The Coronavirus thread

Quote: AZDuffman

We have had potential treatments like hydroxychloroquine but folks like yourself refuse to let people take them so do not whine to me about "full hospitals."

LMAO

How is Gandler preventing anyone from taking hydroxychloroquine?

Quote: Gandler

I hope for your sake you are not needing to go to a hospital soon, because you can see for yourself...

Was just there yesterday for an MRI. No delays, no problems.

Get used to the jammed hospitals if the Democrats get socialized medicine. It will be forever like you are claiming it is now.

Quote: AZDuffman

Was just there yesterday for an MRI. No delays, no problems.

Get used to the jammed hospitals if the Democrats get socialized medicine. It will be forever like you are claiming it is now.

So a scheduled screening procedure, not an emergency room or a critical care room? Not really a fair comparison (yes I did broadly say hospital).

As for socialized medicine, a great example is the VA, it has lower wait times than the private sector, and the hospitals and campuses are 100% government run. Now, they have a (relatively) small customer base (veterans who are eligible for VA care), but you can argue that the model can scale up and maintain effectiveness.

That being said I don't know anyone who actually wants all hospitals to be government owned. "Medicare for all" (which is the most popular movement), or "Medicare for all who want it" (relatively similar), is just that, giving everyone access to buy into Medicare at any stage in their life if they choose it (or those who want it as a secondary policy to supplement their own private policy). In some models Medicare would be 100% free, in others, you would have to pay the same monthly premiums as retirees to maintain coverage.

In any case, under any system, if you can't get workers to work (which the private hospitals are failing at, not the government hospitals), it will make it even more disorganized. Nurses are critical to hospitals, not being able to hire any is a massive problem (The Physician shortage is not quite as bad, in many areas not even an issue, but nurse shortages are an issue virtually everywhere).

Quote: Gandler

So a scheduled screening procedure, not an emergency room or a critical care room? Not really a fair comparison (yes I did broadly say hospital).

As for socialized medicine, a great example is the VA, it has lower wait times than the private sector, and the hospitals and campuses are 100% government run. Now, they have a (relatively) small customer base (veterans who are eligible for VA care), but you can argue that the model can scale up and maintain effectiveness.

That being said I don't know anyone who actually wants all hospitals to be government owned. "Medicare for all" (which is the most popular movement), or "Medicare for all who want it" (relatively similar), is just that, giving everyone access to buy into Medicare at any stage in their life if they choose it (or those who want it as a secondary policy to supplement their own private policy). In some models Medicare would be 100% free, in others, you would have to pay the same monthly premiums as retirees to maintain coverage.

In any case, under any system, if you can't get workers to work (which the private hospitals are failing at, not the government hospitals), it will make it even more disorganized. Nurses are critical to hospitals, not being able to hire any is a massive problem (The Physician shortage is not quite as bad, in many areas not even an issue, but nurse shortages are an issue virtually everywhere).

The VA is a pretty awful place to have to get care. Has been for decades. A shame.

Those calling for socialized medicine effectively want everything government run. They have some weird problem with people making a profit in medicine.

Quote: AZDuffman

Those calling for socialized medicine effectively want everything government run. They have some weird problem with people making a profit in medicine.

Hope you have a nice low deductible. Would absolutely *hate* to see the hospital make a huge profit from your pocket for your MRI.

lol

Quote: ams288

Hope you have a nice low deductible. Would absolutely *hate* to see the hospital make a huge profit from your pocket for your MRI.

lol

My insurance company kept putting off an MRI for me that the doctors ordered and sent me to pain management instead. Lots of drugs, lots of experimental medicine burning the nerves in my back, etc. Finally after many years the orthopedic surgeon just did an MRI in his office without getting approval first. The doctor came in the room with me, flipped on the computer to look at the MRI, and asked me "When did you break your back?" I had a broken back for many years that wasn't diagnosed because the insurance company kept putting off my MRI. Within 5 weeks of the MRI I had Transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion surgery and have been good since.

Quote: AZDuffman

The VA is a pretty awful place to have to get care. Has been for decades. A shame.

Some republicans try to sell the whole privatization system to veterans. Anyone with any sense, knows the same Republicans will be sending them to private facilities based on being the cheapest, not because these will be the best care (read more costly) facilities with the best sought after physicians.

Quote: AZDuffman

The VA is a pretty awful place to have to get care. Has been for decades. A shame.

Those calling for socialized medicine effectively want everything government run. They have some weird problem with people making a profit in medicine.

Under Medicare for all Drs would still make a profit (just less of one, because with one insurance carrier covering 95% of the country, the ball would be in the Court of the insurance for price controls, this is the benefit of larger plans in general). Medicare for all would just be insurance, not government run hospitals.

That being said VA hospitals are great. Do your own research of reviews and results compared to other hospitals. Don't believe hype media after VA hospitals falling apart. There have been some local scandals (as there are at all hospitals, VA just gets more news), but overall the comparison speak for themselves.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30657532/

https://blogs.va.gov/VAntage/55759/va-wait-times-equal-better-private-sector/

https://www.rand.org/news/press/2018/04/26.html

(The last one is a quality comparison, and by the way is from Rand Corp. which is no liberal organization.....)

" Examining a wide array of commonly used measures of health care quality, researchers found that VA hospitals generally provided better quality care than non-VA hospitals and the VA's outpatient services were better quality when compared to commercial HMOs, Medicaid HMOs and Medicare HMOs. The findings are published online by the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

“Consistent with previous studies, our analysis found that the VA health care system generally provides care that is higher in quality than what is offered elsewhere in communities across the nation,” said Rebecca Anhang Price, lead author of the study and senior policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "
- Rand 2018 -

Quote: AZDuffman

Turn off PMSNBC and live in reality.

We have had potential treatments like hydroxychloroquine but folks like yourself refuse to let people take them so do not whine to me about "full hospitals."

Surprised you don't know how to get the medications, since you know all about it.

Here's a trump approved doctor site.

https://americasfrontlinedoctors.org/treatments/how-do-i-get-covid-19-medication/

Quote: DRich

My insurance company kept putting off an MRI for me that the doctors ordered and sent me to pain management instead. Lots of drugs, lots of experimental medicine burning the nerves in my back, etc. Finally after many years the orthopedic surgeon just did an MRI in his office without getting approval first. The doctor came in the room with me, flipped on the computer to look at the MRI, and asked me "When did you break your back?" I had a broken back for many years that wasn't diagnosed because the insurance company kept putting off my MRI. Within 5 weeks of the MRI I had Transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion surgery and have been good since.

I had a standard lower back MRI in 2015 at a hospital.

They charged $3,000.

Had I gone to some independent MRI place it would have been $400.

I didn’t care though, I knew I was gonna have to have back surgery anyway and would hit my yearly out of pocket maximum. Didn’t matter to me who got paid by me and who got paid by my insurance: the radiologist, the surgeon, or the hospital.