Off topic but important

Some of us are getting along, so this may be of interest.

I was recently reminded (the hard way) of the importance of recognizing and reacting quickly to a stroke. Fortunately, the symptoms were recognized immediately, the ambulance was on its way in less than five minutes and a hospital with a stroke unit was close.

A "clot buster" was administered within an hour and recovery was complete. However you only have three to four hours before the drug is no longer effective and it takes time to do a CAT scan, get the drug ready and so on.

Lesson: Don't wait, don't wait for "minor symptoms to improve", take action right now.

Ask the person in trouble to smile, to hold up both arms, to repeat back a sentence, to count.
If any thing is wrong - take action - you or someone may be saved from death or serious disability.

 

Great advice and I keep aspirin handy just in case!

 

Congratulations on your recovery.

I also had a stroke, but did not recognize the symptoms. 11 hours before we went to the hospital.
Luckly it was exactly in a place I could recover from, but I didn't deserve it.

My symptoms were extreme dizzyness but nothing else.
The first words I said were unrecognizable, but the second were perfectly clear.
Lots of different symptoms.

 

Administration of clot-busting injections is said to be the main reason for higher survival rates in stroke and heart attack than a generation ago. But I'd be careful about taking aspirin in the case of a suspected stroke in case it was stroke caused by bleeding, rather than a clot.

 

On Monday, mom's beautician of 18 years had a stroke while doing the lady ahead of mom. Half a dozen people in the place and nobody knew what was happening. One leg gave out and she kept dropping the comb and started to slur, but everybody just pretended to ignore it. Eventually, her daughter drove her to her family doctor, who sent her straight to the ER via ambulance. No word yet on her condition. As a small business owner, she had no insurance. She was a cancer survivor and basically uninsurable. A very real possibility is that her children and grandchildren will be be financially ruined due to state laws regarding financial responsibility of family members. Hospitals are much more willing to treat uninsured persons now that they can pursue family for money.

My hiking partner is a doctor. So are both his siblings. They each have their own lawyers fighting to keep from being made financially responsible for their dad, who fell recently and broke his back. Their mom is deranged and managed to empty the bank accounts (with help from someone) and has filed for divorce, which apparently will protect her from financial obligation.

How many of you can list the five leading causes of death among the elderly, list the symptoms, and run the simple home diagnostics? I would add problems peeing to the list. If you lump the several different causes together, they would be in the top 5.

 

The US health system sounds atrociously unaffordable, Australia is a paradise by comparison, but is slowly lurching toward the US system, seemingly.

 

Politicians make everything more expensive.

 

Americans spend twice as much for medical attention as other developed countries for similar outcomes, you are being gouged. I was shocked to hear that the biggest source of personal debt in the USA is medical debt.

 

Gouged? More like fleeced.

 

And yet ObamaCare (in the US), which has helped millions of medically uninsured people obtain affordable health insurance, has been fought tooth and nail by the Republicans, and often even by those who stand to be helped by it. Crazy!

 

I think the internet has infected people like a transmittable disease, with collective psychosis, mass hysteria, and wholesale delusion the result. It is turning us into a 'hive mind' type of existence, taking over critical thought process by over loading us with useless, false and manipulated information and because we are basically too ******* lazy to think.

Bee afraid, bee very afraid.

An acquaintance here walked around all day with half his face drooping and arm and leg screwed. People telling him all day he needed to go to the emergency room, even avoiding letting his wife see that actual side of him when she got home from work, bummed that they were bankrupt if he did get help because he had no insurance. Somebody finally called her that night and told her what was going on with the husband sitting next to her.

 

IN, you obviously haven't experienced it first hand. It is totally evil, and has nothing whatsoever to do with providing heath care to anyone. Those who had (and could afford) a workable health system have lost that. Those that didn't haven't gain much. Physicians have lost their authority to determine appropriate care on a patient by patient basis. The medical customer is the insurance company and they operate on a statistical basis in their own best interest.

The worst effect I have noticed is that doctors and surgeons associated with hospitals are now absolutely terrified of being fired for doing what most of us consider to be their basic job. In theory, a doctor with hospital privileges can schedule a direct admission bypassing the ER. In practice, they can't. My mom was sent home from a followup visit to her surgeon. She had gotten an infection in the hospital. I waited a few hours and then took her to the ER. They called the very same doctor to back in and do emergency surgery. I asked him why he sent her home earlier. I didn't like the answer so I started asking awkward questions. It turns out you have to report instances of iatrogenic infection to the govt. They didn't want to do that. They also wanted the ER bill. The surgeon believed he would be fired if he had readmitted my mom, so he sent her home, perhaps to die. That would not have happened five years ago. He could have told me to drive her to the ER, but he didn't. The bills for the second round of surgeries are up to $40,000 and still coming in. Mom is fine, by the way. Just had her 89th birthday and has gone to her art league get-together this morning.

Hospitals today operate like a processing plant. Sick people are the raw material. Doctors are just factory workers. Big data analytics coupled with the recent legal changes have completely changed the relationship between doctor and patient. And neither have any real ability to effect the course of care.

On a brighter note, My father's life was saved by some ER people who found a way to game the system for his benefit. He ended up spending three days in hospital for something he did not actually have (the nursing staff seemed to be perfectly familiar with the circumstance), but this got him into rehab for three weeks, which saved his life. There was no way to just go directly to what he needed to save is life. Just like there is no way to go to the ER at 3am and get a 25 cent antibiotic that might save your life.

 

If by "it" you mean ObamaCare, then yes, I have experienced it first hand. I am covered by BlueCrossBlueShield (through ObamaCare), coincidentally, the same insurance compancy as I was before ObamaCare. The good and bad aspects of being insured by that company before ObamaCare are the same as after ObamaCare. Thanks to ObamaCare many, many people who could not get or afford health care insurance now can.

Can you dig up horror stories that have happened after ObamaCare? Sure. And you can find many horror stories that happen before ObamaCare as well. I think no one (except some Republicans) will argue that we don't have a Byzantine health care apportioning and payment system. I am in favor of a single-payer system, which most developed countries have (Canada, much of Europe, Australia, New Zealand). When ObamaCare was first under consideration one of the options proposed was to allow non-retirees to buy into the Medicare (an extremely popular single-payer system), just like most retired people do. But of course our favorite and most-far-sighted political party nixed that idea.

 

Unbelievable that the most powerful nation on earth lets it's people down so badly. Here if we just go to emergency or the doctors without even giving it a thought. In this state where i live we pay an extra ins premium with vehicle registration and are automatically covered no matter who is at fault in an accident. My cousin came off his dirt bike in the bush but he had recreational rego on the bike so he got rehabilitation and $1000 a week wages paid for over a year before he got back to work. I really hope our scumbag governments don't ruin it . Its great news that you recovered barry. And upchurchmr. We have someone in our family who is coming up to her 3rd year since her stroke and she has not walked or spoken yet. Its a horrible way to live.

 

I have trouble seeing what your parents problems had to do with 'Obamacare'.
The hospital caused the infection of your Mother. Who is paying the $40,000 (so far) bills? I would think they should do it for free and pay her for her time and trouble and the danger they put her in, but I very much doubt that's the scenario. Who is actually paying the bills?

The trend is for hospitals to become regional instead of local and the trend is for hospitals to buy up all clinics and all other hospitals in a region so they are the only game in town. They then have control over 'hospital privileges' which means control over who is allowed to use their operating rooms (at the prices they set) and who is allowed to use their extremely expensive diagnostic and other medical machines and equipment (at the prices they set). As a result, the trend is for private practices to disappear. Your

are that way because they are now hospital employees. If they get fired, they have nowhere in the region to go, so they have to sell everything, uproot their families and move to a different region.

I can't see what the Affordable Care Act has to do with any of that.

Here's a factual short list summery of the provisions provided by the ACA, you can go here http://obamacarefacts.com/affordable-care-act-facts/ for a long list summary of the 400 provisions in the Act.