A Miracle Cure For Those That Can Afford It?

[Flopper]

Not correct. Hospitals are required to provide emergency medical service to a point where the patient is stabilized and can be safely transferred. Hospitals are not required to provide critical care at no cost. They only have to provide emergency services. So if your doctor says you need bypass surgery, don't think your're going to walk into an emergency and get it unless it is needed to stabilize your condition.

Uh...wrong. A hospital MAY after stabilizing your condition, refuse to do a bypass if it is deemed necessary, but if they do diagnose it and refuse to do it, they must then transport you to a facility that WILL do the surgery...such as a county hospital who will work out how it's to be paid for later.

And just for the record, Medicaid is a state program with different qualifiers for different states. The primary one being a household income threshold that is loosely based on the poverty level in each state. If you are above that threshold and don't have insurance...you can just make the payments to the hospital that you SHOULD have been making for insurance in the first place instead of the payments on that F-250 pickup. ;~)

People have been setting up payment programs with doctors and hospitals for everything from toothaches to appendectomies for as long as they have been around. TRUST me...been there done that. Got the scares to prove it. And docs didn't have to have some government mandate to get um to do it.

THAT only became necessary when lawyers started running rough shod over the system and the government decided to start setting the prices doctors could charge for their service instead of protecting them from the predators and letting the free market work!

As Thomas Jefferson said, "It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

What we have allowed an out of control government to put in place as health care over the last 60 years in this country is an ERROR!

The federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) requires any hospital that participates in Medicare and provides emergency services to provide (1) an appropriate medical screening examination to anyone who comes to its emergency department asking for treatment and (2) necessary stabilizing treatment or transfer to another medical facility if the examination reveals an emergency medical condition.

The key phrase is emergency medical condition. Having a heart condition or cancer that without treatment will kill you within a year is not considered an emergency. Hospitals are only required to stabilize your condition.

Even if a hospital is willing to admit you and offer a long term payment contract, you're going have to find a surgeon that will take your case without much hope of being paid as well as followup care such as office visits, tests, medications and rehab. The chance of a successful outcome for a person with a serious medical condition, no government assistance, insurance, or financial resources is pretty slim.

 

[auditor0007]

Yes, yes, yes....Everyone who invested in, worked on and brought such discoveries to fruition should just be handed a piece of shit to chew on and told to eat the costs for all their hard work.

You miss the point, but that is a normalcy with you.

 

[auditor0007]

I saw the news about the stems cells growing heart muscle at a friends house who has a very serious heart problem and is one the 50 million with no insurance. He made the comment that this is just another miracle cure that people like me will never be able to afford.

Per conservative dogma this is an incentive for your friend and others to work harder so he can afford the treatment; if he’s unable to realize the income needed to afford the treatment, then it’s appropriate for him to die making such limited resources available to those more deserving.

Needless to say I disagree with conservative dogma, as I believe we as a Nation are better than that.

Isn't that just sad? Really sad. Unfortunately state of the art medical treatment just can't be provided to everyone. The wealth of the world couldn't afford it. The alternative is to enslave the personnel necessary to make these miracles possible. Give them a stipend to live on, that's all they need. A nice little guaranteed income for "helping" make the world a better place where everyone is entitled to everything. This includes the people who invent and build the machinery, the devices that make these treatments possible.

In reality, medical treatment is like everything else. in the beginning it is unaffordable except for the fabulously wealthy. Then there are newer innovations, more production and the price drops.

Ah, but it has been proven that this is not the case. Prices rarely drop when it comes to medical treatment. In case you haven't noticed, healthcare costs have been increasing above the rate of inflation for the past forty plus years.

 

[uscitizen]

Uh-huh...And who pays for the $1/2 billion worth of red tape and outright graft that the FDA imposes on the inventors of new medications and devices?

Talk about your blind fucking greed.

Do some research big pharma spends more on advertising than on the red tape and research.
Much of the research is paid for by Universities, National institues of health, etc.
Which is our tax dollars.

 

[uscitizen]

Fer the Oddball.

Big Pharma Spends More On Advertising Than Research And Development, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Jan. 5, 2008) — A new study by two York University researchers estimates the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spends almost twice as much on promotion as it does on research and development, contrary to the industry’s claim.


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The researchers’ estimate is based on the systematic collection of data directly from the industry and doctors during 2004, which shows the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spent 24.4% of the sales dollar on promotion, versus 13.4% for research and development, as a percentage of US domestic sales of US$235.4 billion.

Big Pharma Spends More On Advertising Than Research And Development, Study Finds

And no cherry picking this was the first hit on my search.