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Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

richardlynch.blogspot.com

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Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#161

Post by colechristensen »

yscale wrote: post #131
colechristensen wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't particularly see this as being a strong problem with American healthcare. You can buy health insurance to pay for any and all medical expenses. The healthcare system is broken if you do an honest day's work and can't afford insurance, but that's not what we're talking about here. There is a reason that most of the best hospitals in the world are American, and the way we fund our healthcare is that reason. Yes…

It saddens me that some people look at travesties like this and think "fuck him, the system is great, three cheers for the status quo." This despite the fact that any honest reading of our medical outcomes shows that America gets very average medical care, and that we pay about twice per capita what the best care in the world costs. I mean, I know there's a lot of propaganda out there, and I know there are a lot of s…

The top can get the best care for the right price, the bottom has been inadequately supported though much progress has been made with ACA, and lots of people in the middle are inadequately prepared, because given the choice, they choose a higher standard of living instead of more safety for the future. To be given that choice is engrained in a lot of American culture.

You won't find much sympathy for the middle class who choose a nicer house in a more expensive city, a newer car, or a bigger family instead of safety and security for the future.

Sure especially bad circumstances happen, and then you have the government, friends, and family to fall back on... and maybe some of these public services could be improved, but a significant positive change certainly has happened with the ACA.

Progress isn't necessarily taking choice away from the population, because ultimately health care will cost the same whether you can choose your coverage or the government chooses it for you... if there are inefficiencies and cost problems, don't think that forcing everyone to have the same health coverage will fix them... there are plenty of other problems.

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#162

Post by natrius »

secstate wrote: post #152
natrius wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Affordable Care Act requires routine medical visits to be covered by your insurance provider without a copay. If you aren't seeing a doctor every year, you're throwing away money. http://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/insurance-plans/health...

That's new in the past 45 days. For what it's worth, under the ADA the insurance subsidy I get from taxes is enough that I actually am insured, but it doesn't bring the monthly cost of an insurance plan down any ... just pushes the cost off to taxpayers. The miserable irony of this is that then the government winds up making a deal with FOR PROFIT insurance companies. Companies which would be failing their investors…

Insurance companies generally have to spend 80% of premiums on medical expenses[1]. The profit and marketing expenses aren't that much of your premiums. What you seem to be asking for is price fixing the way much of the rest of the world handles healthcare, which will reduce the incentives to advance medicine. I prefer our current approach, where those who can afford to pay are left to pay as much as they're willing to, which increases the number of smart people who are willing to solve everyone's medical problems.

I grew up in Houston, where people from around the world go when they want to be treated for cancer at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. It's not cheap, but the best doctors in the world head there because they can make the most money.

Single-payer healthcare is worse than the Affordable Care Act.

[1] https://www.healthcare.gov/how-does-the-health-care-law-prot...

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#163

Post by colechristensen »

vacri wrote: post #159
colechristensen wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't particularly see this as being a strong problem with American healthcare. You can buy health insurance to pay for any and all medical expenses. The healthcare system is broken if you do an honest day's work and can't afford insurance, but that's not what we're talking about here. There is a reason that most of the best hospitals in the world are American, and the way we fund our healthcare is that reason. Yes…

There is a reason that most of the best hospitals in the world are American Uh, do you have anything to back that up, apart from the standard assumption that "US is #1 at everything!"? And even if you had 10/10 top hospitals globally, overall average quality is a better metric than handpicked best-of-class examples.

If you have an especially difficult medical problem or you have the money and want the best possible care, your hospital of best choice is probably American.

If you're talking about average medical conditions and the average outcomes... maybe not, but those statistics are usually about the medical systems as a whole which is much more difficult to compare in a country without universal health care.

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#164

Post by d23 »

ekianjo wrote: post #155
overgard wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I donated $100, and yeah, our healthcare system is a goddamn travesty. I don't get it. If you're fortunate to live long enough, the one thing that's guaranteed to eventually happen is you're going to get sick in a very expensive manner. It's not an "if" question, it's a "when" question. I don't think that should mean financial ruin. People against universal healthcare must think they're just immune to ever getting si…

> that's guaranteed to eventually happen is you're going to get sick in a very expensive manner. Wrong, there's still a large part of the population who will end up dying of what we call "natural causes" such as Heart attacks and stuff like that. These are very inexpensive, because you don't see them coming, usually. So, no, not everyone on Earth dies from Cancer.

> Wrong, there's still a large part of the population who will end up dying of what we call "natural causes" such as Heart attacks and stuff like that. These are very inexpensive

Oh nice, they should put that on the brochure.

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#165

Post by xeroxmalf »

ekianjo wrote: post #155
overgard wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I donated $100, and yeah, our healthcare system is a goddamn travesty. I don't get it. If you're fortunate to live long enough, the one thing that's guaranteed to eventually happen is you're going to get sick in a very expensive manner. It's not an "if" question, it's a "when" question. I don't think that should mean financial ruin. People against universal healthcare must think they're just immune to ever getting si…

> that's guaranteed to eventually happen is you're going to get sick in a very expensive manner. Wrong, there's still a large part of the population who will end up dying of what we call "natural causes" such as Heart attacks and stuff like that. These are very inexpensive, because you don't see them coming, usually. So, no, not everyone on Earth dies from Cancer.

Though some heart attacks are "natural causes" many could actually be prevented[0] if the patient had access to specialists and testing.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseases_of_poverty#Cardiovasc...

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#166

Post by piyush_soni »

plaguuuuuu wrote: post #153
piyush_soni wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny thing is, at least here in the US, even if you have medical insurance you are totally ripped off your pockets if you have something like cancer. Mostly, you just don't pay the price which was anyway artificially inflated by this scam I'm talking about. There was an article only a few days back about this guy who had his appendix treated: http://imgur.com/a/WIfeN He had to pay $11k out of the total $55k bill…

On the other hand, if you adjust the costs for purchasing power, the unfortunate result is that most of the people are pretty much fucked. In fact the US would look cheaper for the majority of the population. Which is comparing against a low bar. I don't think you could classify that as a working system.

>On the other hand, if you adjust the costs for purchasing power, the unfortunate result is that most of the people are pretty much fucked.

They are not. As I said, this was the cost in the best of hospitals. In government hospitals, poor people get medical care for a fraction of it. Of course, the health care system is still not good, but I'm convinced that a US like system of insurance is not a solution either. Canada and some other countries have it much better.

>In fact the US would look cheaper for the majority of the population.

No, it's not. Had this system been working, millions of Americans wouldn't go outside USA to get basic treatment (many of them go to India). Something is fundamentally wrong here ([1], [2], [3], [4]).

 

[1] 7.5 Million US residents travel abroad for care each year: http://www.cdc.gov/features/medicaltourism/

[2] Medical Bills Are the Biggest Cause of US Bankruptcies: Study : http://www.cnbc.com/id/100840148

[3] Why U.S. Health Care Is Obscenely Expensive, In 12 Charts : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/03/health-care-costs-_...

[4] 'Medical tourism' draws Americans to India : http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/traveler...

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#167

Post by girvo »

colechristensen wrote: post #161
yscale wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It saddens me that some people look at travesties like this and think "fuck him, the system is great, three cheers for the status quo." This despite the fact that any honest reading of our medical outcomes shows that America gets very average medical care, and that we pay about twice per capita what the best care in the world costs. I mean, I know there's a lot of propaganda out there, and I know there are a lot of s…

The top can get the best care for the right price, the bottom has been inadequately supported though much progress has been made with ACA, and lots of people in the middle are inadequately prepared, because given the choice, they choose a higher standard of living instead of more safety for the future. To be given that choice is engrained in a lot of American culture. You won't find much sympathy for the middle class…

My god you're a privileged, elitist, self centred... calm, be calm. The fact that you keep posting this crap on a thread about some I look up to who is DYING OF BRAIN CANCER is really upsetting. So please stop.

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#168

Post by adventured »

piratebroadcast wrote: post #125
amix wrote: post #104

I donated $50, but I really wish US (and other countries) would reconsider their broken healthcare systems. My dad died of cancer a few years ago and I am really glad we lived in Denmark when he got it - - with a great public healthcare system. He lived 2 years with his cancer, which is a lot when you are counting days. Not many normal people can afford these things (as each of my dads treatments cost about 20.000USD…

My mom just got diagnosed with extensive small cell lung cancer (thats spread to her brain) and I am fucking terrified about whats going to happen to us financially. I can't even focus completely on my mother as a person because I'm wondering about the bills, then I feel bad for worrying. It fucking sucks.

Sorry to hear that. I lost my mother to that exact same thing ten years ago. Her husband had barely OK union insurance (which he was forced to purchase even though it sucked, as a kick-back to the union), that quickly got tapped out (couple hundred thousand dollars worth). She was randomly fortunate enough that the state she was living in had a mandated twice per year, take any patient with an existing condition, requirement for insurance providers in the state, and she was able to pick up a new policy. I don't know about your state, but you might look into that, a lot of states have programs of that sort apparently (the cost was a little high relatively speaking, around $600 per month, but it gave her another million plus in coverage).

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#169

Post by overgard »

ekianjo wrote: post #155
overgard wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I donated $100, and yeah, our healthcare system is a goddamn travesty. I don't get it. If you're fortunate to live long enough, the one thing that's guaranteed to eventually happen is you're going to get sick in a very expensive manner. It's not an "if" question, it's a "when" question. I don't think that should mean financial ruin. People against universal healthcare must think they're just immune to ever getting si…

> that's guaranteed to eventually happen is you're going to get sick in a very expensive manner. Wrong, there's still a large part of the population who will end up dying of what we call "natural causes" such as Heart attacks and stuff like that. These are very inexpensive, because you don't see them coming, usually. So, no, not everyone on Earth dies from Cancer.

That's why I qualified it with "if you're lucky to live long enough".

So, yeah, you might be lucky enough to unexpectedly drop dead before some other scourge takes you

However if you don't happen to fortune into a sudden unexpected death, your body will inevitably decay to the point that you will become a large financial and emotional burden on someone. (Or die homeless and friendless). But we can't take care of those people, cuz socialism! They should have had the common courtesy to just hurry up and die.

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#170

Post by adventured »

hueving wrote: post #115
jtreminio wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because he paid taxes to his government, not his friends.

Not to be rude, but that doesn't obligate the government to provide that particular service. Just because I pay taxes doesn't obligate the government to provide me a house. Why is that the case for health care?

To answer your question seriously and without any implied political bent, the reason is: healthcare in the first world has become considered a right or entitlement. It's really no more complex than that.
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