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My dad could still be alive, but he's not

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Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#321

Post by shushpanchik »

scorpioxy wrote: post #205
0_____0 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay ~500 US/mo for health insurance. Just for me, no dependents. Not an exotic low-deductible health insurance plan. 2% on top of income tax sounds like a dream.

It's actually anywhere between 1%-5% depending on your income but I didn't want to get too detailed in my comment. And you'd still have the absurdly long wait times. And the out of pocket expenses. Again, not a problem if you can actually make use of what you're paying for. I do have to state though that the US healthcare system, minus the fact that most healthcare research/advancements happens there, is crazy.

I don't think anyone pays 5%, practical limit would be ~3% (2% levy, and ~1% for cheapest private insurance to be exempted from levy surcharge)

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#322

Post by svnt »

bonsai_spool wrote: post #314
svnt wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not alleged research fraud. It is admitted fraud. The person is saying they sensed something wrong with her. Dishonest behavior is often discernible in advance if you know what to look for. > Jamal now takes full responsibility and “regrets having exposed patients to the risk of harm by enrolling them in studies which had no value.” There is no pathos in my comment. Your statement is literally naive.

> There is no pathos in my comment. Your statement is literally naive. You may not understand what pathos means.

By defining any ethical statements as pathos you are attempting to force medical practice to be assessed in a logical frame. It is not valid to do so. It is an interpersonal endeavor with ethical requirements.

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#323

Post by scorpioxy »

shushpanchik wrote: post #320
scorpioxy wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes. Quite bad and I don't know if things are getting slightly better than "bad" or the media is tired of reporting about it. Up until a year or so ago, an appointment at a GP would take weeks of waiting. Specialist appointments were 1+ years waiting time. This is somewhat better now with the establishment of critical-care clinics operating after hours. This is from personal experience. The emergency rooms often h…

That's not nearly true, at least for Melbourne as a metro area. I never heard of weeks waiting for GP appointment, and I never waited for more that 2-3 days for GP both in east and west suburbs. Usually you have at least 3-5 GP medical centres in 5 km radius, and in half of them appointments are avaliable same day or next day. That's the case now, and was the case 5 and 10 years ago, with only obvious exception durin…

That's incorrect. I'll choose a couple of points to correct.

For the "elective" surgery, it's false to state that they are covered by private healthcare. There was also a push to move away from the term "elective" to something like "non-critical" if memory serves. Simply because a knee or hip replacement, as an example, isn't really something you can choose to do or not do when you're unable to walk. You can wait for a few months perhaps but since it affects your quality of life, including your ability to earn an income, then it's not a choice.

For the 1% claim, that's unlikely considering all the "operating blitzes" that had to be done in Victoria to decrease the huge list(the numbers were reported by the media if you're interested).

The pandemic lockdowns wasn't "several" years ago and the effects were felt long after, definitely not a "short period". You're forgetting to mention the ambulances writing on their vehicles where they're coming from and how long were their shifts just last year. Ramping is also still a problem but I am reading less about it in Victoria since the beginning of this year. Again not sure if it is better or just less reporting on it.

I'll grant you that some people don't get to experience this side of the system and some are lucky that they don't need it at all. Hopefully the more people talk about their negative experiences, as opposed to being surprised, the more accountability and improvements can be introduced. It can be a very good system if it was better maintained.

I'll refrain from commenting any further on this topic and thank you for your contribution.

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#324

Post by scorpioxy »

shushpanchik wrote: post #321
scorpioxy wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually anywhere between 1%-5% depending on your income but I didn't want to get too detailed in my comment. And you'd still have the absurdly long wait times. And the out of pocket expenses. Again, not a problem if you can actually make use of what you're paying for. I do have to state though that the US healthcare system, minus the fact that most healthcare research/advancements happens there, is crazy.

I don't think anyone pays 5%, practical limit would be ~3% (2% levy, and ~1% for cheapest private insurance to be exempted from levy surcharge)

I am not confident enough to say that someone in Australia does or doesn't pay the 5%. I can ask the ATO but otherwise can't know. I am stating the range of how much it is.

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#325

Post by noduerme »

Aurornis wrote: post #220
noduerme wrote: post #141

It's not moloch. It's all health systems, even ones that are religiously oriented. Triage and logistics and having enough trained people working all hours to handle all cases of life threatening situations... it's a bug in all systems. Nothing is scarier than the moment you realize you're in the hands of the medical establishment. Whatever that looks like, wherever you are. Ever tried to rush a mechanic to fix your c…

> It's not moloch. It's all health systems, even ones that are religiously oriented. The moloch reference is a shibboleth for the rationalist community. It’s not an actual religious reference. There’s another reference to “updating” further down which is another rationalist term meaning “updating your priors”.

Huh. This gets complicated. I wasn't making an appeal to religion... my perception was that "moloch" was understood by non-religious socialist-leaning people to mean the god of money or capitalism (which seems to comport with what you're saying). But it has a separate meaning as a vengeful deity from the bronze age that demands sacrifice and which is used as an example in Abrahamicreligions for why you shouldn't worship other deities. I was pointing out that the alternative to a "moloch" health care system would be a "religious" one - by which I guess I meant a Judeo/Christian/Islamic one, but it serves a few separate meanings, like, one which isn't at its core capitalistic, or one which doesn't sacrifice children.

All I was trying to say was that the organizing ideology of such a system (healthcare) doesn't matter as much as having enough people committed to and working within the system. A capitalist version may work better than a communist one, e.g. at developing new approaches to disease, or serving more people in more tailored ways, as long as the incentive structure exists to bring enough people into the workforce so that each practitioner is not overwhelmed.

TL;DR I was playing along with the "moloch" reference, although clearly it means different things to different people.

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#326

Post by bonsai_spool »

svnt wrote: post #322
bonsai_spool wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no pathos in my comment. Your statement is literally naive. You may not understand what pathos means.

By defining any ethical statements as pathos you are attempting to force medical practice to be assessed in a logical frame. It is not valid to do so. It is an interpersonal endeavor with ethical requirements.

Whenever medicine is discussed on HN, there is a knee jerk response to assume physicians are incompetent and that search engines replace their training. We’re on the same path here. Is lying bad? Yes. Does that mean that a liar can’t be a good physician? Exercise left to reader.

Regarding your supposedly ‘ethical statements’ that aren’t actually arguments meant to draw emotion:

> People holding your current naive viewpoint is why we have professional societies with the power to remove licenses/disbar.

Where’s your argument? Also, total elision of the actual panel of the professional society that did not remove licenses. I don’t see ethics, or logic. Appeal to emotion.

> Someone who takes the hippocratic oath and then behaves in this manner is not fit to be a caregiver .

You don’t even know what the Hippocratic oath is, friend. And on your incorrect premise, you make some grand statement that does not follow (nurses don’t take this oath, so they clearly can’t be fit to be caregivers? Oh wait, that’s absurd. So is the oath important or not?)

> Medical care is about more than technical competence.

Emotional argument all day. And not even something in contention.

> I’d hate to see the state of the flattened world you seem to be arguing for. Please go read about the origins of professional standards.

Analysis left as an exercise for the reader.

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#327

Post by Dettul »

nozzlegear wrote: post #293
boxerab wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say this is one of the mortal dangers currently facing the West - more particularly, importing people who hate the West and would like to see it become like their failed origin states.

I would say that your contrived scenario is just a failure to assimilate immigrants, and, frankly, a skill issue. The US does not have this problem, and it's no coincidence that it's colloquially known as the "Great Melting Pot" of cultures.

[dead]

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#328

Post by captainkrtek »

deburo wrote: post #279
twodave wrote: post #83

I feel this, but in reverse. My son could be dead, but he’s not. He was born on the floor of a trailer park apartment, not breathing. His birth mother’s partner called 911, who dispatched an ambulance. All rescue units for his zone were already busy. An ambulance returning from the nearby hospital to another zone heard the call over the radio and happened to be passing by. The hospital was expecting a DOA, but the pa…

This must have happened within seconds otherwise he must have been breathing almost imperceptibly, right? Otherwise how could his brain still survive?

When the baby passes through the birth canal, the pressure forces any fluids (ideally) out of the baby's lungs, then the contact with air, the temperature drop, and other physiological changes trigger the first breath/inspiration. However, the baby is still attached via umbilical cord to the placenta, and is still receiving good oxygenated blood from mom until the placenta detaches, then the pulse of the cord stops (this can take minutes). But yeah, an apneic baby is a very time sensitive emergency.
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