are drugs that are three figures per dose.
I'd be the first to complain about the costs. I'm the one who gets yelled at in the supermarket, not the hospital CFO.
It's a fucking mess.
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Nobody pays the $100k.
Insurance and government pay a small % of bill amount. So hospitals charge a high % to offset the fact they know they will get stiffed.
It's just fiction.
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Not really. I know a family member who ran up over 100 grand in medical bills. He recovered and found out he was to live. He ended up filing bankruptcy and all that debt magically disappeared. This is what usually happens to ridiculous bills but hey! They get to write that off on their taxes. The amount his insurance company paid was probably sufficient for the actual costs but this way they get to dodge the tax man.
Re:Why not covered by insurance? (Score:5, Insightful)
In America, we put the dollar sign before EVERYTHING else.
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The problem is the amount skimmed off the top by the non-productive 0.1% That's why the cost of everything keeps going even while less labor is required than even before and pay remains stagnant.
If X takes only 75% of the labor it did 10 years ago, but it's 50% more expensive and nobody got a raise, the money went somewhere.
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Just gotta love Slashdot's editing function.....
Just to expand - if you have insurance covered by your employer than if you exceed the policy limits, somebody has paid for re insurance so that will kick in.
Sometimes. Not every policy has a backup if you exceed the limit.
There is nothing more confusing and contradictory than American healthcare. Statistics is a walk in the park compared to understanding the morass we've gotten ourselves into.
And won't ever be able to get ourselves out of. But that is anot
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Sorry, posting to undo bad mod.
Anyone have a manual for this trackpad?
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> - A year long illness can easily kick you into the million dollar club. A bad MI, a couple of weeks in the ICU, a couple more weeks in a step down unit, rehab, a few more procedures, a couple of expensive drugs and a host of billing errors and you're there. Hell, I'm an ER doc and I can run up $100,000 easy peasy.
Bullshit.
I've had a 2 year long illness and I'm nowhere near a million yet.
What liberals don't want to tell you is that those billing numbers for hospital procedures are BULLSHIT. Private insu
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The one time we saw some numbers, the insurance company paid less than 10% of the total bill, and we paid nothing. It was the hospital charges for a standard room.
I choose to have a high deductible/out of pocket limit ($5k deductible), but most of that amount is covered by contributions to my HSA by my employer. Under every scenario for use of medical services (from no use of medical services, to hitting the out out of pocket limit), I am better off with
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Re: Why not covered by insurance? (Score:1)
The "Affordable Care Act" is just a tax.
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Although it is oft repeated (e.g. During the debates by Clinton) that the ACA "fixed" being uninsurable or having a cap on out of pocket costs it is incorrect. There is a cap on your deductible (~10k/year) but you're still on the hook for 10-40% of the cost once your deductible is met. Sure the ACA assures that everyone has insurance but "the poor" and now even the middle class still can't go to the doctor because 10k out of pocket per year is pretty much unaffordable.
Off course the unpoor (people intention
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It always amazes me when people chose plans that effectively have no out of pocket maximum, although I did have catastrophic insurance only until I was abo
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Holy shit are you kidding?!?! $11k for appendicitis???
I knew the US medical system was a mess but that is crazy! My medical insurance is the top everything and it costs me $146 a fortnight for my family of 4. I was involved in a motorcycle accidents that crushed my collar bone and badly dislocated and broke my wrist. The collar bone was just a plate but the wrist required 4 hours of surgery, 6 screws, a plate, 2 k-wires (otherwise called nails), and 6 months of rehab. I was out of pocket about US$300, a
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Ambulance transfers are free in Australia, I hadn't even thought of that. So how does that work? You picked up off the road and they ask for your credit card?
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Well, let me know how one will afford that "out of pocket max" of ~$14k/year + $15k/year for the 'average' insurance cost = $29k in health care costs alone and then you still have to pay several thousands in Medicare (the thing that one time was supposed to be used to pay for 'universal health care'), Social Security and other taxes.
My premiums have risen to ~$1.5k/month for a family (we were promised ~$400 after ACA) and both my deductible (before 1.5k, now 5k) and out of pocket max (before 3k, now 10k) ma
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life without steak and ice cream sucks but death is worse.
Lies!
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I have bigger medical bills. Probably spent more time in the hospital. Had a more serious condition. Have had to deal with it for longer.
This jackass is a fucking loser. He's not the class of people that government rescue programs are meant to benefit. He's from the class of people that should be able to fend for themselves. He should be able get out of this kind of thing and be able to pay for OTHER people's treatment both directly and through taxes.
This schmuck points to a problem with Americans, not the
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That's what bankruptcy is for you stupid fool.
So what's the big deal about it anyways? Europeans don't have anything anyways. So why is it a big deal having nothing here? It's not a death mark. It's just a way to get out from under your debts.
Going broke in the US is not so bad really.
Re:In America (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That's what you get for being a fat slob. (Score:4, Insightful)