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Why is Obama saying that our healthcare costs are way too high?
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Anonymous
Why would pain management have stopped the infection? |
Anonymous
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Every one will believe that their own issues like childbirth pain, need to be addressed. That is the point, we all want the "best". To start a child's IV, we need EMLA (and time), that costs. Nothing can hurt. That costs. To the pp that suggested that narcotics in childbirth will depress the baby, you're somewhat right, but there is still the option of no meds at all. I am being totally serious. It is acceptable.
What's more, we could do a better job of whining a bit less when we do break a bone. Heck these sophisticated pain pumps are expensive. But we can not compare surgical pain with labor pain. I have had both (natural childbirth and surgery). When the child is born, the almost all of the pain stops right away. With surgery, some patients will not ambulate and get sicker if pain is not controlled. Still, if you make up your mind that you will get through it, you will. After my (open) appendectomy, all I had was Tylenol, I had kids to watch, and couldn't be sleeping. So many doctors afraid of getting sued don't want their patients to have any discomfort, hence cost. We are all acting like tourists all demanding room service at the same time. Mr. Pearlstein and Mr. Gawande are probably getting the best care. |
Anonymous
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Here is the link to the New Yorker article - The Dartmouth studies re: unwarrnated varitaion in care can be found online also.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105483669 One PP had it right when they mentioned end of life care - 80% of a most healthcare expense occurs during the end of life care. Want to do something for your country - discuss your wishes - and those of your family - what you wish to occur. Few people would like to end up in a permant fetal position, often surrounded by thier own feces, unable to recognize anyone or anything - yet walk through your local Nursing Home and this is what you might find. While in no way should we take the decision out of the individual's hands - if a few weeks/months mean something to you, then choose all options. We should also never actively pursue death...but that is different than passively allowing it to occur in a dignified, humane manner. |
Anonymous
I think that it should be a requirement to make a living will before receiving medicare benefits. |
Anonymous
No, I disagree with this. We can manage pain and we should be able to. You can amputate a limb with a shot of whiskey. That does not make it good. While I understand that breastfeeding can be painful, frankly it does not compare to the kind of pain that others face in medical situations. |
Anonymous
A non-dismissive attitude to my well-voiced concerns and an attitude geared towards intervention and treatment, rather than "that's life" and "pain is part of breastfeeding" would have stopped the infection long before it required emergency care, surgery and lengthy recuperation (what do you think that cost btw??) |
Anonymous
No one is saying thatthe pain should have been ignored. But it is very painful to BF. It is often hard to sort out the 80% of patients who complain about normal pain from those who have pathology. If you are a parent, you make the same decisions, and sometimes you are wrong too. Sometimes we ignore a compaint from a child then come to find that it is a real issue. |
Anonymous
Actually, it would not have been hard at all. By the way, this situation did not happen in the States but under private care in a S. American country that purportedly also has socialized medicine (the socialized medicine there is laughable actually--if you could find a doctor to see you you would not find medicine or supplies). What I ran into were entrenched attitudes about what is 'normal pain' for breast feeding and I was repeatedly sent home in distress until I ended up in the ER. If I had been in the States, under my private, responsive plan that I have now, I can only imagine the situation would have been avoided with targeted follow-up until my condition was diagnosed and treated. In a weird sort of repeat--I recently had a UTI that took me to urgent care while traveling in the States. I was unresponsive to the first antibiotic plan that they immediately gave me and my lab tests from the visit (comprehensive lab tests performed in the hospital laboratory) came back two days later "clear". Trusting my intuition that all was not well (intuition and continued pain) despite the findings of said expensive tests-- I went to my private doctor for follow-up. She ordered a second set of lab tests, I was diagnosed with a full-blown UTI that was resistant to the initial antibiotics, and I am now on the correct treatment plan, avoiding greater complications and healing well. This would not have been possible under plans or medical systems where patient concerns are dismissed because 80% of the time it is "normal pain" or where patients are denied "2nd opinions". Patients often are the first to know when there is cause for alarm, and it bothers me that this discussion is so dismissive of the patient's right to advocate for him or herself in a healthcare situation. All our collective wisdom on holistic medicine, patient-doctor discussion, preventive care, and high-quality care that mitigates suffering and avoids greater complications down the road seems to be blown away in your eagerness to embrace a health care plan that rations care and advocates a bureaucrat in Washington telling you 'how you feel' and 'what you need'. I just hope you don't end up in time-critical situations like mine above as you await their findings. |
Anonymous
| And look at Willie Mays today. What advice are they giving about head blows??? DON'T UNDERREACT. Even if 80% of the time it is normal to feel a little woozy and you end up fine, the other 20% of the time you can end up dead. Go demand a CAT-SCAN (for you OR your child). Yes, it's expensive, but death is final. Of course, not sure how you could go demand one with your rationed care and philosophy of 80% of the time it is normal and everything works out and that's how we should predicate major medical decisions and interventions.... |
Anonymous
Rest assured, under all proposed plans you will still be able to stomp around, get red faced in order to get extra tests done, even if they are not necessary. Doctors still have to deal with malpractice. |
Anonymous
| Good. Because stomping around and getting red-faced (aka advocacy) saves lives. |
Anonymous
| agree |
Anonymous
Oh, but it doesn't. It just as often creates problems. |
Anonymous
| I should have added that combining ignorance with anger is not advocacy. It is bullying. Believe you are helping your loved one if you want, but you aren't. And before you jump my shit, I have been through the whole enchilada with two grandparents and two parents now. I know the difference between advocacy and ignorant bullying. IMO, demanding an MRI simply because you have no working knowledge on how to evaluate head trauma, and because you believe that imaging is the holy grail of diagnosis, is ignorant bullying. |
Anonymous
| Denying that a patient has a valid role to make in medical decision making is worse than bullying, it is silencing. |