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A Linux dev who helped thousands needs help to fight cancer

linuxlock.blogspot.it

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Re: A Linux dev who helped thousands needs help to fight cancer

#101

Post by molmalo »

technotony wrote: post #21
mtrn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Germany: In 2005, Germany spent 10.7% of GDP on health care, or US$3,628 per capita. Germany has Europe's oldest universal health care insurance system, with origins dating back to Otto von Bismarck's Social legislation, which included the Health Insurance Bill of 1883, Accident Insurance Bill of 1884, and Old Age and Disability Insurance Bill of 1889. * US: According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Uni…

These are old numbers... America is forecast to spend 17 or 18% of GDP on healthcare this year...

Its not about how much money you spend, but how you spend it.

USA has made the enourmous mistake of making of health a large business managed by private corporations that dont care about human life. Just money. Other countries see health as a right (luckily thats the case here in Argentina). So, most medics dont get super rich. They work for a salary, they dont get 30 or 50 grand for a surgery. But they still do their job, they work hard and they give their best (well, most of them). Because when you choose that kind of profession, its not for making lots of money, but to help people. Or at least, thats how it should be, and I'm absolutely sure that there are lots of medical doctors there that think this way, but they are just the little fishes inside a pool full with big sharks.

I feel sorry for you USA, because you lost it and you wont get it back. There are lots of interests against it.

There's not political will, there's not professional will (AMA anyone). Sometimes, from the outside it seems like there's not even a cultural or popular will. A few months ago I discussed this with an American friend and he was totally against universal health care. His argument was something like "why should my taxes pay for some random unemployed or most probably lazy man's health" "if he gets free health care he won't work as hard" "if i make more money why should he have the same benefits as me?" And my answer "because he's a human being too"didn't seem to help.

You said it yourself, 17/18 % of the biggest gdp in the world and still cant take care of all of your people. Think about it. Just imagine what you could do with that money in a different system.

Seeing this kind of things happening there I can only think about the USA, as a strange place. Home of great technological progress and sad social regress.

Dont take it personal.

Re: A Linux dev who helped thousands needs help to fight cancer

#103

Post by lysium »

csense wrote: post #35
mtrn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Germany: In 2005, Germany spent 10.7% of GDP on health care, or US$3,628 per capita. Germany has Europe's oldest universal health care insurance system, with origins dating back to Otto von Bismarck's Social legislation, which included the Health Insurance Bill of 1883, Accident Insurance Bill of 1884, and Old Age and Disability Insurance Bill of 1889. * US: According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Uni…

> Germany has Europe's oldest universal health care insurance system, with origins dating back to Otto von Bismarck... I wasn't aware that a government-sponsored healthcare system this old existed in the world, because it's always seemed to me that such programs are fundamentally unsustainable. So what I want to know is, how do they keep it sustainable? For example, if there's no longer a market where demand responds…

I don't think that health care is a market. Sure, you can take your headache or buy a pill, but you cannot choose to have a life-saving procedure or not, less even compare prices (really).

Further, if you spread the risk of getting ill across a whole nation, paying for health insurance gets cheaper for each individual. You cannot have that with a health care market.

Anyways, your questions concerning sustainability are valid.

There's a catalog about how much health care providers get from insurance companies for each procedure. I don't know who sets up that catalog or how it is negotiated, though.

Recently, a (small) fee has been added which you have to pay once per quarter if you visit a doctor. Further, you have to pay a small amount (~$5) for each medication you buy (unless you need a lot of it). So, people don't visit the doctor and buy medication that easily (anymore).

People who have not paid into the system are only treated for acutely life-threatening symptoms (and even then have to pay for themselves). To pay into the system, you usually need to have a job, so it's not something that you can just do once you see you have a costly illness.

Re: A Linux dev who helped thousands needs help to fight cancer

#106

Post by antihero »

lgbr wrote: post #49
justin66 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The danger is that people will over-use the public system. How does that work exactly? I'm trying to think of how I could even deliberately overuse health care, in the event that I decided health care were something desirable rather than something I tend to avoid because it's boring. The best I can come up with would be to hit myself with a hammer occasionally, necessitating treatment of the injury. I'm not sure wh…

This is actually a common problem with what is, in practice, an already socialized portion of American healthcare: Emergency Rooms Since emergency rooms cannot turn patients away, there are a lot of people to come to the emergency rooms for things like pains in their big toe, menstrual cramps, and so on. This is why the emergency room is so absurdly expensive in the United States. Health care here really isn't very e…

Yeah but in the UK, we go to our GP for such things and it reduces the load on A&E

Re: A Linux dev who helped thousands needs help to fight cancer

#107

Post by raverbashing »

FiloSottile wrote: post #45
mbreese wrote: post #41

As an update: http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2012/08/it-started-with-hopele... While he still needs money, they did find a doctor to perform the surgery. But don't let that stop you from donating, if you're able. He also answered a question that I had: he's a veteran, so he should qualify for VA medical assistance. According to his post above, the VA system moves too slow to stop his rapidly spreading cancer.

Finding a pro-bono doctor was in the plans from the start, if I get it right. And the doctor should have never been in the $50,000 total. cit: "The cost just to book the OR for Ken's surgery is $50,000, and that doesn't include the surgery itself, nor any post-op medical expenses."

Wow $50,000?!

This is an advice: I think with this kind of money they can fly somewhere else and do the operation and pay all costs associated with money to spare.

I think they can even try that in Canada

Re: A Linux dev who helped thousands needs help to fight cancer

#108

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

csense wrote: post #35
mtrn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Germany: In 2005, Germany spent 10.7% of GDP on health care, or US$3,628 per capita. Germany has Europe's oldest universal health care insurance system, with origins dating back to Otto von Bismarck's Social legislation, which included the Health Insurance Bill of 1883, Accident Insurance Bill of 1884, and Old Age and Disability Insurance Bill of 1889. * US: According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Uni…

> Germany has Europe's oldest universal health care insurance system, with origins dating back to Otto von Bismarck... I wasn't aware that a government-sponsored healthcare system this old existed in the world, because it's always seemed to me that such programs are fundamentally unsustainable. So what I want to know is, how do they keep it sustainable? For example, if there's no longer a market where demand responds…

> government-sponsored healthcare system ... always seemed to me that such programs are fundamentally unsustainable.

What is it about them that seems unsustainable to you? Are you an economist or an accountant? Do you have a citation to back up this point of view?

Here's a recent one against it: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&#...

Re: A Linux dev who helped thousands needs help to fight cancer

#109

Post by vacri »

slurgfest wrote: post #97
astrodust wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there's the worrying proportion that's gargantuanly over-weight, and an even larger proportion in woefully under-performing schools. Sometimes you wonder if the kids in less affluent countries don't have it better.

Then you look at international health statistics and stop wondering. Lifespan is a good first pass indicator of the quality of health care.

Life expectancy != quality of life. Yes, a markedly low LE will mean something, but apart from that, it's nothing to hang your hat on.

Re: A Linux dev who helped thousands needs help to fight cancer

#110

Post by rplnt »

chaostheory wrote: post #67
jorahmormont wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$ cd kernel ; git log | egrep -i starks $ Nothing there. It would help if they told us what his contribution actually was.

I could be wrong but I don't think he was a developer. From the pieces I've read it looks like his contribution to linux, seems to be distributing it through donations of old computers with linux installed to people / organizations in need.

It's funny how we assume (well, at least I did) how contributer has to be a developer.
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