81–90 of 112 posts
A quick question for my stateside brothers. What happens if you get cancer and can't afford chemo? What kind of care will hospitals provide?
If that's not an option, many hospital provide charity care.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Once you basically lose everything, your house, your 401k, your job, all of your savings, etc, then you declare bankruptcy. After that you’ll qualify for Medicare because your income level. That’s when the federal government steps in and you can usually get some kind of treatment. Over 60% of bankruptcies are medical related.
OK, so basically once you get reduced to poverty you get some care. Does medicare give you good quality care? Someone I know recently had cancer in Australia, they are wealthy but don't have private health insurance: so they went through the public system. It seemed like they got care that was just as good to be honest. Just not a private room.
I'm not saying that navigating the system is easy or straightforward. But there are options out there.
And bankruptcy laws vary by state, but typically they can't take your home, vehicles or your retirement savings.
I went through stage IV colon cancer in 2020 at age 37. Just had my 3-month follow-up CT scan today, actually. I had 3 surgeries (colon resection, port installation, liver resection & ablation), 12 rounds of chemo (FOLFOX + Vectibix), 9 before liver surgery, 3 after. I had plenty of fatigue and cold sensitivity in my extremities. I have some peripheral neuropathy maybe 9 months in, and continuing. It was worse, but i…
What caused the fatigue and cold sensitivity and peripheral neuropathy? The cancer or the various cancer treatments?
As for the fatigue, just the chemotherapy doing its stuff, never had fatigue from the cancer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rare doesn't really help when there are almost 8B people on the planet. I was 41 when I was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. I had blood in my stool and my GP misdiagnosed me due to my age. If I hadn't pushed the issue, I wouldn't be here now. If you ever have blood in your stool, get an exam. Preferably by a gastroenterologist.
Hi, mind sharing how the blood in your stool looked like? What was the color etc? Was it there always? Was it occassionally? Was it ON the stool or mixed through it? And when you finally got diagnosed. What stage were you in? Are you healed now? And how long did you put it off? Sry for asking so much.
I went through stage IV colon cancer in 2020 at age 37. Just had my 3-month follow-up CT scan today, actually. I had 3 surgeries (colon resection, port installation, liver resection & ablation), 12 rounds of chemo (FOLFOX + Vectibix), 9 before liver surgery, 3 after. I had plenty of fatigue and cold sensitivity in my extremities. I have some peripheral neuropathy maybe 9 months in, and continuing. It was worse, but i…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Capitalism can't work its magic because healthcare is not a free market. It has a unique set of constraints that capitalism is particularly weak at dealing with: lack of choice (you don't get to choose which hospital you go to in a lot of circumstances), high barrier to entry, constantly changing regulatory environment, etc... The reason single payer systems work is because they're at a specific advantage for all of…
> Capitalism can't work its magic because healthcare is not a free market. That's exactly my argument, regulatory capture precludes a market from being free. > It has a unique set of constraints I fail to see how the points you list make it unique. > lack of choice (you don't get to choose which hospital you go to in a lot of circumstances) Then make that possible. I live in Japan, I choose the hospital/clinic/doctor…
I don’t believe you will be choosing which hospital you go to if you’re unconscious, or facing a serious acute medical concern placing you in desperation. Coincidentally, those tend to be the times when costs also skyrocket.
—
The issue with treating healthcare like a free market is that some people just won’t get healthcare. Free markets aren’t going to build a hospital in a small enough town because the cost can’t be justified.
Your point that the US outranks most other countries is perhaps true for some things, but completely false for baseline measures such as infant mortality, life expectancy, cost per capita, etc. As a country the US can sometimes pull ahead on specialized care in part because of a prevalence of supporting technology compared to other countries, and I’ll grant that. But our system is hardly “better” than other developed nations on almost any objective measure.
Maybe there are trials ongoing to prevent relapses in some higher tech sort of way.
Best of luck.
Just taking the opportunity to chime in on this thread: Do not hesitate to press for a colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy if you are worried about your colon health. Something is going on now where demographically much younger patients are getting polyps and colon cancer: https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2020... Doctors are still mostly operating under the old wisdom that it is not a problem for thos…
It still seems pretty rare, even if it's more common. I have had some similar symptoms, and similar interactions with doctors in the past. No, I don't think I have cancer. But, what I want to know is what is the probability of having this condition given the symptoms. In other words, use Bayes' rule. Most doctors seem incapable of thinking this way! If it's a 1% chance that I have a life-threatening condition because…
I don't know how true it is, but it may explain why docs in general refuse to go too early on exams.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It still seems pretty rare, even if it's more common. I have had some similar symptoms, and similar interactions with doctors in the past. No, I don't think I have cancer. But, what I want to know is what is the probability of having this condition given the symptoms. In other words, use Bayes' rule. Most doctors seem incapable of thinking this way! If it's a 1% chance that I have a life-threatening condition because…
Rare doesn't really help when there are almost 8B people on the planet. I was 41 when I was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. I had blood in my stool and my GP misdiagnosed me due to my age. If I hadn't pushed the issue, I wouldn't be here now. If you ever have blood in your stool, get an exam. Preferably by a gastroenterologist.