Let that be a lesson to you: health care is never free.
— Unless you are an illegal, of course. Or you need some rubbers or pills and there’s a war being waged on you and your vagina by misogynistic right wingers and religious nutjobs. Then it’s free. And a fundamental, universal, moral right.
For those keeping score at home.
(h/t Drudge via Twitter)
Jeff G: “Lifeguard gets bill after ocean rescue”
Only in America! No, really, only in America.
A bill? As in, a platypus?
Most, if not all, other socialist political orders know better how to conceal the effects of the market distortions they impose on prices. The USA is still early on that road, hence still learning how to lie to itself.
The stupid, it burns!
Jeff G: Or you need some rubbers or pills and there’s a war being waged on you and your vagina by misogynistic right wingers and religious nutjobs. Then it’s free.
Technically, not free, but included as part of a standard insurance package.
Greetings:
I live in the San Francisco Bay area, several soviets south of what the local, for some arcane reason, refer to as “The City”. There was a bit of health industry news on the local TV news that caught my fleeting attention.
Apparently, a drug called Torvada (?) has been developed that will protect people who practice “risky behaviors” from becoming infected by the HIV/AIDS virus(es) and at a cost of only $1000 per month.
Ghost of Free Medicine Future ???
The stupid still burns!
In the land of progressives, taking Torvada will be required for all subjects of the USSA.
A “standard insurance package” that I and every one of my formerly free countrymen is forced to purchase regardless of my needs, personal beliefs, and willingness. For his next trick, Zach will characterize the coming Obama Youth Corps as a “standard employment package for young people.”
11B40 — and yet, not injecting drugs remains free.
Technically, forced on people who don’t want to pay for or who don’t need it by a government determining what comes to count as “standard” and requiring you to adopt and comply with policies they dictate under risk of
penaltytax.We know who you are. And we know what you want. You might consider asking your minders to be reassigned to a different site.
…for a 42% risk reduction. Truvada.
While this seems an interesting milestone in scientific inquiry, it’s downright idiotic from a health/risk/benefit perspective. Condoms work a hell of a lot better.
Yup. He’d have grown bored and left before the NHS ever got to him. No matter. Only in America.
Jeff G: Technically, forced on people who don’t want to pay for or who don’t need it by the government determining what comes to count as “standard” and requires you to adopt and comply under risk of penalty tax.
Next thing you know, they’ll be telling you to stop when the light is red.
Pablo: He’d have grown bored and left before the NHS ever got to him.
Emergency response time for NHS ambulance services is typically about eight minutes.
http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/AboutNHSservices/Emergencyandurgentcareservices/Pages/Ambulanceservices.aspx
Red lights? Really?
Man, I remember when the trolls around here actually tried to put up a fight. Have some self-respect, man. Put a little effort into it.
Yes, only in America is a kid who has a headache not warned that if he gets in an ambulance it’ll be an extra two thousand dollars.
Because I’m sure his life threatening headache could not have taken a taxi or asked for a ride to the doctor’s.
Z, Jeff’s not kidding. You’re wasting your time here. Might I suggest Rec State?
If you can’t read, nitwit, don’t write.
Maybe you should try your act over here.
I see the Talking Points Teleprompter has chosen this thread to infest. Non-sentient interlocutors do not interest me.
Zackariel is a mendoucheous twatwaffle. The bad kind, that hates America.
8 minute response time? 19 minutes for a vehicle? Anyone having a heart attack without an AED or someone knowing CPR can kiss their ass goodbye.
How many people have gotten stranded or fallen down cliffsides in our scenic national parks this year already? How many of these people let the Park Service know their plans, had communications devices and/or had climbed challenging terrain in the past?
If one makes the choice to backpack up Mt. Baldy with minimal preparation or decides to pet Mr. Bear, chances are they will need to be rescued. Rescue is very expensive and dangerous for the rescuers. I think fools in that kind of a situation should pay up.
“Next thing you know, they’ll be telling you to stop when the light is red.”
So, you want the feds in charge of local traffic law now too? Typical.
See, the first thing that I thought when I read that was
“$1900 for a fucking ambulance ride? $2700 total because he had a headache?”
If it weren’t for the moral hazard created by insurance would anybody stand for this?
And when do we start hanging lawyers?
…you mean we weren’t already supposed to?
[…]
Forget I said anything.
William: Yes, only in America is a kid who has a headache not warned that if he gets in an ambulance it’ll be an extra two thousand dollars.
That’s right, because in most developed countries, there would be no significant bill for emergency services.
Pablo: If you can’t read, nitwit, don’t write.
We did read. A headache could indicate a concussion and could indicate a serious condition.
JohnInFirestone: 8 minute response time? 19 minutes for a vehicle?
Many U.S. cities don’t even measure response time. Most do not typically meet the 8 minutes standard. Part of this is geography, part due to urban sprawl, and part due to simple lack of measuring performance against standard.
Pons & Markovchick, Eight minutes or less: does the ambulance response time guideline impact trauma patient outcome?, Journal of Emergency Medicine 2002.
It’s back!
And urban sprawl is mentioned. Along with yet another suggestion that the most successful nation in history is not truly as “developed” as most of the countries who offer its well-tended subjects free shit to make their lives comfortable.
See? We must stack people for their own good. Sustainability, you see. Now move along. That’s a good citizen.
“We did read.”
We, everyone get that?
Who is “we” Zachriel? It took you three days to come up with your “facts”. Still working off your jailtime on the weekends? How many more to go?
Jeff G: Along with yet another suggestion that the most successful nation in history is not truly as “developed” as most of the countries who offer its well-tended subjects free shit to make their lives comfortable.
The U.S. has a highly developed economy with an advanced technological and scientific infrastructure.
It could indicate a hemmoragic brain tumor or an aneurysm or an AVM. Or it could mean a hangover.
\
Are you really stupid enough to believe that if you call 999 in Britain and tell them that you have a headache that they’ll have an ambulance out to you in 8 minutes or so? Or are you just a mendoucheous twatwaffle?
I know things that aren’t measured. Trust me.
Pablo: It could indicate a hemmoragic brain tumor or an aneurysm or an AVM. Or it could mean a hangover.
The lifeguard had just been through a harrowing rescue “through the breakers and heavy swells”. It’s also possible he was struck by the drowning boy, which is typical in water rescues.
Try that part.
Pablo: I know things that aren’t measured.
Not everything can be quantized, but response time can be.
It has more than that, Zachriel.
And we don’t want what you’re peddling.
Should read “quantified”.
Jeff G: if you call 999 in Britain and tell them that you have a headache that they’ll have an ambulance out to you in 8 minutes or so?
They weren’t called for a headache, but a water rescue. A child was injured, and the rescuer was complaining of a headache, which could indicate he was injured during the rescue. As brain injuries are difficult to diagnose in the field, transporting to the hospital would be reasonable.
Last comment should be attributed to Pablo.
A water rescue is an immediately life threatening situation. A headache is not.
Read and/or just stop prevaricating. It’s not working.
Really, they’re speeding people to the emergency ward in ambulance for headaches all the time, those Brits are! Because utopia!
Pablo: A water rescue is an immediately life threatening situation. A headache is not.
It certainly could be, especially if due to a physical injury. In any case, if it was a waste, it was an American waste.
Pablo: Really, they’re speeding people to the emergency ward in ambulance for headaches all the time, those Brits are! Because utopia!
You seem to be arguing that the British would have avoided wasting resources, while the Americans were incented to try and bill as much as possible.
Only in America!
No, it couldn’t be. Knocked the fuck out, yes. Skull craked open, sure. Concussion, no. Headache no.
Go lie to someone else.
You seem to be willfully obtuse, and boring as hell.
The British incentive, with their single-payer system, is to protect the single-payer system from costs and liabilities that our more flexible system, founded in the idea that people take personal responsibility, tries to find ways to work with.
The problem is that our more flexible system has surrendered increasing amounts of its flexibility to statist utopians who want our system to be a rigid single-payer system — because somehow they have concluded that health care is a right and not a service.
You, Zachriel, may have overtly disavowed this view — but all of your arguments are aimed at justifying it.
Now see? This just makes me sad
/Perot
Zachriel: It certainly could be, especially if due to a physical injury.
Pablo: No, it couldn’t be.
Mayo Clinic: The most common symptoms after a concussive traumatic brain injury are headache, amnesia and confusion.
McGehee: The British incentive, with their single-payer system, is to protect the single-payer system from costs and liabilities that our more flexible system, founded in the idea that people take personal responsibility, tries to find ways to work with.
Well, personal responsibility means paying the bill. Then why is it an issue? Others on this thread seem to be arguing that the British would have avoided wasting resources, while the Americans were incented to try and bill as much as possible.
Don’t see death listed there, which is probably because it’s neither life threatening nor an emergency. Did you get bonked on the head? I’m seeing at least two of those symptoms in you.
Where in the report on the Lifeguard rescue is there made mention of the lifeguard having a traumatic brain injury? TBI is a lot different than having a headache. The kid never said it was a migraine-like headache. He wasn’t sobbing with pain or leaking blood from his ears.
EMS would put him through some assessment tests, determine he wasn’t likely to drop dead if he drove himself home or to the hospital.
leigh: Where in the report on the Lifeguard rescue is there made mention of the lifeguard having a traumatic brain injury?
Headaches are a symptom of traumatic brain injury. The converse is not always the case.
leigh: EMS would put him through some assessment tests, determine he wasn’t likely to drop dead if he drove himself home or to the hospital.
Are you arguing that the British would have avoided wasting resources, while the Americans were incented to try and bill as much as possible?
You mean “try to bill” not “try and bill”.
Why are we talking about the Brits? This happened in Vancoucer, WA. Our society is litigious and the EMS crew is following their contract by bringing a minor to the closest hospital, thus incurring a large expense for a kid who just needed a couple of Tylenol and an “Atta boy!”
Are you arguing that the human brain is made of sausage and camembert and the Brit system just wants to be able to eat them?
Troll elsewhere.
leigh: Why are we talking about the Brits?
Pablo introduced the NHS, suggesting that they would not have arrived quickly. We provided data that show they have a good emergency response time.
leigh: Our society is litigious and the EMS crew is following their contract by bringing a minor to the closest hospital, thus incurring a large expense for a kid who just needed a couple of Tylenol and an “Atta boy!”
Are you arguing that the British would have avoided wasting resources, while the Americans were incented to try to bill as much as possible?
I live a 3 town area that has approximately 18,000 people. I’m a firefighter/EMT-B and we’re REQUIRED to document and explain when our response times exceed 5.5 minutes. We train to reduce “chute time”. Yes, there are small rural communities without response times. But, I’d be happy to wager that they represent an exceedingly small portion of the population.
You have no idea what you’re talking about and seem to be contrarian just to be so. Alphie 2.0.
The NHS instituted a rule that patients had to be seen within an hour arrival in an ER. Care to guess the result for folks arriving via ambulance?
That’s right, they died in the ambulance. Which then takes the ambulance out of service (it’s now a crime scene until determined otherwise), which reduces the amount of available emergency response resources, which frustrates EMS responders, which means fewer want to do it…
Are you arguing that the British would have avoided wasting resources, while the Americans were incented to try to bill as much as possible?
Son, I have said nothing about Brits. Further, “incented” is one of those made up of late words that makes you sound like you’re still in college. No doubt you have a favorite professor or advisor or perhaps author who uses such made up bilge.
I’m done here. You are bringing nothing to the table.
I suggested they wouldn’t have showed up for his headache. You suggested that they have a good response time when they’ll come out which is only for life-threatening situations, which is not a rebuttal to my suggestion. Since then, you’ve been trying fruitlessly to conclude that a headache would qualify. You suck at this.
leigh: Further, “incented” is one of those made up of late words that makes you sound like you’re still in college.
Oxford Dictionary
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/incent
leigh: I have said nothing about Brits.
No, but you did indicate the EMS crew incurred a large and unnecessary expense for the lifeguard due to their contract obligations. In other words, it wasn’t a mistake, but a systematic with the U.S. system.
Pablo: I suggested they wouldn’t have showed up for his headache.
EMS was called for a possible drowning. The lifeguard then complained of a headache, which may have been due to an injury. We don’t have all the information available to EMS at the time.
But remember, this is only a story because it happened in the U.S. In other developed countries, there wouldn’t be a bill.
Only in America!
But you’ll change that, won’t you. For our own good. By going to a single payer system, rather than enacting tort reform or capping judgments.
But that doesn’t make you a fascist. You just care more, is all.
Oxford Dictionary
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/incent
Archaic usages make you sound like a ponce. Funny that.