Obamacare is a mess

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

rgambs said:

2 parents with advanced medical training and experience, and we still took our 2 year old son to the ER when he had croup.  Knowing what it was and how seldom it has drastic consequences didn't matter much when he was hyperventilating and struggling to breathe through coughs.

Then again, there are some legitimately stupid people out there.  59 million at least lol

Air is fundamental.

Shortness of breath and persistent cough is a far cry from a middle aged person running to Emergency for the 6th time in 6 months because their nose is running.

ok, I can't seriously believe your example actually happens. 

You don't think there are hypochondriacs that access our medical system repeatedly and when not necessary?

My example was obviously trite, but abuse exists at a level that is far greater than what is being acknowledged here.

I'm saying we live with it (what choice do we have?), but it is problematic to some degree.

so what?  Some people take 2-3 samples at Costco too.  Some people suck.  That doesn't have anything to do with the issues facing healthcare.

mace1229 said:

rgambs said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

rgambs said:

2 parents with advanced medical training and experience, and we still took our 2 year old son to the ER when he had croup.  Knowing what it was and how seldom it has drastic consequences didn't matter much when he was hyperventilating and struggling to breathe through coughs.

Then again, there are some legitimately stupid people out there.  59 million at least lol

Air is fundamental.

Shortness of breath and persistent cough is a far cry from a middle aged person running to Emergency for the 6th time in 6 months because their nose is running.

I agree, there is a far cry between the two, but most of us are somewhere in the middle anyways.
We knew it was croup, and that it is pretty rare for children to actually experience serious problems, but that rationale was lost in the heat of the moment.  
I think it just illustrates that people do what they feel like they need to, and most people are idiots so we just have to accept it as an inevitable kink in the system.  There are solutions coming in the future, Skype and Facetime present some great opportunities, Watson is going to change medicine in fundamental ways, etc.  The key is that we have to incentivize the progress, not stifle it with unfettered profit motive.

I was the opposite, but turned out I was in the wrong, Our 7-month old son had it. My wife got all worked up, didn't know what he had at the time, but he was wheezing and wanted to take him to urgent care or ER. I wanted to wait until the morning. I really had a hard time even hearing it it was so mild.
But we called the nurse hotline and they said anything to do with breathing take him in, so we took him in and he spent 4 nights in the hospital. I had some false confidence in that we took him to see the primary care earlier that day, and I thought why would they send us home if it was that serious, we just saw the doctor literally 3 hours ago, gave us medicine and now we're back home. Guess the doctor made a mistake.

7 months is a very tender age, glad it came out ok!  It's the worst hearing them suffer and struggle.

Go Beavers said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

Gern Blansten said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

rgambs said:

2 parents with advanced medical training and experience, and we still took our 2 year old son to the ER when he had croup.  Knowing what it was and how seldom it has drastic consequences didn't matter much when he was hyperventilating and struggling to breathe through coughs.

Then again, there are some legitimately stupid people out there.  59 million at least lol

Air is fundamental.

Shortness of breath and persistent cough is a far cry from a middle aged person running to Emergency for the 6th time in 6 months because their nose is running.

ok, I can't seriously believe your example actually happens. 

You don't think there are hypochondriacs that access our medical system repeatedly and when not necessary?

My example was obviously trite, but abuse exists at a level that is far greater than what is being acknowledged here.

I'm saying we live with it (what choice do we have?), but it is problematic to some degree.

so what?  Some people take 2-3 samples at Costco too.  Some people suck.  That doesn't have anything to do with the issues facing healthcare.

Well I guess you don't get it then.

When people abuse the system... it gets backed up. Then people who need attention don't get it in timely manner. This 'fact' is an issue facing health care.

I don't have an answer for people's 'suckiness'... but if there was one to curb abuse patterns... I'd be in favour of it.

People try to use this argument of individuals abusing the system in an attempt to argue against a single payer system. It's a misguided counter argument. ........(dots added to find post button, quotes messy)

Like I said... we're damned if we do and damned if we don't.

I don't have the answer so we (in Canada) will have to live with hypochondriacs accessing the medical system ad nauseam and bogging things up for the truly needy.

ponytd said:

Gern Blansten said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

rgambs said:

2 parents with advanced medical training and experience, and we still took our 2 year old son to the ER when he had croup.  Knowing what it was and how seldom it has drastic consequences didn't matter much when he was hyperventilating and struggling to breathe through coughs.

Then again, there are some legitimately stupid people out there.  59 million at least lol

Air is fundamental.

Shortness of breath and persistent cough is a far cry from a middle aged person running to Emergency for the 6th time in 6 months because their nose is running.

ok, I can't seriously believe your example actually happens. 

You don't think there are hypochondriacs that access our medical system repeatedly and when not necessary?

My example was obviously trite, but abuse exists at a level that is far greater than what is being acknowledged here.

I'm saying we live with it (what choice do we have?), but it is problematic to some degree.

so what?  Some people take 2-3 samples at Costco too.  Some people suck.  That doesn't have anything to do with the issues facing healthcare.

Yeah, it has a lot to do with it. People that abuse the system (which involves way more than just unnecessary ER visits), cause premiums to go up, which causes you to spend more money

Cost/premiums go up because there are costs assigned.  If I enter an ER and visit a treatment room a "cost" gets assigned to that even though there is technically no "cost".  If 10 people get treated for the flu in that room the hospital bills $4000....if one person gets treated in that room in the same time period on another day the hospital bills $400.  The "cost" of that room has not changed...but the payouts by the insurance company have.

Gern Blansten said:

ponytd said:

Gern Blansten said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

rgambs said:

2 parents with advanced medical training and experience, and we still took our 2 year old son to the ER when he had croup.  Knowing what it was and how seldom it has drastic consequences didn't matter much when he was hyperventilating and struggling to breathe through coughs.

Then again, there are some legitimately stupid people out there.  59 million at least lol

Air is fundamental.

Shortness of breath and persistent cough is a far cry from a middle aged person running to Emergency for the 6th time in 6 months because their nose is running.

ok, I can't seriously believe your example actually happens. 

You don't think there are hypochondriacs that access our medical system repeatedly and when not necessary?

My example was obviously trite, but abuse exists at a level that is far greater than what is being acknowledged here.

I'm saying we live with it (what choice do we have?), but it is problematic to some degree.

so what?  Some people take 2-3 samples at Costco too.  Some people suck.  That doesn't have anything to do with the issues facing healthcare.

Yeah, it has a lot to do with it. People that abuse the system (which involves way more than just unnecessary ER visits), cause premiums to go up, which causes you to spend more money

Cost/premiums go up because there are costs assigned.  If I enter an ER and visit a treatment room a "cost" gets assigned to that even though there is technically no "cost".  If 10 people get treated for the flu in that room the hospital bills $4000....if one person gets treated in that room in the same time period on another day the hospital bills $400.  The "cost" of that room has not changed...but the payouts by the insurance company have.

That is true, but not the main reason. there are a lot of factors that go into raised premiums, like billing errors, FWA (fraud, waste and abuse), malpractice, etc

my wife won't let me push the cart on Sundays at Costco, because she's afraid I will do that.

I used to hate Costco too, thinking the same thing. But not everything is in bulk, and some stuff that is is still worth it. And sometimes others the bulk is just buying 3 normal sized jars wrapped together, so if you have room in the pantry its worth it.
We caved in and decided it was worth the membership for the dog food alone, best quality at a really good price.
Then we had our first kid and buy pretty much anything kid related (diapers, wipes) and all our detergent there too. No problem buying those in bulk.
Their meat is really good too, I got tired of being grossed out with supermarket steaks and beef, and they have great meat there. It is usually in bulk, but its easily frozen. 83% fat free beef there is cheaper than 70% at the grocery store, you just have to buy 6 lbs at a time.
Dairy is awesome, the 5 lb block of cheese is the literally same price as the 2 lb block at the grocery store, so we just freeze half a block when we buy it.
Lots of random tools or yard supplies that are good deals too. Carry camping gear, summer toys, and tons of other things too than just the giant bag of chips that I used to associate it with.
I thought I'd hate it when we joined about 3 years ago, but I like it more and more. I think they give trial memberships, I think its totally worth giving it a shot.

New thread title..... "Obamacare is a mess but Costco isn't so bad"

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

President Trump agrees with this thread as per his tweet
Of course the Australians have better healthcare than we do --everybody does. ObamaCare is dead! But our healthcare will soon be great!

Australia has single payer government healthcare.