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The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

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Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#21

Post by dnautics »

sliverstorm wrote: post #16
dnautics wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't understand what it means to be a minority. We don't get anywhere near equal quality coverage and are basically forced to subsidize better medical care for white folk. For years, my father was prescribed a drug (simvastatin) that actually did damage to his body because it's nearly universally assumed to be good for him (it is for most white people), and strongly subsidized by the government (he's a military…

It sounds to me like your father's issue was not that he was not white, but that he had a rare genetic condition... There was even a study that found on the whole, simvastatin is equally helpful across races: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16709304

Oh, it reduces his cholesterol level[0]. But he has at least one allele that increases the risk of myopathy when taking simvastatin (Assuming there were no milkmen - I do look quite a bit like him - I'm homozygous, and this allele is not terribly rare).

The part about being asian is that asians tend not to catabolize statins as effectively, so his plasma levels are probably higher, since I found out he was taking a full "white person dose" despite advisories that simvastatin should be given at half dose for asians.

[0]I also recall hearing somewhere from a biochemist that while statins decrease cholesterol levels in asians the effect on coronary heart disease (which is what your really care about) is attenuated, and that there may be a secondary mechanism for CHD in asians... But I cannot find the source he was quoting.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#22

Post by Fomite »

dnautics wrote: post #14
adambard wrote: post #3

Can I be the first non-US citizen in this thread express my incredulity that anything less than universal health care is tolerated? "Barbaric" is the term that seems to strike me whenever I hear of it, hyperbolic though it may be.

you don't understand what it means to be a minority. We don't get anywhere near equal quality coverage and are basically forced to subsidize better medical care for white folk. For years, my father was prescribed a drug (simvastatin) that actually did damage to his body because it's nearly universally assumed to be good for him (it is for most white people), and strongly subsidized by the government (he's a military…

For the record, if you don't think health disparities are a topic of intense focus in the healthcare research world, you're reading the wrong sources.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#23

Post by dnautics »

dbpatterson wrote: post #15
dnautics wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't understand what it means to be a minority. We don't get anywhere near equal quality coverage and are basically forced to subsidize better medical care for white folk. For years, my father was prescribed a drug (simvastatin) that actually did damage to his body because it's nearly universally assumed to be good for him (it is for most white people), and strongly subsidized by the government (he's a military…

Universal health care has _nothing_ to do with treating all people alike. It just means treating them all.

Fine. But government is required to treat all people alike. I think this is a reasonable requirement, given that you cannot 'opt out' of government. If you want to set up a private universal health care charity fund, I would happily cut a recurring check to help your cause, assuming some basic transparency and accountability. At least, if you mess up your charity and start, say, embezzling funds, I can opt out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#24

Post by LekkoscPiwa »

purplelobster wrote: post #18
iopq wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't accept anything less than universal food care, universal shelter care, universal clothing care, and of course universal marriage care.

Ironically, you're close enough to the truth. The only thing that stands in the way of dignified living for everybody is people like you. There is enough resources in this world (especially the US). Why should kids everywhere live in poverty, starve and not be given the same opportunity under the same conditions as more fortunate kids (well fed, good schools) because their parents couldn't find or hold down a job? In…

because we all know that then all kids would be hungry and not educated not only the poor ones. Somehow socialism always ends up making everyone equally poor and not equally rich.

I read recently that in Canada waiting time for some surgeries are 6 months. For everyone. People who can afford and people who can't afford. Everybody screwed over. But of course that's what socialism is all about - making all people equal. In their poverty.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#25

Post by robbiep »

LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #20
adambard wrote: post #3

Can I be the first non-US citizen in this thread express my incredulity that anything less than universal health care is tolerated? "Barbaric" is the term that seems to strike me whenever I hear of it, hyperbolic though it may be.

the only difference is that in socialized medicine you wait for life saving surgery for months even when you have money to pay for it. So everybody suffers.

No, if you need lifesaving surgery, you get it. And you don't get a bill that ends up costing a second mortgage.

Elective procedures - that's a different story. But it is location specific, and in many countries with mixed public/private systems you can pay through your nose if you like anyway

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#26

Post by ds9 »

adambard wrote: post #3

Can I be the first non-US citizen in this thread express my incredulity that anything less than universal health care is tolerated? "Barbaric" is the term that seems to strike me whenever I hear of it, hyperbolic though it may be.

You're a little too harsh in saying "tolerated".

Opinion polls have shown for decades that a majority favor a system more like those of Canada or Europe - here it's called "single payer". But the interests of the majority have little relevance here.

The "single payer" alternative is considered so radical in USA that it's mentioned in the corporate media only apologetically, as if it were advocacy of leprosy. When they can't avoid mentioning the obvious, the rejection of it is euphemistically explained by saying that it is "politically unrealistic" - before a quick change of topic. The "talking points" the owners provide for their followers call it "socialism", and the latter, in US political culture, is an epithet like "child molester".

The ugly reality this charade is designed to avoid acknowledging is that the US is ruled by what has lately been called "the one percent" - and there is nothing the majority can do about it. Voting for one of the practically identical, freak-show, major-party candidates is made useless by the two-party system; the increasingly hollow pretence of democracy mocks any thought of reform.

Of course it's barbaric. It is also perfectly rational on the part of the rulers: their families need not worry about getting first-quality treatment of any health problem, and from their view the rest are disposable labor whose costs are still too expensive.

What, exactly, would you propose we do about it? Protest in the streets? People can't afford to lose their jobs, nor even time away from their daily responsibilities. Write to Congresspeople? Pointless for those who can't afford lobbyists. Revolution? No one has a realistic plan. It's almost miraculous that Obama managed to (temporarily?) install a plan that even purports to help - and it forces citizens to pay the insurance industry, whose presence in the healthcare system is exactly what keeps 30-40 percent of the population an illness or injury away from destitution.

You're obviously in a better place (news of which does not penetrate the info-tainment here, BTW), but it's rather naive to suppose that we in the US chose this situation. For us, it will get worse before it gets better.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#27

Post by restlessmike »

I'm sure this has been pointed out many times when these posts pop up, but what is shocking to me is that we tolerate $200k medical bills for this sort of emergency care, as long as we aren't the ones paying for them ourselves.

The healthcare industry needs a lot more transparency. Every hospital should be required (if they choose to accept Medicare/Medicaid patients) to publish prices in an easily comparable format tied to standard medical codes for every service/procedure they provide, and should be required to charge individuals without insurance no more than the government or other large insurer pays. This would seem pretty simple to implement and would, over time, help keep prices lower simply by making them public and allowing people to compare them. The information asymmetry in the industry has created a situation where people are powerless to help themselves and make smart choices with regard to getting healthcare, and has led to the creation of another expensive program that we can't afford.

Sadly, we have a system in which the industries being regulated control the dialog, and they are all too happy to tiptoe past prices and on to who is footing the bill.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#28

Post by dnautics »

robbiep wrote: post #25
LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the only difference is that in socialized medicine you wait for life saving surgery for months even when you have money to pay for it. So everybody suffers.

No, if you need lifesaving surgery, you get it. And you don't get a bill that ends up costing a second mortgage. Elective procedures - that's a different story. But it is location specific, and in many countries with mixed public/private systems you can pay through your nose if you like anyway

who gets to decide what is lifesaving and what is elective?

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#29

Post by LekkoscPiwa »

robbiep wrote: post #25
LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the only difference is that in socialized medicine you wait for life saving surgery for months even when you have money to pay for it. So everybody suffers.

No, if you need lifesaving surgery, you get it. And you don't get a bill that ends up costing a second mortgage. Elective procedures - that's a different story. But it is location specific, and in many countries with mixed public/private systems you can pay through your nose if you like anyway

yeah, like bribes to doctors so they actually perform this cancer tumor surgery to my dad instead of asking him to wait in line for months more. Seen a doctor? Has a belly and a family. Needs money. Simple. But some idiots believe in "free". There is no free. You pay a ton of money for healthcare in any system.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#30

Post by dnautics »

dnautics wrote: post #21
sliverstorm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds to me like your father's issue was not that he was not white, but that he had a rare genetic condition... There was even a study that found on the whole, simvastatin is equally helpful across races: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16709304

Oh, it reduces his cholesterol level[0]. But he has at least one allele that increases the risk of myopathy when taking simvastatin (Assuming there were no milkmen - I do look quite a bit like him - I'm homozygous, and this allele is not terribly rare). The part about being asian is that asians tend not to catabolize statins as effectively, so his plasma levels are probably higher, since I found out he was taking a f…

ah, I found it, after all these years:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21160131

as a bonus, here is the review on why asians should take less statins (hepatic enzyme clearance, probably a cyp450):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17261409

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