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I'm Married to an ER Doc in NYC

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Re: I'm Married to an ER Doc in NYC

#191

Post by pphysch »

ThomPete wrote: post #154
gvjddbnvdrbv wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you wrote is weird and simply shows that you need a proper health care system over there.

Americas healthcare system has it's flaws but the benefits amongst others is that it keeps being able to afford to invest in new research and methods and to specialize. It's the advantage of being a profit center. This is much harder in universal healthcare systems that are cost centers and thus can't just decide to change to a newer better method. Furthermore, the universal healthcare system have to budget who gets…

You're omitting that it's only a single digit % of the population that gets access to these expensive, specialized treatments.

The US has the best healthcare system in the world--if you're a millionaire.

Re: I'm Married to an ER Doc in NYC

#192

Post by naveen99 »

el_nahual wrote: post #9

> When Alex finally gets home, he takes his scrubs off outside our front door and stuffs them into a plastic bag that he ties off tightly. He takes his hospital clogs off and leaves them outside, along with his backpack and coat. Why do doctors and nurses walk around outside in their hospital scrubs? It was unsanitary even before COVID and I just don't get it. How hard can it be to change into street clothes before l…

Not disagreeing, but Doctors frequently wear suits into and out of hospitals also. And those get washed less frequently than scrubs.

Re: I'm Married to an ER Doc in NYC

#194

Post by kweinber »

gizmo wrote: post #143
kweinber wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trend is up for new cases and hospital beds in almost every single state that opened early. The only exception is Georgia which has been caught falsifying data more than once.

You have to torture the data pretty badly to come to that conclusion. In deaths per million those states have vastly outperformed and after the dust has settled they will still have way fewer deaths per million compared to those states where politicians panicked, issued full lockdowns, and sent covid patients to care homes.

As far as spread/death differences, population density was a clear multiplier, as would be expected. Policy effects weren’t seen in early days because there were no policy differences, just population density and global travel ones.

The rise differential now is the first good example of measurement of policy effects.

These are not political points, just data points.

Re: I'm Married to an ER Doc in NYC

#195

Post by gambiting »

gvjddbnvdrbv wrote: post #190
ThomPete wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americas healthcare system has it's flaws but the benefits amongst others is that it keeps being able to afford to invest in new research and methods and to specialize. It's the advantage of being a profit center. This is much harder in universal healthcare systems that are cost centers and thus can't just decide to change to a newer better method. Furthermore, the universal healthcare system have to budget who gets…

I recently had a successful experimental surgery in this countries nationalised health service. Interestingly the idea had come from a study where the surgery I had was a control group and the 'real' group had a stem cell therapy as well. My problem was resolved, the single payer system didn't waste $100,000 on stem cell therapy. Good result. In the privatised system that carried out the original study the additional…

I just wanted to add a story as well - my dad was diagnosed with a very rare type of stomach cancer called GIST about 15 years ago in Poland. At the time, he was one of ~6 other people in the entire country with this diagnosis, and the diagnosis was....bleak to say the least, I think the doctors were cautiously giving him 6-12 months max. However, company Novartis has just certified their "Glivec" drug specifically to use against GIST, since it targets the same cell pathways. Now, the problem - Poland does have nationalized healthcare, but Glivec was insanely expensive - basically a box of Glivec cost around as much as an annual pay for many people in Poland at the time....and my dad had to take two boxes per month. And no, because it hasn't been proven to work against GIST yet, it was not on the list of refunded drugs - so my dad was placed on a controlled trial conducted by the largest oncological hospital in Warsaw, where the study funded the drug for him. Long story short - the drug worked miracles, my dad not only recovered, he lived another decade after that(died of another cancer that sadly didn't have a miracle cure this time).

But - other people in this study didn't get the drug. I don't know if they were given placebo or just something else instead. My point being - they didn't survive, my dad did. After the study was concluded, the drug is now paid for by the national health service and anyone who needs Glivec can get it.

So why isn't this a critique of the nationalized system? Well, because the way I see it - in a private health care system, no one in this group would survive, because no one in Poland could ever afford this treatment. At least some of the people were still given a chance because the system has enough flexibility to at least try new and experimental treatments.

Re: I'm Married to an ER Doc in NYC

#196

Post by aerostable_slug »

pphysch wrote: post #191
ThomPete wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americas healthcare system has it's flaws but the benefits amongst others is that it keeps being able to afford to invest in new research and methods and to specialize. It's the advantage of being a profit center. This is much harder in universal healthcare systems that are cost centers and thus can't just decide to change to a newer better method. Furthermore, the universal healthcare system have to budget who gets…

You're omitting that it's only a single digit % of the population that gets access to these expensive, specialized treatments. The US has the best healthcare system in the world--if you're a millionaire.

Anecdotes and all that, but a friend of mine had Deep Brain Stimulation surgery for his essential tremor. The surgery was performed at Stanford and the total bill was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. His out of pocket charge? ~$1200.

I have a hard time rationalizing his recent experience with the assertion that you have to be a millionaire to receive top-flight care.

Re: I'm Married to an ER Doc in NYC

#197

Post by hyperfatuous »

Intermernet wrote: post #86
mixmastamyk wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I and a lot of folks won’t submit to contact tracing. So it is infeasible in more ways than one.

Sorry if this seems rude, it's not meant to be, I'm genuinely curious. I understand (and support) opposition to contact tracing by badly designed technological solutions, but what is your argument against manual contact tracing? (actually asking people one-on-one who they've been in contact with if they test positive to Covid-19) I'm just after your reasoning. I promise I won't deride your decision in any way (and I…

This does happen (manual contact tracing) — at least it did when I had COVID-19 in March.

Re: I'm Married to an ER Doc in NYC

#198

Post by gizmo »

kweinber wrote: post #194
gizmo wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to torture the data pretty badly to come to that conclusion. In deaths per million those states have vastly outperformed and after the dust has settled they will still have way fewer deaths per million compared to those states where politicians panicked, issued full lockdowns, and sent covid patients to care homes.

As far as spread/death differences, population density was a clear multiplier, as would be expected. Policy effects weren’t seen in early days because there were no policy differences, just population density and global travel ones. The rise differential now is the first good example of measurement of policy effects. These are not political points, just data points.

What does population density mean? Number of people per household square footage? Number of people per household? Number of people per zipcode? City/rural? Population density is not a consistent predictor of covid19 spread by any of these measures, unless you also start taking other factors into account. Density matters "intuitively", but it's not borne out by the data.

Re: I'm Married to an ER Doc in NYC

#199

Post by gizmo »

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #184
gizmo wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your suggestion that there is any kind of scientific consensus at this point is wrong; the experts are still very much divided. And right now the most prominent and most frequently cited experts are those that made one wrong prediction after another. Sometimes the media cites the wrong experts. Like with "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction" and "Hillary has a 99% chance of winning the general". In those cases, too,…

Whether a non-medical mask protects the wearer is still up for debate. But the fact that they help protect others from droplet dispersion is elementary physics.

If the debate about mask usage is still going on, what does that tell you about the science on respiratory diseases? The absence of consensus on elementary physics is an embarrassment.
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