Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#71

Post by tomiplaz » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 5:00 PM UTC

PuffinBlue wrote: post #27

We live in a world of marvels. Often we talk of the future and it's wonders waiting to be discovered, but the here and now has become equally astonishing. The breadth, depth and scale of human ingenuity and endeavour is jaw-dropping and here Simone and her story is another example. Maybe I'm being trite by looking for the good in the bad but pause for a moment and think of all that has been learned, how we have built…

That is true. I would like to add, however, that first and foremost we don't know what anything of this actually is, which I find most awe-inspiring.

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#72

Post by tomjen3 » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

PuffinBlue wrote: post #27

We live in a world of marvels. Often we talk of the future and it's wonders waiting to be discovered, but the here and now has become equally astonishing. The breadth, depth and scale of human ingenuity and endeavour is jaw-dropping and here Simone and her story is another example. Maybe I'm being trite by looking for the good in the bad but pause for a moment and think of all that has been learned, how we have built…

I once walked into a supermarket and really started to look at what was available, every item, how I could buy fresh oranges in the middle of january, trying to imagine the insane number of persons who had to a involved in all the globe spanning supply lines.

It doesn't compare to brain surgery, but the experience was so profound it came close to breaking my mind (if such a thing is possible), I had to give up and leave, because I just couldn't take it.

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#73

Post by toomuchtodo » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 5:08 PM UTC

goodells wrote: post #35

PuffinBlue wrote: post #27

We live in a world of marvels. Often we talk of the future and it's wonders waiting to be discovered, but the here and now has become equally astonishing. The breadth, depth and scale of human ingenuity and endeavour is jaw-dropping and here Simone and her story is another example. Maybe I'm being trite by looking for the good in the bad but pause for a moment and think of all that has been learned, how we have built…

The whole system is awe-inspiring. Have a medical emergency? We'll send a several-ton box on wheels speeding your way within minutes. If you're in a city, the traffic lights will turn red as the emergency vehicle approaches to make passing safer. Paramedics trained in evidence-based pre-hospital medicine will perform the interventions most likely to save you based on their field impression. And when you arrive at the…

Northwestern Medicine in the Chicago suburbs has a mobile stroke unit; if there’s evidence you’re having a stroke, they’ll send the stroke unit along with the ambulance and will perform a CT scan in the ambulance to determine what type of stroke you’re having and administer interventions while you’re en route to the ER.

http://westmobilestrokeunit.nm.org/

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#74

Post by dv_dt » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 5:14 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #15

tonysdg wrote: post #2

So glad to see Simone back on her feet. The sh y robot nation needs its queen! As for that bill -- I'm curious: is there any resource I can look up to see how much of that the average Medicare/Medicaid/private insurance plan pays? I ask because I just had two teeth repaired after a bike accident and it'll cost me ~$100 after insurance covers the other ~$500. By that ratio, she'd be looking at ~$38,000 bill.

I remember someone on HN recommending to send a copy of the bill to some health billing transparency project, but I can't find the right link. Google comes up with https://www.fairhealthconsumer.org/ although I'm pretty sure it's a different service (they don't use the submitted bills from what I understand)

Could it be Vox's project?

https://www.vox.com/2018/2/27/16936638/er-bills-emergency-ro...

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#75

Post by dv_dt » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #46

goshx wrote: post #22

I’ve never worried so much about someone I never actually met. The time after her surgery without updates on her twitter account was hard and it’s funny to see that a lot of people felt that way (if you read the tweets from that time you’ll see what I am talking about). It is great to see her doing so well. Medicine has come a long way... the bills not so much.

It's really sobering to think about how often this happens per day, to less charismatic/attractive people without social media presences or worse/no insurance. Very happy for Simone (and felt the same way as you following the story) but also trying to take the opportune to empathize with a wider group of people.

It's an odd thought experiment to follow through that in the US we're supplying evolutionary selection for well networked extroverts via our healthcare + media and GoFundMe type mechanisms.

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#76

Post by sxg » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #73

goodells wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole system is awe-inspiring. Have a medical emergency? We'll send a several-ton box on wheels speeding your way within minutes. If you're in a city, the traffic lights will turn red as the emergency vehicle approaches to make passing safer. Paramedics trained in evidence-based pre-hospital medicine will perform the interventions most likely to save you based on their field impression. And when you arrive at the…

Northwestern Medicine in the Chicago suburbs has a mobile stroke unit; if there’s evidence you’re having a stroke, they’ll send the stroke unit along with the ambulance and will perform a CT scan in the ambulance to determine what type of stroke you’re having and administer interventions while you’re en route to the ER. http://westmobilestrokeunit.nm.org/

The Cleveland Clinic has the same system.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/17242-mobil...

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#77

Post by toomuchtodo » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

sxg wrote: post #76

toomuchtodo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Northwestern Medicine in the Chicago suburbs has a mobile stroke unit; if there’s evidence you’re having a stroke, they’ll send the stroke unit along with the ambulance and will perform a CT scan in the ambulance to determine what type of stroke you’re having and administer interventions while you’re en route to the ER. http://westmobilestrokeunit.nm.org/

The Cleveland Clinic has the same system. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/17242-mobil...

Fantastic to hear. My mother passed due to a subarachnoid hemorrhage (the more difficult type of stroke to treat), so I follow advances in stroke detection and treatment closely.

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#78

Post by smacktoward » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

bloopernova wrote: post #16

cptskippy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the way insurance tends to work in America, care providers tend to throw shit at the wall to see what sticks. In other words the first bill is always an outrageous amount of charges that may or may not be valid. Additionally there's something called a negotiated rate that an insurer has with the care provider, usually the care provider's bill does not show this rate but rater some fiction that not even tho…

> added stress of the huge bills I really wish people would talk about these sorts of soft costs more often. I grew up in the UK, moved to the USA in my mid 20s. While growing up, my parents divorced and my mother had to take care of me and a sibling. All 3 of us had medical conditions that needed regular care/checkups. Not once did my mum ever spend hours on the phone chasing down bills or insurance rejections. We n…

It's not even necessarily just a soft cost. People hear about a friend getting a huge medical bill, they don't go to the doctor as often as they should because they're afraid they'll get stuck with a huge bill, some condition that could have been treated inexpensively if caught early gets missed, the person eventually goes to the hospital when the condition gets too bad to ignore anymore, and huge, expensive efforts have to be made to treat the condition in its advanced stage. And at the end of all this... our person gets handed a huge medical bill.

Healthcare in the US is screwed up beyond belief.

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#79

Post by s73v3r_ » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #65

bootloop wrote: post #54

So this country doesn't make enough money to be able to keep some unlucky people alive without throwing them or their family into poverty? Or is it simply that nobody cares for anybody else as long as you are better off then them?

Decades of pop-econ has pushed the narrative that GDP or Purchasing Power Parity is somehow related to how individuals can access capital. It always finds the form of "America is the richest country in the world, yet they can't [insert problem]." This assumes that there is some objective resource need recognition system and misses that there is no overarching explicit capital allocation system to direct funds in such…

Except that's not true. Our government could very, very, very easily enact single payer, and we have plenty enough wealth to do it.

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#80

Post by mrrsm » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

VBprogrammer wrote: post #30

mrrsm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty sure we do have Stockholm syndrome to some extent. Depending on your situation you can try to min/max the health insurance available to you to fit your needs. Those who are fortunate to have good benefits are also usually able to set aside money for medical expenses. On the opposite side of things you end up having people with poor to no insurance with medical bills of more then they can afford to ever pa…

> you can try to min/max the health insurance available to you to fit your needs. How do you do that though? The video which started this discussion is a young healthy woman who suddenly discovered she had a brain tumour. It could happen to anyone. Fair enough, if I have a large amount of savings I might try to reduce the monthly payment by increasing the amount of risk I'm taking. But aren't those the people who wou…

Where I work I am presented with multiple insurance options at various out of pocket costs both up front as well as over the course of the year. This means I can break down previous years medical expenses as well as projected expenses for the upcoming year to find the plan that offers me the best coverage for the best price.

In my case we are offered a HSA plan that the employer ends up paying us a small amount by contributions into your HSA account. That is a high deductible plan though so you will pay for everything until you hit that deductible. We are also offered more traditional 80/20 and 90/10 plans which have a much higher monthly cost but spaces out the cost of things more as the deductible is much lower.

The HSA plan is very risky for the first year as my max out of pocket was more then I was legally allowed to contribute to my HSA. The second year I had enough savings put away where even if I ended up with a giant expensive issue I had enough put away for that max out of pocket number. This plays well into the scenario in the video. I have to protect myself going forward from the unforeseen medical issues. In my current situation that means making sure I have at least 1 years worth of my max out of pocket expenses saved up. Now I am covered even if unexpected things happen.

As a single adult with a good job it is much easier then if I had a family or was working a lower paying job. Even then you can do all the calculations but the risk factor goes up with the more people you have as the unknown portion grows. There is no good solution, that I know of, with our current healthcare system. I just try to play the game and do my best to stay healthy and prepare for the day when I am not.