mind_messing
Posts: 3393
Joined: 10/28/2013
Status: offline
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ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake
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ORIGINAL: mind_messing
Emphasis mine.
Look, amigo, your post has no verb. Secondly, other than hydration and fever control, there is no proven effective outpatient treatment for Covid-19.
Water is essentially free, acetaminophen is about $2.50 for 500 tabs. If Remdesisvir or even chloroquine helps that would be a different matter. In that case it is a clear public health benefit.
This is an interesting discussion because of the international input but if you want to get in your snarky pseudo-professorial anti-American digs do it somewhere else because you will get the thread locked.
It is quite clear that outpatient treatment wasn't the primary concern with this discussion, but good attempt to evade the point raised.
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ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake
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I think that this policy is even being considered, let alone implemented is sufficient evidence to rest my case.
Better yet, rest your mouth for a while.
Again, excellent work addressing the point at hand 
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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
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ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive
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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
Hey, Sammy, I understand the point he's making but it's wrong. Any American who shows up at an emergency room will be treated. Basically every American knows that (there are minimal exceptions). While some people may be reluctant to see care for some reasons, including economic, the fear from this pandemic is almost sure to overcome that. There will be very few Americans who aren't treated for Covid-19.
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ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive
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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
What you wanna bet that there won't be 25% of Americans not receiving treatment for Covid-19? I bet 98% will. The other 2% (or whatever it happens to be) will likely be those who expire before they realized the severity or otherwise didn't seek medical attention. Everybody else, rich or poor, black and white and brown and red and yellow, conservative and progressive, athiest or religious, will receive medical care.
I think the problem is that it is very difficult to prove either way.
If you follow mind_messings viewpoint then potentially many of the most impoverished Americans will die of COV-19 at home having never accessed healthcare in the first place and potentially never being tested post-mortem. That supposition is impossible to prove either way at this point although I guess in the fullness of time looking at 'excess mortality' statistics might give an insight.
As before I'm not taking sides - just pointing out that the two of you will get nowhere with arguing about that point in particular and most likely with your dispute in general.
Mate I think you are both right to block each other as it seems from an outsider's perspective that you both have 'history' that is making what is already a very thorny topic impossible to negotiate.
I'll ask just one question - not rhetorical as I genuinely don't know the answer. If somebody spends 14 days in hospital (with say 4 days in critical care) in the US, how much is their bill likely to be at the end of it if they don't have health insurance?
It would cost nothing if they were poor enough. I know someone who spent seventeen days in the hospital, including several days in isolation but no ICU. At first, a RN, a LPN, and an aide. Then just a RN and an aide for care. Then, 16.5+ months in a nursing home with therapy. Then, 14 months in assisted living. The first 2 days in the hospital were covered by an organization that I won't name here. The only thing paid by that individual was the room and board part of the assisted living. This also covered some surgeries as well. No or little payments for drugs either.
Anecdote, the strongest of evidence.
Let me respond to anecdotal evidence with empirical.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK121966/
Granted, ten years ago, so cost may have shifted, but average cost was around the $12,000 mark.
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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
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ORIGINAL: Olorin
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ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake
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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
Hey, Sammy, I understand the point he's making but it's wrong. Any American who shows up at an emergency room will be treated. Basically every American knows that (there are minimal exceptions). While some people may be reluctant to see care for some reasons, including economic, the fear from this pandemic is almost sure to overcome that. There will be very few Americans who aren't treated for Covid-19.
This is unequivocally a true statement. They show up in the ED with fever and cough they go to the sick "tent". They don't even go to intake. They need to be admitted, they get admitted. The hospitalist doctor takes over and almost never even pays attention to insurance until the time of discharge. They need the ICU they get the ICU. They need a vent, they get a vent. They need ECMO...which they pretty much can't get in most of the world...they get it. Illegal aliens...don't matter..they just have to show up and be sick enough
"American exceptionalism" is used here as an intentional insult. We can all see right through it.
Well, it seems the uninsured Americans are quite concerned.
"...44% of Americans declined to see a doctor due to cost, and why nearly a third of Americans polled said they didn’t get their prescriptions filled due to the high cost of their medicine."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/28/coronavirus-millions-of-americans-uninsured
That article is over a month old. Some of what is in there is true but more is a bunch of garbage in my opinion. I won't write any more because of the overtones.
That was a good start at a critique, but you fell down right in the middle part. For to do better next time, try to make explicit what you think is true and what isn't, and then we can move on to the nuance.
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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
Olorin, the article is written with a strong agenda supporting universal healthcare provided for by the government. Possibly most of the world is in favor of that today. I'm not and I'm pretty sure most of the people I know aren't.
I am an uninsured American.** I've been to the doctor once since 2006. I paid the $180 bill out of my own pocket because I'm self-employed and nobody provides insurance. It's not the government's responsibility to do so and I don't want it too. The government is inefficient and cumbersome. I can and should handle my own business. If I die because of my choices and economic situation that's on me. Not on the government or my employer or anyone else.
**My family has been part of a health sharing ministry for seven years but thus far we haven't used it.
The bolded section has interesting ramifications. Are you opposed to utilitarianism in the instance of healthcare?
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Here's a quote from that article: "Yes, countries with single-payer systems still have coronavirus cases, Italy and Japan. But the spread of the virus in those countries would likely pale in comparison to the potential spread of coronavirus in the US, in which a significant portion of the population simply won’t go to the doctor if they’re sick. Coronavirus is a worldwide public health emergency, and massive profits for health insurers and pharmaceutical manufacturers shouldn’t come before the basic health and safety of human beings."
A forumite who is a US doctor has already said this isn't true, confirming what others have said that any American that needs Covid-19 medical attention will receive it, whether they pay or not.
Again, anecdotal evidence 
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I can understand why the author might tout Japan, but Italy? Of course, with hindsight we know that unfortunately Italy got clobbered.
Please consult previously referenced WHO document where Italy was an overall high performer in terms of healthcare performance.
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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
As an example of affordability: A healthcare facility will charge the insurance company $4,000 for something like a CT scan. But the same scan billed to medicaid or medicare will be $2400-$2600. If a person offers to pay that day, the charge may be only $400. Now if a person has a 20% copay, think of how much that person pays if they have insurance. $800 is what they would pay besides any payments for the insurance. I have been to a government healthcare system many times. Worse care than the private sector in many cases with longer wait times.
Please, let us get back to the coronavirus and not bicker about the type of healthcare any more nor post inflammatory links.
Anecdotal evideeence
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ORIGINAL: Olorin
Canoerebel, for most of the world, universal healthcare is a given, accepted by both ends of the political system. OK, I understand it's a difficult subject for American politics, even though I don't undestand why.
Regarding, your personal situation, I think you are fortunate that you can afford the costs involved in your healthcare system. What about those who can't? The article I provided had some numbers in it.
44% of Americans declined to see a doctor due to cost. This is a very large portion of the population.
Inefficient public healthcare that can give all people what they need is preferable in my book to efficient private healthcare that excludes almost half the country. I'm just saying that financial efficiency is not the end goal of hospitals, it's curing people.
Olorin, you can't say that here! That would be political, and that would be baaaaad!
/s
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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
Loka, you and others haven't batted an eye at the most overtly offensive political commentary in here. I could give examples but won't, mainly because I'll be calling out people who spoke in the heat of the moment but who are well-regarded members of this community.
As for MindMessing, if you read through this thread in total, you'll see the repeated snarky nature of his comments, my repeated requests that he take it private or elsewhere, and his refusal to do so. There have been private asides between him and me, and there has been past history, in which he repeats his behavior ad nauseum. I disagree with him on many things - as I do with others - but his behavior has been beyond anything I've encountered before on a Matrix site, by far.
I have him blocked now, so hopefully we can coexist peacefully. But if my presence and attempts to avoid the political mayhem in here (that allegedly wouldn't transpire) fail, I'll bow out of the thread I started.
Mainly because that would likely require actually engaging with what had been written, and we can't have that, can we?
Side note, I find Canoerebel playing the role of the aggrieved party highly amusing. I make no pretensions of innocence at all, but someone give that man an Oscar.
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ORIGINAL: HansBolter
I have to wonder what percentage of Americans who avoid health care do so as a result of the seemingly prohibitive cost and how many do so simply because they hate the experience.
As cited previously, about 1 in 4 avoid due to concerns of cost.
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Some of us simply don't want anything to do with doctors unless we are actually dieing.
Which was precisely the point I was trying to raise, to the abject horror of some...
And also really bad from a population health perspective - makes preventative medicine a pipedream.
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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
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Lokasenna
No, the likely scenario is that they would prolong seeking life-saving treatment at a disproportionate rate (due to financial concerns, in turn due to misinformation) and therefore a disproportionate number of them will die. Same thing that happens with any other health problem that they don't seek treatment for when it first comes up.
Way back in this thread there was an anecdote posted by someone who "knew someone" who spent several weeks in the hospital and, because their income was low enough, they didn't have to pay much/anything. That's great for that person, but it's just one anecdotal data point and completely ignores the stark reality that large numbers of Americans routinely go without adequate medical care for financial reasons only. Beginning with states that have not expanded Medicaid, costing them 14K lives per year.
I am that person who posted that. I know that person - I see him every time that I look in a mirror. Here is one problem that I had. The picture is graphic.
Looks nasty.
Still anecdotal.
All the savvy statistics swots should know: One example is bad statistics...
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RE: OT: Corona virus - 
When people like John and his daughter, Cap Mandrake are working they see the trees and not the forest. They need to concentrate on the trees, I would like to know more about the forest. This way I do the most to protect myself and in my new living environment, inform others who may not be online or are otherwise too busy to get the information.
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