'Sicko' - Sleep Apnea patient is filmed

[JeffH]

Lots of countries now do more for the poor than the US of A. Hell, we can't even save New Orleans.

Jeff,
You asked what my last reply has to do with health care in he U.S.

My last reply was in answer to your incorrect remark that, "Lots of countries now do more for the poor than the US of A." Try to follow along here.

Acting superior isn't doing much for your cause there newsgrouper. Why don't YOU try following along. Look at this chart of donations by country for tsunami relief recently. The USA looks pretty bad here.

The funny thing is more "righties" then not actually like the new MM movie....but then some are so hard core that they don't have any compassion for others.

http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2004/12 ... tests.html

[RosemaryB]

I haven't seen the movie yet. But there are so many problems with health care in this country, it is hard to count them. People on this board write about them every day.

One source of these problems is the difference between "the medical profession" and "the healthcare industry."

We used to have a medical profession that focused on patients via medical professionals like doctors, nurses, and therapists of all kinds. They had lots of training, codes of ethics, etc. They made decisions about the person's treatment based on professional judgement. Because of this training and professionalism, people in these professions made a good amount of money. But they trained hard and worked hard to get it. The patient was the focus of their practices. If you are around 60 years or older, you may remember this. Even though medical knowledge was not advanced, the doctor focused on the patient.

We now have a healthcare industry which is, by definition, a profit-making venture answerable to the shareholders. The decisions in this industry, like any other industry, are made based on things like cost containment and CYA stuff to avoid lawsuits. The main thing is to process as many patients though the system as possible, kind of like automobiles on an assembly line.

Now, I trust business and industry to make my automobile and think it's fair that this should be a profit making venture. However, when it comes to my healthcare, I'd sooner trust a medical professional than a healthcare industry any day. I want a clinician who focuses on me and my health, on diagnosis for me as an individual, not a statistic.

If the healthcare industry is getting a bigger and bigger profit from my healthcare dollar, that's less for the doctor and of course poorer care for the patient because the doctor has to see more patients.

The doctors don't like it and the patients don't like it. I don't know how we get back to the old system (profession vs business model), but I wish we would. This isn't the insurance problem, but it seems like when we had the old BC/BS system and the medical profession more people were getting treated than now.

[Newsgrouper]

Acting superior isn't doing much for your cause there newsgrouper. Why don't YOU try following along. Look at this chart of donations by country for tsunami relief recently. The USA looks pretty bad here.

The funny thing is more "righties" then not actually like the new MM movie....but then some are so hard core that they don't have any compassion for others.

http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2004/12 ... tests.html

Come on Jeff, how could I act superior? I am an American, and of course this make me inferior. I could never hope to be superior like the Kuwaitis, Norwegians, and the citizens of Qatar your linked blog praises. I find it informative that you dismiss the findings of the World Bank and yet cite the findings of a blog named "No Right Turn," self described as "Irredeemably Liberal." I'm sorry you are trying to turn this discussion into a left/right debate. When you do that you lose the argument.

[hecate]

My mum had a mini stroke last week. She went to her doctor with no feeling in one arm. One side of her mouth was dropping and she was slurring her words. The doctor told her to go home take an aspirin and come in two weeks if she wasn't feeling better.

At least it was free as she lives in England with socialized medicine.

My sister had to wait a year to have her gallbladder out after half a dozen visits to the emergency room. AT least she didn't have to pay for it in England.

You can have long lines and crappy health care or you can pay for it in England. Everyone pays whether you use it or not through high taxes.

[Dustbunny17]

Hi My name is Deb and I saw Sicko Thursday at a sneak preview. I have a couple of comments.
The article about Cuban hospitals overrun with cockroaches sounds a lot like the article I read recently about Walter Reed Hospital and the outstanding care we give our veterans.
The movie was not entirely about Cuba, that was a small part.
They introduce many uninsured people who have fallen through the cracks in our medical for profit system.
They show a homeless center in California where hospitals dump patients that can't afford to pay. Now they don't call ahead to make arrangements, they pull up in a cab and push people out on the street. Many are in hospital gowns some still have their IVs still in. One woman wondered into the street and around in circles not knowing where she was. Luckily someone saw her and brought her inside.
More of the movie's time was spent on France, England and Canada and their system of medically serving everyone.
The doctors are not paupers, are in fact very well paid, and never need to deny care based on an HMOs profit margin.
To me it is a sane, human and humane way to care for everyone.

Contrary to much I've heard the waits are not long and the taxes are not outrageous.
People should not be allowed to die early because they don't have insurance or they have insurance that cares more about the bottom line than people. It is a problem that bears thinking about.

[wkosturko]

STOP!!!!

[roster]

What's eating up our health care money? Here is a big chunk: "..more than 40% of our health care spending goes to administration, not to help sick people, or to paying the doctor or nurse."

If there is anything good about "Sicko", it is that it gets the debate roaring.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne ... _needs.htm

[RosemaryB]

What's eating up our health care money? Here is a big chunk: "..more than 40% of our health care spending goes to administration, not to help sick people, or to paying the doctor or nurse."

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne ... _needs.htm

Exactly! I'm not against profits, profits as salaries for the doctors, nurses, and even hard-working hospital administrators who help things run smoothly. But why do we, as patients, have to pay the big bucks to the profit-making entities that attempt only to "standardize" our care primarily to make a profit rather than personalize it.

For-profit corporations don't belong in professions like healthcare. Even if we have medical insurance through jobs, we are still paying for the profits they try to maximize for themselves, not for the patient.

I know I repeat myself. Recent experiences with the health care system, including the greedy DME and for-profit sleep lab just make me mad! I had a very shoddy titration study done by an unprofessional and poorly trained tech who had no certification! I'm sure that the corporation that hired her paid her less than they would have someone who was well trained and competent. They got to keep that extra money! The DME fought hard to give me a cheap cpap so they could keep that extra money! They gave my friend an older generation bottom of the line cpap and he is still struggling with it. They got that extra money!

I say, have the resiratory therapists be separate from the DMEs as professionals. Attach them to non-profit sleep clinics where all the professionals are paid well. They can help with equipment choice, help the patient learn how to get a really good mask, use the equipment AND software. The DMEs can be retails suppliers and sell stuff competitively, even service stuff like filter reminders. Then the professionals would get the extra money and the insurance rates for the equipment would go down. They could still make a profit just as other retailers do.

Get the business model out of patient care!

I have no problem with ResMed making a profit on their equipment for their shareholders. This helps them compete, innovate and come up with better products. However, they are trying to fix prices and seem to be getting away with it by catering to the greedy DMEs. This way they can get more of our insurance dollars and scam the insurance companies. This insures poorer quality equipment to the patient, rather than patients learning about and purchasing the best possible equipment and being educated about it's use.

Get the business model out of patient care!!!!!!!!!!

OK, I'll calm down now .

I'll have to see the movie. I expect it will do well, profit-wise


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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): respironics, resmed, Titration, CPAP, DME

[roster]

[quote="RosemaryB"]......

I have no problem with ResMed making a profit on their equipment for their shareholders. This helps them compete, innovate and come up with better products. ...........

[BrianRT]

I say, have the resiratory therapists be separate from the DMEs as professionals. Attach them to non-profit sleep clinics where all the professionals are paid well. They can help with equipment choice, help the patient learn how to get a really good mask, use the equipment AND software. The DMEs can be retails suppliers and sell stuff competitively, even service stuff like filter reminders. Then the professionals would get the extra money and the insurance rates for the equipment would go down. They could still make a profit just as other retailers do.

I think I love you


I like the ideas you have......separating RT's from DME's could help keep the opinions more objective instead of spinning it with the DME's profit margin in mind.

[DreamStalker]

......

I have no problem with ResMed making a profit on their equipment for their shareholders. This helps them compete, innovate and come up with better products. ...........

And why are the other parts of the health care business different?

Maybe she means that there are other healthcare businesses that offer little with regard to competition, innovation, and better products?

I have an uncle in the healthcare business … he is a middle man between hospitals/clinics and healthcare equipment. A hospital/clinic will phone him with a request for equipment, he calls someone that has the equipment and tells them that such and such hospital/clinic has a need for said equipment. My uncle does not stock or even touches the equipment or for that matter sees neither the people requesting it or the people providing it. He works off a cell phone and out-sources all of his invoicing/billing to another business and of course they all vote for politicians that will contribute to the system (creating jobs). So for me to get an X-ray that took less than two minutes, my insurance gets charged $500 to $600 that we all end up paying for in premiums.

As Clint Eastwood once said in Three Mules for Sister Sara … “even buzzards gott’a eat”. Yes, I like my uncle but I hate the way the system is set up for creating a big “profit” pie, rather than providing efficient healthcare.

[roster]

I think RosemaryB has made a good succinct argument that the best results come from a market-driven/profit-driven system:

RosemaryB said:
"The DMEs can be retails suppliers and sell stuff competitively, even service stuff like filter reminders. .... and the insurance rates for the equipment would go down. They could still make a profit just as other retailers do."

RosemaryB also said:
"I have no problem with ResMed making a profit on their equipment for their shareholders. This helps them compete, innovate and come up with better products."

She is convincing me.

I trust that eventually she will tell us that "patient care" will be best served by a market-driven/profit-driven system. Furthermore, I expect that she will tell us what needs to change so that we get to a market-driven/profit-driven system and away from many of the problems we have today.

[RosemaryB]

[quote="rooster"]I think RosemaryB has made a good succinct argument that the best results come from a market-driven/profit-driven system:

RosemaryB said:
"The DMEs can be retails suppliers and sell stuff competitively, even service stuff like filter reminders. .... and the insurance rates for the equipment would go down. They could still make a profit just as other retailers do."

RosemaryB also said:
"I have no problem with ResMed making a profit on their equipment for their shareholders. This helps them compete, innovate and come up with better products."

She is convincing me.

I trust that eventually she will tell us that "patient care" will be best served by a market-driven/profit-driven system. Furthermore, I expect that she will tell us what needs to change so that we get to a market-driven/profit-driven system and away from many of the problems we have today.