Novel Coronavirus COVID-19

[mark clemson]

52 minutes ago, BC1980 said:

These days, "COVID free" would be a good slogan for an assisted living facility or a nursing home. 

Probably - but how long will they be able to maintain that claim. Personally I'd find it hard to buy into - I mean, how could they really keep it that way...

[Ruby Slippers]

3 hours ago, BC1980 said:

The fact that we have health insurance attached to our jobs is ridiculous. Nothing will change though. We've gone so far down the rabbit hole with healthcare that I don't see it changing. The dysfunction will just become more ingrained. 

You may be right. But I hope that change is possible. Now that the former "haves" are getting hurt by this racket of an industry, in addition to the "have nots" who have been getting hurt forever, hopefully we can all come together and demand change. I'm sure the health insurance company higher-ups are doing just fine. Every medical provider I've discussed the problem with says it's the health insurance companies that are the real problem.

[BC1980]

3 hours ago, sothereiwas said:

Well, I think it's ridiculous that health insurance is a mandated part of a full time employment contract. 

It's unfair to the business and the employee. The business shouldn't have the burden of paying for it, and people shouldn't have to live in fear of losing their health insurance if they get fired/layed off. It also punishes people that want to work part-time or are self-employed. 

[Ruby Slippers]

It also means that small business owners, like I was for 5 years, pay exorbitant premiums for health insurance. I've spent a small fortune on health insurance in my lifetime, easily $100,000, though I'm healthy and rarely use it. 

[sothereiwas]

2 hours ago, BC1980 said:

It's unfair to the business and the employee. The business shouldn't have the burden of paying for it, and people shouldn't have to live in fear of losing their health insurance if they get fired/layed off. It also punishes people that want to work part-time or are self-employed. 

I agree. People should buy their own insurance before they get sick, or negotiate an employemnt contract themselves that includes coverage. 

[BC1980]

I think health insurance should be sold like car insurance. 

[sothereiwas]

1 hour ago, BC1980 said:

I think health insurance should be sold like car insurance. 

Ideally people would be able to buy insurance and form co-ops to get group policies and so forth as they see fit. Whether or not employment supplied some group insurance, or an opportunity to buy into group insurance would be a matter between the employer and employee.

[introverted1]

The only place where you see healthcare costs coming down is where neither government nor insurance companies are involved: plastic surgery and lasik (although health insurance is starting to creep into the latter).

[sothereiwas]

46 minutes ago, introverted1 said:

The only place where you see healthcare costs coming down is where neither government nor insurance companies are involved: plastic surgery and lasik (although health insurance is starting to creep into the latter).

In other words, places where people can see the prices and expect to pay them out of pocket. 

[introverted1]

10 minutes ago, sothereiwas said:

In other words, places where people can see the prices and expect to pay them out of pocket. 

The free market.

[Ruby Slippers]

People can't pay out of pocket for major procedures. Universal health care is the only workable option. My parents have been using Medicare for years. Their costs are lower and care is better than what I pay a whole lot for in the twisted private health insurance sector.

[BaileyB]

On 6/2/2020 at 6:25 PM, SincereOnlineGuy said:

No, but in time Covid might cure the riots

They announced that George Floyd tested positive for Covid during the autopsy.

This may be sadly true. I can’t imagine how the virus is spreading in those crowds, and yet there is almost no mention of Covid on the news these days. It’s like it’s been forgotten... the world has turned their attention but it’s likely to turn back, as the number of infections/deaths rise. So sad. 

Edited June 4, 2020 by BaileyB

[Ellener]

On 6/2/2020 at 2:29 PM, schlumpy said:

I can't imagine what the fine would have been if they had not renewed all books till the end of June.

All fining is suspended by our libraries.

 

[Ellener]

Someone was asking me about nursing home procedures, this was from one of the communities I work with:

'All Erickson Living-managed communities are closed to nonessential visitors. Only medical and health care professionals, essential vendors, and essential visitors, defined as those experiencing extreme hardship, are allowed access.

Essential visitors will be required to undergo a screening prior to entering the clubhouse.

They will receive a special visitor pass and access will be restricted to the resident’s apartment home only.

Essential visitors will be limited to one visitor per resident, per day.

There are additional restrictions for continuing care visitors. We are protecting our most vulnerable residents as follows:

Restricting all visitation, except for certain compassionate care situations, such as end-of-life circumstances. In those cases, visitors will be limited to the specific resident’s room only.

Screening all staff for COVID-19 symptoms. This includes a temperature check.

Requiring that all essential visitors undergo a temperature check before entering, and wear a surgical mask while in continuing care to prevent the spread of germs.

Asking essential visitors to limit the surfaces they touch and use good hand hygiene to prevent the spread of germs.

Asking essential visitors to refrain from any physical contact with the residents and staff members. This includes shaking hands, hugging, and kissing.

Closure of all dining rooms and adopting in-room dining for all residents in continuing care. Residents that require assistance to dine will have monitoring in place.

Canceling of all group activities and moving to in-room engagement.

Continuing care visitors are also required to monitor themselves for COVID-19 symptoms every day for 14 days after their visit and are instructed to contact the community’s administration immediately if they develop flu-like symptoms, a fever, or cough.'

Seniors and their carers are our citizens most affected ongoing it would seem, as the rest of us phase out of lockdowns.

 

 

[sothereiwas]

Record firearm sales in America since the plague hit, with 40% of sales going to first time gun buyers. That's something like 1.2 million new gun owners in one month alone, and I'd be willing to bet that a large slice of the remaining 60% are second or maybe thrid guns. No one who's already sitting on a couple dozen guns is likely to decide thay have to stand in line and pay an inflated price for one more. 

[mark clemson]

This insurance thing is definitely it's own can of worms, but I'd note a few things (applies to US, not necessarily other countries):

- Since the insurance industry is private business, they need to make a profit (for wall street) + have their own need to take care of in terms of staying afloat financially, etc.

- Although they have some indirect control over some aspects of medical costs, and sometimes may even be at odds with doctor decisions, generally they simply "pay"; thus doctor and hospital bills become a B2B transaction. Since the insurance companies are themselves big businesses with large amounts of $, this means that amounts that would be difficult or completely impossible for private individuals to pay are routinely paid out.

- In the US, government payouts add to this issue, as similarly while they may set limits they also routinely pay out what would be to a normal citizen very large amounts of money.

- It would appear that the medical industry (possibly at times unintentionally through indirect and "infrastructure costs") generally overprices things. So you hear tales of $5 aspirins, $40,000 antivenin shots, etc.

- So, the system as it exists, allows for medical costs that the vast majority of normal citizens could never afford.

- The availability of all this money probably improves overall quality of care, or at least makes newer and more expensive treatments available as options, unless it's significant enough to warrant pushback from industry and/or government.

- However, whether improved or not, since the system allows for care to become very expensive, when B2B won't pay, ie, you have no health insurance or medicare, private citizens are stuck with (to them) exorbitant bills. However, these "huge" bills are actually standard. (Since B2B is what normally pays, and allows this.)

- IF private citizens were actually the ones who routinely paid directly for their healthcare, NONE of this would exist. I'm not sure what healthcare would look like if this was the case, but I'm 100% sure prices would be very substantially lower. Possibly on the order of 90+% lower. A large % of the current healthcare infrastructure probably simply wouldn't exist as there would be no financial system supporting it.

- Presumably, quality of care would be reduced, or at least there would not be a huge infrastructure in place providing that care. Outcomes might be just as good for certain things such as common procedures, but presumably not for many niche conditions (such as many forms of cancer). For example, the practice of hospitalizing cancer patients near end of life for extensive treatments that extend life for 1-2 years probably wouldn't exist (or at least wouldn't be commonplace) as most private individuals couldn't afford it.

 

Just some food for thought.

[sothereiwas]

When I had an infection overseas, I went to the pharmacy and bought 10 doses of Cipro for $7. When I had the same (sinus infection) in the states, the copay alone, for the medicine alone, was several times that. Then add in the copay for the Dr visit, and the insurance payout for both, and it's clearly an issue. The Dr visit for the $7 in pills was also about $7, by the way, all out of pocket. So a grand total of $15 (let's round up) which was less than my Dr copay in the US.

This is what excessive regulation gets us. 

[Ruby Slippers]

I lived in Europe for a few years after college. Most people there had public/government health insurance. Since I was a foreigner and self-employed, I had to get private insurance, a "Cadillac plan." 

I was paying less than I've ever paid in the U.S., and quality of care was dramatically better, like night and day. 

[mark clemson]

3 hours ago, sothereiwas said:

This is what excessive regulation gets us. 

I think regulation contributes to costs, but I think the ultimate culprit is the system itself (ie private industry and government both) in that insurance companies are willing and able to pay these huge bills (and pass the costs on in a distributed fashion to businesses and those who buy health insurance privately). Gov't programs pay for them (at this point) by issuing more debt. It is cheaper and easier to just pay and pass the costs on than to attempt to push back (most of the time). There are probably regulations involved with that as well, but I believe the bottom line is if we didn't have an insurance industry and government programs that are paying these huge bills, then these huge bill wouldn't exist.

Just to note, I suspect that $7 Cipro dose overseas was substantially "subsidized" by the US system, although I could be wrong.

[sothereiwas]

3 minutes ago, mark clemson said:

Just to note, I suspect that $7 Cipro dose overseas was substantially "subsidized" by the US system, although I could be wrong.

Absolutely, in a roundabout way. The willingness and ability of the US market to pay for R&D is absolutely exploited to allow other markets to benefit without paying their share of R&D. That's not a good thing IMO, it's fundamentally unfair, but you're right, it happens. A few hundred million people essentially carrying the other 7 billion in this regard, isn't a pretty scene. 

Edited June 4, 2020 by sothereiwas

[Ellener]

14 hours ago, mark clemson said:

I suspect that $7 Cipro dose overseas was substantially "subsidized" by the US system,

how so?

[sothereiwas]

3 hours ago, Ellener said:

how so?

American healthcare system money provides R&D funding (and incentive) for most medical research. The rest of the world mostly leeches off that. 

Then some of them bag on us for paying too much, which is sad and hilarious. 

[Libby1]

On 6/4/2020 at 4:57 PM, BaileyB said:

They announced that George Floyd tested positive for Covid during the autopsy.

This may be sadly true. I can’t imagine how the virus is spreading in those crowds, and yet there is almost no mention of Covid on the news these days. It’s like it’s been forgotten... the world has turned their attention but it’s likely to turn back, as the number of infections/deaths rise. So sad. 

I think  a lot of people have started to think along the lines of "well, I don't even know anybody who has had this...so I'm getting pretty skeptical about the whole thing".  The difficulty being, of course, that it didn't hit nearly as hard as it could have done precisely because so many people have adhered so rigidly to lockdown over the past few months. 

It seems inevitable that coronavirus will be spread by the protests.  Not just by the protests, but by the knock on effect of watching those protests.  In normal circumstances it would look and feel completely weird and paranoid to ensure you stayed 2 metres away from every person you encountered.  It's become an accepted practice because of Covid-19, but when the media is filled with images of people jam packed together at protests - and when the same media is celebrating those protests, then it really undermines the social distancing advice and probably results in fewer people following it on the basis that they've started to feel distinctly stupid about the whole thing.

 

[Ruby Slippers]

The pharma industry - one of the dirtiest and most twisted industries on the planet - spends a ton of money on drug ads. And of course, pharma companies offer big financial incentives to doctors to push their drugs.

Feeling sad, aimless, stressed? Talk to your doctor about FIX-IT-ALL, the powerful new drug that numbs you to all your problems! Side effects may include a litany of life-threatening complications, but hey, you can get your mojo back with FIX-IT-ALL!

[sothereiwas]

15 minutes ago, Libby1 said:

In normal circumstances it would look and feel completely weird and paranoid to ensure you stayed 2 metres away from every person you encountered.

I want this to be the new normal.