42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings • Hacker News Board

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#291

Post by jensgk » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 12:13 PM UTC

chris_va wrote: post #171

teekert wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For someone living in the Netherlands this sounds truly savage and heart breaking. I really, really wouldn't want to live in the US.

To play devil's advocate, looking at 5-year survival rates by country, you'd be 15-20% more likely to survive in the US after you contract cancer than in the Netherlands. YMMV.

If you test a lot of people, and also have a many false positives (i.e. people who are diagnosed with having cancer, but actually do not have it), and then "treat" them, you will end up having a high cure rate..

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#292

Post by chimeracoder » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 1:31 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #287

chimeracoder wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, the US massively over-tests and over-diagnoses cancer at very early stages, but this does not lead to better quality of life nor to longer life. Prostate cancer is considered one of the most treatable forms of cancer. It's lethal if not treated. But given the proper intervention, a person can live for literally years (if not decades). The treatment isn't fun, but it's very effective, and most people consider it…

Buit this is the point: The US appears to have better 5 year survival rates for prostate cancer because they massively over diagnos cancers thatwould otherwise not kill the patient. Once you've detected these cancers you don't need to provide any treatment at all, your 5 year survival rates increase. But when you do treat all these men you significantly decrease the quality of life for many of them without providing…

> Buit this is the point: The US appears to have better 5 year survival rates for prostate cancer because they massively over diagnos cancers thatwould otherwise not kill the patient.

The methodology of that study is highly suspect, but even if we took it at face value - the magnitude of the effect that they propose is nowhere near enough to explain the difference in survival rates by overdiagnosis alone. It's a drop in the bucket.

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#293

Post by yc-kraln » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 1:32 PM UTC

42 percent of new cancer patients _in the united states_

The rest of the developed world has a healthcare system.

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#294

Post by chimeracoder » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 1:45 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #288

chimeracoder wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No they don't. This is not true. That is literally what QALY is. > Find just one single medication that i) extends life by 5 years ii) costs just £10,000 per year and iii) has been banned. It seems like you don't understand how coverage works for cancer treatment. The question isn't whether the medication is banned outright - it's whether it will be approved to be used for a specific patient in their treatment plan…

> It seems like you don't understand how coverage works for cancer treatment. The question isn't whether the medication is banned outright - it's whether it will be approved to be used for a specific patient in their treatment plan (paid for by the NHS). Please tell me how you think cancer drug funding works in England, because I'm pretty sure you're wrong. But let's assume for the moment that you're right: please li…

> Please tell me how you think cancer drug funding works in England, because I'm pretty sure you're wrong.

Just to be clear: you're telling me that you think QALY calculations are not factored into the decisions of which treatments will be covered for an individual cancer patient under the NHS?

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#295

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 2:58 PM UTC

watertom wrote: post #44

Pharmakon wrote: post #4

Sometimes I’m just amazed that people haven’t risen up in bloody revolt yet. Recently my mother had a flare-up up radiation-induced pneumonitis and the PPO insurance she pays $14,000 annually wouldn’t approve a single unit of Advair. It took a week of talking to doctors and insurance drones to figure out that they were pushing her to an alternative that cost them $100 less. If I woke up tomorrow and people were burni…

Half the population have below average IQ's, and even people with above average IQ's still struggle with abstractions. These topics are complex and it's easy to frame the negative state in a way for low IQ and poorly educated people to grasp, so they tend to side with what they "think" they understand.

[deleted]

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#296

Post by dev_dull » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 3:13 PM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #266

toomuchtodo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would healthcare-centric revolt look like? You would need to apply pressure to specific congressional representatives, who support a specific ideology and don't believe in universal healthcare (A Crowdpac campaign has funded close to $4 million dollars to challenge Susan Collins when she's up for reelection due to her supreme court vote; that most likely won't scale). I could of course see rouge elements of such…

It'll start at the state level with single payer probably through medicaid expansion (medicaid for all). If the Feds aren't on board then you won't get the 50% match from the Feds but the premiums should help offset that. You might then get a few states who band together. What will happen next is that a lot of people will move to those states (as jobs permit) resulting in an economic bonanza for those states.

I would also like to see this started on a state level. I’m not sure why we have to do it “all or nothing”. Id it presents so many economic benefits then they can make it work on a state level.

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#297

Post by dev_dull » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 3:15 PM UTC

lawn wrote: post #70

sdegutis wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance is a legalized scam and it’s a shame it’s been made mandatory for everyone. Literally just a middleman now that does nothing except steal money from both sides. Edit: wow yall are incredibly divided on this comment. I'd love to see the internal statistics on the upvote/downvotes this got, but it seems like it's something like -12 and +12

Some instances of insurance can be yes but insurance in general can make sense for both buyer and issuer.

When used as insurance. However health insurance is really just the way we pay for healthcare.

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#298

Post by dev_dull » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 3:33 PM UTC

cabaalis wrote: post #212

I am a moderate conservative. I believe in self-reliance, fiscal responsibility, limited government. But receiving a death sentence like this one, physically and financially, is something I believe society could easily work together to create a parachute for. It seems reasonable to me that not all healthcare should be covered by the government. Individuals need skin in the game for their own care. But catastrophic, l…

A lot of people are like you. Myself included. Which is why this topic is a front-and-center part of the democratic strategy for 2020. And if there isn’t a working alternative proposed by Republicans I don’t see much hope for them.

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#299

Post by emayljames » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 3:50 PM UTC

"42 percent of new US cancer patients..."

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#300

Post by krapp » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 3:50 PM UTC

dev_dull wrote: post #298

cabaalis wrote: post #212

I am a moderate conservative. I believe in self-reliance, fiscal responsibility, limited government. But receiving a death sentence like this one, physically and financially, is something I believe society could easily work together to create a parachute for. It seems reasonable to me that not all healthcare should be covered by the government. Individuals need skin in the game for their own care. But catastrophic, l…

A lot of people are like you. Myself included. Which is why this topic is a front-and-center part of the democratic strategy for 2020. And if there isn’t a working alternative proposed by Republicans I don’t see much hope for them.

I think Republicans were caught off guard by the initial negative reaction (even amongst their own constituents) to potentially repealing the ACA without an alternative. Having painted themselves into an ideologically extreme corner, they never anticipated that the public wouldn't consider "repeal and replace with literally anything" to be sufficient.