171–180 of 308 posts
Bravo. The AMA/FDA/insurance cartel cannot die soon enough. I don’t care if you want a free market, or you want socialized medicine, both are preferable to government-enforced racketeering.
The downside is that insurance wouldn't cover these often expensive medications if they are OTC.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A rural hospital kept my grandma alive 10 extra days to milk Medicare for the maximum allotment. There is nothing American healthcare won’t do to make a buck
But your parents have control over hospice arrangements. The only thing a hospital can legally in most states do once you decide to let her die is to sedate if necessary and cut off food and let the body shut down. What gives you the idea it was a conspiracy?
There are better ways to go about this. As others have noted, there must be a mechanism for a continual prescription to be easily filled, e.g. insulin, metformin, etc. I could see a long term prescription that has to be renewed each year and is good at any pharmacy. For the short term prescriptions though, cutting the doctor out of it makes people much more susceptible to marketing (instead of 'ask your doctor if you…
For what it's worth, the UK has had a three-tier system of medicine licensing (prescription-only, pharmacy-only and general sale) since 1968. In 2006, pharmacists with additional training gained the right to independently prescribe any prescription-only medicine within their clinical competence. Repeat prescriptions can be requested online and sent electronically to a pharmacist of the patient's choice. Obviously YMM…
Also in the case of oral contraceptives, a change recently went through here (last year I believe) making oral contraceptives OTC as long as the purchaser had been prescribed them within the last 3 years. Bit of an odd compromise, but a nice stepping stone towards greater liberalisation if it doesn't end up causing issues.
Bravo. The AMA/FDA/insurance cartel cannot die soon enough. I don’t care if you want a free market, or you want socialized medicine, both are preferable to government-enforced racketeering.
So Americans can be even more heavily medicated? If you need a statin or high blood pressure medication, there should be a doctor in the loop to help motivate you with a healthy lifestyle.
[EDIT:] I am not easily offended, but the fact that this comment is [flagged] while the privileged-bullshit parent comment is not, has sort of sent me around the bend. Hypertension is associated more with age and genetics than with "healthy lifestyles". Which you would know, if you didn't get all your medical knowledge from the chumbox.
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You may not aspire to it, but you likely will have to do it if you want to remain employed in many areas. I have multiple friends who made it all the way through residency and have since stopped practicing within years of "graduating. The OP describes the profession much better than you do, as a whole. Double booking patients, requiring certain revenue targets, massive amounts of useless paperwork, etc. Considering t…
They should start their own practice and set their own rules. Good practices/doctors in my area are so in demand most aren't accepting new patients.
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One can represent themselves. It might be dumb, but people should have the right to be dumb when they're the only ones getting hurt. That's why I have no problem with engineering requirements: when a bridge, airplane, whatever falls down and goes boom, it's not only the owner who's affected. I'm an adult. It's legal for me to buy and drink bleach. It would be very stupid of me to do that, but I can. I should be able…
I'm willing to bet that very few people accidentally consume bleach or warfarin under the belief that it is beneficial. However, it's far more likely that a layman gains cursory information about a drug and its effects, while lacking the specialized knowledge required to safely prescribe it. In short, it's far easier to accidentally poison yourself with prescription medication that it is with bleach, and we have meas…
I believe that a number of children and adolescents tried to consume Tide detergent pods. [1]
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/01/11/ti...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One can represent themselves. It might be dumb, but people should have the right to be dumb when they're the only ones getting hurt. That's why I have no problem with engineering requirements: when a bridge, airplane, whatever falls down and goes boom, it's not only the owner who's affected. I'm an adult. It's legal for me to buy and drink bleach. It would be very stupid of me to do that, but I can. I should be able…
I'm willing to bet that very few people accidentally consume bleach or warfarin under the belief that it is beneficial. However, it's far more likely that a layman gains cursory information about a drug and its effects, while lacking the specialized knowledge required to safely prescribe it. In short, it's far easier to accidentally poison yourself with prescription medication that it is with bleach, and we have meas…
> Patients could answer questions on a mobile-phone app to help determine whether they should be able to access a medication without a prescription. The primary issue I am concerned with is self ownership of my body, and the freedom to choose for myself which drugs I will consume. Transferring the permission process from a human medical professional to an algorithmic goverment agent does not give me anymore of what I…
A permission process seems inextricable from a system in which there are regulations. But algorithmic agent would theoretically make approved drugs more accessible. The expense and time of a doctor visit is enough friction to stop people from getting drugs they may find beneficial.