Healthcare

Encouraging more people to go into the medical workforce would be a great thing for society, though. Of course, we'd need to revamp a lot of the current system to get that kind of thing done, but it is one of the few industries I don't see being replaced by outsourcing or technological innovation any time soon.

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.

Actually, I saw some articles where a computer program could get diagnostic rates in line with any number of doctors.

And I can certainly believe that, but the real question is, would you be willing to get a checkup from a machine without any serious human interaction? Social barriers are just as important as technological ones, and I'd be willing to bet we're decades away from anyone feeling comfortable around a machine doing that part of the job without heavy human supervision.

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.

People already get their blood pressure checked, and next to it, they've put a device from some foot company to sell you their soles.

I've also been hearing PS As which express a concern about people going to a doctor's office and clamming up, not asking questions, not saying stuff they should.

There's a lot of dynamics going on.

Things you can do with a machine without human interaction so far:

1) Eye exam and corrective lens procurement.

2) Blood pressure

3) Weight and height

Which could save quite a bit of time at the offices. Then again, charging the doctors for wait time would help with some of that.

Fight smart, not fair.

Yes but personalised visits was the suggestion, which obviously requires a person involved.

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

Except we really don't need to do that when there are other effective alternatives, for example if people could log in a website, and go through a Question and Answer routine, that would serve most of the diagnostic needs very adequately. Much of the rest could be done with simple machine measurements and minimal training.

Doctors aren't the only people who contribute to health care.

Well as for the doctor-patient reverse relationship, the concept is that each doctor visits each patient once a year. So we're talking maybe 30 minutes to an hour per patient that a doctor has in order to prevent the patients from visiting the doctor for other health related issues. So it's a time trade in this sense.

I agree that we need more doctors but I doubt you actually need that many more G Ps for the process to work. Afterall, if Cuba can do it, why not a far richer western country like Canada or some place in Europe?

So if I go by http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_phy_per_1000_peo-physicians-per-1-000-people

I find that, for instance, France has 3.37 per 1000 people. So a rough estimate would be something like, 1000 manhours to visit each patient per year split amongst 3.37 doctors. That would be 296.7 hours per doctor, we'll round up to 300. So basically, an hour each day is blown into checking up on patients. So... you wouldn't actually require zillions more doctors, you only need slightly more. This also is ignoring how these doctor visits will reduce the time of patients visiting the doctor because

• You eliminate 100% of time that patients would go to the doctor for a yearly physical
• You increase health by monitoring the health of people, thereby decreasing problems which would draw upon GP time

As an added bonus, anybody who doesn't do physicals, now does a physical automatically. So even if you're lazy bastard, you still get a physical check up.

"Lives transcend monetary value."

"You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?

If you can afford it, you probably would pay that much, or more, to live longer, even if your quality of life wasn’t going to be good. But suppose it’s not you with the cancer but a stranger covered by your health-insurance fund. If the insurer provides this man — and everyone else like him — with Sutent, your premiums will increase. Do you still think the drug is a good value? Suppose the treatment cost a million dollars. Would it be worth it then? Ten million? Is there any limit to how much you would want your insurer to pay for a drug that adds six months to someone’s life? If there is any point at which you say, “No, an extra six months isn’t worth that much,” then you think that health care should be rationed."

Why We Must Ration Healthcare

"Don't give me this "but healthcare is a right!" bullshit either. If healthcare is a right, so is there a right to have free shoes or a free house or meals provided freely. (And nobody short of card carrying communists are going to advocate that) After all those all contribute to a society's well-being just like a healthy populace."

I'm a card carrying communist.

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

You left out one very real question...how much is that drug REALLY costing to produce, and how much is markup?

We have NHS direct where you can click on a symptom, an run through a simple symptom checker, depending on the results you might be asked to phone a nurse/make an appointment/go straight to hospital.

Edit:

@Major Tom
Pretty sure NHS healthcare is better than the US model, especially with the nurses per population.

Also the World Health Organisation 2010 data on countries if anyone wants to look through.

edited 20th Apr '11 1:33:11 PM by IanExMachina

By the powers invested in me by tabloid-reading imbeciles, I pronounce you guilty of paedophilia!

Government Health Care :

[I]n the important next phase of Giffords’ recovery—months of intensive rehabilitation aimed at maximizing her quality of life—Giffords is receiving a level of care unattainable by thousands of Americans who have been wounded on the actual battlefield. That’s because the costly treatment Giffords is receiving at The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research at Memorial-Herman is being paid for by the federal government, but such care for U.S. troops is not.

... Most military personnel ... are covered by an insurance plan called TRICARE, which does not cover key elements of cognitive rehabilitation therapy. As revealed in a series of investigative reports by the non-profit news enterprise, Pro Publica, TRICARE claims that the benefits of cognitive rehabilitation therapy are not well enough established to warrant providing it to troops. TRICARE bases this assertion on the findings of a study commissioned by TRICARE itself, and which Pro Publica’s reporting has found to be “deeply flawed.”

Private Health Care :

But access to comprehensive rehabilitation therapy is also an urgent matter to the 1.7 million civilians who suffer brain trauma each year in the United States. Insurance coverage for rehabilitation is uneven and unpredictable, and patients who might have benefited from an intensive program are often directed away from facilities that provide it.

Dr. Gerard Francisco, the rehab physician who heads Giffords’ medical team at Memorial Hermann, says that he recently saw one such patient, a young man who suffered a serious brain injury in a workplace assault. Even though the patient was treated at Memorial Hermann’s trauma center, he was sent to a nursing facility for his rehabilitation care, rather than to Memorial Hermann’s Institute for Rehabilitation and Research. “We were not even consulted,” Francisco tells The Daily Beast. “That was in late January. I saw him yesterday, and that guy already has contractures” – involuntary muscle contractions – “all over.” Francisco says that if his rehab unit had been able to persuade the young man’s insurance company to allow intensive therapy for even a week, it might have made a significant difference in his recovery. “Now, this patient will need surgery," Francisco says.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-04-19/gabrielle-giffords-plea-for-brain-injured-soldiers/

The real issue in the US isn't health care. As always, it's money. The first priority of the health care system is no longer about providing health care, it's about turning a profit. If you're sick and can't pay for your treatment, you die.

In the real world, there are finite resources. There is some sort of rationing going on, whether you realize it or not. In the US the basis for rationing is money. If you can afford it, or if you're a politician, you get whatever you need even if you don't deserve it.

Just once I'd like for a politician to have the intellectual honesty to say, "Yes, we want to cut medical spending. People will die because of our decision, but our rich constituents will make more billions, so it's OK. Death is good for business. Oh, and we'll gladly send you off to die for oil in Iraq, but don't expect any help when you get home."

Under World. It rocks!

Yep, its a sad day where profits have higher priority than the actual health of someone in our HEALTH INDUSTRY.

It pisses me off that someone I knew online almost went homeless because of health bills, but was denied insurance, and had to pay if off themselves.

For the longest time, I couldn't get health insurance because of a pre-existing condition (my thyroid disorder), and because said disorder is a chronic problem that requires regular checkups.

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian

You act like you can't attach a dollar amount to a human life.

Fight smart, not fair.

Its not a question of pricing human life, its a question of working out how much money you have, how much of that money you can devote to health care, by what priority you make health care, and how many lives you can save via the most efficient route with that health care. You also have to decide what constitutes a self-inflicted injury; if an alcoholic gets liver failure, do you give him free medical, or let him either pay for his error or die, and go treat someone who may be more expensive to save, but doesn't have any control over their state.

Those are the questions that come up when faced with the option of forming a national health service. Money isn't infinite, unless you have the money and the lack of obligations to other areas of the nation (in which case your nation is both very lucky and obviously blessed with superb leadership) and at some point you have to decide who gets that money and who doesn't.

edited 22nd Apr '11 5:18:26 AM by GameChainsaw

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

I've noted it numerous times, like in the budget thread:

Why not? There's one big difference between free healthcare and something more mundane like a… free lunch, for example. That difference is the fact healthcare only comes in one quantity and one quality: Whatever the doctor orders, nothing more, nothing less. You can't “gorge” yourself on healthcare, there is no “luxury” healthcare one can indulge in, and there's no “superhealthy” state people can enter by splurging.

Eric,

Read the rest of my post, I explained why further on.

And people waste plenty money on overpriced, phantom healthcare with minimal results, so splurging actually does little, but costs a lot. Strange, huh? OTOH, reasonable spending on prevention can achieve dramatic savings. Of course, apparently even trying to encourage healthier habits is treated as some tyrannical attempt to deny people a cookie, so we can't even try that. Who knew?

edited 22nd Apr '11 9:53:13 AM by blueharp

I want to plaster this in bumper sticker form on every homeopathy-related building in the country.

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

Which is why government bodies like the FDA and government recognized bodies like the AMA vociferously oppose quackery.

Eric,

The unfortunate downside to Britain is that we publically fund it, though that seems to be changing thanks to studies by the highest experts we can find that have directly and without dodging the question states "Homeopathy is fundamentally worthless as a form of medical treatment" and that good results are pure cooincidence.

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

That's just Political Correctness Gone Mad, a problem private insurers are hardly immune to.

Eric,

Single Payer in Vermont

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/vermont_closing_in_on_single_payer/2011/05/09/AFvtBmZG_blog.html?wprss=ezra-klein

We should have health classes in highschool designed to teach people how to take care of themselves at a basic level. Recognizing when they need to go to a hospital. Reduce the amount of hospital visits for minor things.

Seriously. Right now highschool curriculum is loaded with garbage that doesn't teach kids anything they need to learn.

edited 10th May '11 3:07:25 AM by CommandoDude

My other signature is a Gundam.