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I saw this critique a while back on reddit: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BiCvPKWCUAA7Rtl.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BiCvPKWCUAA7Rtl.jpg:large The lon

I saw this critique a while back on reddit: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BiCvPKWCUAA7Rtl.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BiCvPKWCUAA7Rtl.jpg:large The long story short, Breaking Bad, wouldn't be a TV show. That's because of socialized medicine didn't try to profit on the sick. So he wouldn't have started making methamphetamine. ------------------ Edit: Sigh, at -4. I thought this added a valid discussion, that the idea of lack of any sort of medical program across the US is a definite detriment to all. Not only that, but saying he had insurance through the employer only reaffirms: 1. You're trapped at your employer if you're sick 2. You're bound by the quality of care the employer offers via agreements you can't have access to (chosen insurer) 3. Lack of choice by mandated "care plans" and coverage agreements that exclude you from treatment due to insurance not covering it I really don't get HN some days.. :/

howToLearnSpark 9y ago
lol
- dang 9y ago
  Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? Please see this explanation, which I just posted in a similar situation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16300163 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16300163.
zingermc 9y ago
Breaking Bad would still be a show! Walter White was a chemistry teacher, which implies he had health insurance that would cover chemotherapy. He also has a son with cerebral palsy, who almost certainly has needed medical treatment before. The thing is, he only wanted to go to the "best" doctors, which his insurance didn't cover. He also refused to let his friends pay his bills. You could still make this kind of choice with socialized medicine -- "I don't want the in-network doctors, I only want the best!"
- SilasX 9y ago
  Right. For example, the UK has free education, but there's a British show [1] whose plot involves a man who does shady, illegal things so he can pay for a prestigious boarding school for his son. [1] forget the name -- the one with the grandma constable
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > The thing is, he only wanted to go to the "best" doctors, which his insurance didn't cover. He also refused to let his friends pay his bills. Yup, cancer treatment in the UK in particular is incredibly appalling. Compared to the US, patients have very little control over their treatment options, and it's very easy to get the NHS to refuse to cover your treatment because you haven't followed the one of the treatment plans they determine for your case. Incidentally, that's one of the reasons why cancer survival rates in the UK are so much lower than in the US, even when you include people who can't afford ideal treatment in the US.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    > Yup, cancer treatment in the UK in particular is incredibly appalling. Compared to the US, patients have very little control over their treatment options, and it's very easy to get the NHS to refuse to cover your treatment because you haven't followed the one of the treatment plans they determine for your case. Please can you provide any kind of sources for this?
  - dfraser992 9y ago
    Well, I live in the UK (am American), had stage IIIb melanoma last year, and will never be able to say enough how happy I was with my treatment. Granted, I was lucky - it hadn't metastasized and Norfolk has the best in terms of skin cancer related everything. It can be a bit postcode lottery, I know, and if you have any sort of complicated or extensive cancer, I can see there might be some issues with regard to treatment options - for the individual, a no holds barred any cure at all grasping at straws attitude is expected, but is it good policy to indulge such people on the public dime? No, it isn't. The recent case over the terminally ill baby at Great Ormond was appalling - those parents, while understandably upset, were little more than pawns for the right-to-lifers from the US. That was a total fiasco that could have been avoided. An attitude of every-last-measure-possible-to-save-a-life is disrespectful to life. So your blanket condemnation is unfair. There are a lot of factors involved in trying to chart the --wisest-- course about what to do with the sick and infirm and the US is completely screwed up. I'm also diabetic and have saved at least $60k over the years due to that being subsidized. In return, the UK gets my economic output - I read recently insulin in the US has gone from about $20 a bottle (when I left) to over $200 (for brand name stuff). I am smart enough to understand how to manage things with 'generic' insulin, unlike those who think they must buy exactly what the doctor prescribes, but $200 for a bottle is appalling and there have been a few stories about people dying due to rationing their insulin and etc. And I've had a few minor operations as well that have saved me a good $50k or so - before I moved, I was an contractor and I couldn't get health insurance by myself thanks to the diabetes unless I worked for a large enough company / could be absorbed into a pool without the insurance company considering me a problem. Living in CA let me get onto a state run plan for people like me that was a bit pricey (but my only option) - if I'd lived almost anywhere else, I would not have had insurance. I moved before ObamaCare, but I wasn't that impressed with what I read - Obama .. well, don't get me started. Nor on HMOs. And now Trump et al have ripped everything to shreds. It is articles like this that make me so glad I moved. The NHS has its problems, but it sure as heck isn't the US and whatever "extra" taxes I might pay for socialized medicine is worth it.
cortesoft 9y ago
I am pretty sure even in places with socialized medicine, they don't always pay for experimental treatments. Walter White had insurance in the show, but they refused to pay for an experimental treatment he wanted to get. That will always happen, and needs to happen, in any insurance system; we can't just pay for every quack treatment just because someone who is sick hopes that it would work.
- crankylinuxuser 9y ago
  The experimental treatment issue is more regarding how govt organizations like the FDA handle experimental protocols. One should be able to waive most of the red tape surrounding an untreatable illness to an established body, like a medical teaching university or similar. And in many cases, this could result in the worsening or death of the patient. Yet, this kind of protocol is definitely frowned upon. Unfortunately because of how hamfisted the FDA is, I would dare-say that more people die from not having access to experimental treatments. Instead, you have to go to $somewhere_else to get the requisite treatment. Some sources show that this is likely true, but would need further study. http://www.fdareview.org/05_harm.php http://www.fdareview.org/05_harm.php
- madengr 9y ago
  All treatments are experimental, at the beginning. Very frustrating.
  - crankylinuxuser 9y ago
    I have a good friend who is type 1 diabetic. Her 1 year term at a university elsewhere ran out, and obtained a job elsewhere. Both have insurance. But the insurance is the problem... Let me explain. Since she's T1, she takes insulin. There's different types of insulin. Fast acting, slow acting, and various compounds and mixtures of each. In her case, she was prescribed Humalog, and has taken it for the last few years. On Jan 1, at the start of her new job, the job offered a different insurance. Humalog was considered an "Uncovered drug". In other words, this maybe what the doctor prescribed, and what your body is used to - but the insurance company is the primary "doctor" that makes medical decisions above and beyond your PCP. She didn't have much choice. She went on an insulin that was "covered". The insurance said it was "virtually the same". Bullshit. She took too much the 3rd day and had to take the day off, while asking friends to check up on her. Diabetic comas and death are a thing. She's never had that happen before. (Her A1C stays around 5.1-5.2 , which is impressive for any diabetic.)
bduerst 9y ago
The Walter White character continue to make meth even after completing the treatment for cancer. I'm sure the writers could have come up with some other monetary reason for a HS Chemistry teacher to start cooking.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

howToLearnSpark 9y ago

lol

dang 9y ago
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? Please see this explanation, which I just posted in a similar situation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16300163 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16300163.

zingermc 9y ago

Breaking Bad would still be a show! Walter White was a chemistry teacher, which implies he had health insurance that would cover chemotherapy. He also has a son with cerebral palsy, who almost certainly has needed medical treatment before. The thing is, he only wanted to go to the "best" doctors, which his insurance didn't cover. He also refused to let his friends pay his bills. You could still make this kind of choice with socialized medicine -- "I don't want the in-network doctors, I only want the best!"

SilasX 9y ago
Right. For example, the UK has free education, but there's a British show [1] whose plot involves a man who does shady, illegal things so he can pay for a prestigious boarding school for his son. [1] forget the name -- the one with the grandma constable
chimeracoder 9y ago
> The thing is, he only wanted to go to the "best" doctors, which his insurance didn't cover. He also refused to let his friends pay his bills. Yup, cancer treatment in the UK in particular is incredibly appalling. Compared to the US, patients have very little control over their treatment options, and it's very easy to get the NHS to refuse to cover your treatment because you haven't followed the one of the treatment plans they determine for your case. Incidentally, that's one of the reasons why cancer survival rates in the UK are so much lower than in the US, even when you include people who can't afford ideal treatment in the US.
- DanBC 9y ago
  > Yup, cancer treatment in the UK in particular is incredibly appalling. Compared to the US, patients have very little control over their treatment options, and it's very easy to get the NHS to refuse to cover your treatment because you haven't followed the one of the treatment plans they determine for your case. Please can you provide any kind of sources for this?
- dfraser992 9y ago
  Well, I live in the UK (am American), had stage IIIb melanoma last year, and will never be able to say enough how happy I was with my treatment. Granted, I was lucky - it hadn't metastasized and Norfolk has the best in terms of skin cancer related everything. It can be a bit postcode lottery, I know, and if you have any sort of complicated or extensive cancer, I can see there might be some issues with regard to treatment options - for the individual, a no holds barred any cure at all grasping at straws attitude is expected, but is it good policy to indulge such people on the public dime? No, it isn't. The recent case over the terminally ill baby at Great Ormond was appalling - those parents, while understandably upset, were little more than pawns for the right-to-lifers from the US. That was a total fiasco that could have been avoided. An attitude of every-last-measure-possible-to-save-a-life is disrespectful to life. So your blanket condemnation is unfair. There are a lot of factors involved in trying to chart the --wisest-- course about what to do with the sick and infirm and the US is completely screwed up. I'm also diabetic and have saved at least $60k over the years due to that being subsidized. In return, the UK gets my economic output - I read recently insulin in the US has gone from about $20 a bottle (when I left) to over $200 (for brand name stuff). I am smart enough to understand how to manage things with 'generic' insulin, unlike those who think they must buy exactly what the doctor prescribes, but $200 for a bottle is appalling and there have been a few stories about people dying due to rationing their insulin and etc. And I've had a few minor operations as well that have saved me a good $50k or so - before I moved, I was an contractor and I couldn't get health insurance by myself thanks to the diabetes unless I worked for a large enough company / could be absorbed into a pool without the insurance company considering me a problem. Living in CA let me get onto a state run plan for people like me that was a bit pricey (but my only option) - if I'd lived almost anywhere else, I would not have had insurance. I moved before ObamaCare, but I wasn't that impressed with what I read - Obama .. well, don't get me started. Nor on HMOs. And now Trump et al have ripped everything to shreds. It is articles like this that make me so glad I moved. The NHS has its problems, but it sure as heck isn't the US and whatever "extra" taxes I might pay for socialized medicine is worth it.

cortesoft 9y ago

I am pretty sure even in places with socialized medicine, they don't always pay for experimental treatments. Walter White had insurance in the show, but they refused to pay for an experimental treatment he wanted to get. That will always happen, and needs to happen, in any insurance system; we can't just pay for every quack treatment just because someone who is sick hopes that it would work.

crankylinuxuser 9y ago
The experimental treatment issue is more regarding how govt organizations like the FDA handle experimental protocols. One should be able to waive most of the red tape surrounding an untreatable illness to an established body, like a medical teaching university or similar. And in many cases, this could result in the worsening or death of the patient. Yet, this kind of protocol is definitely frowned upon. Unfortunately because of how hamfisted the FDA is, I would dare-say that more people die from not having access to experimental treatments. Instead, you have to go to $somewhere_else to get the requisite treatment. Some sources show that this is likely true, but would need further study. http://www.fdareview.org/05_harm.php http://www.fdareview.org/05_harm.php
madengr 9y ago
All treatments are experimental, at the beginning. Very frustrating.
- crankylinuxuser 9y ago
  I have a good friend who is type 1 diabetic. Her 1 year term at a university elsewhere ran out, and obtained a job elsewhere. Both have insurance. But the insurance is the problem... Let me explain. Since she's T1, she takes insulin. There's different types of insulin. Fast acting, slow acting, and various compounds and mixtures of each. In her case, she was prescribed Humalog, and has taken it for the last few years. On Jan 1, at the start of her new job, the job offered a different insurance. Humalog was considered an "Uncovered drug". In other words, this maybe what the doctor prescribed, and what your body is used to - but the insurance company is the primary "doctor" that makes medical decisions above and beyond your PCP. She didn't have much choice. She went on an insulin that was "covered". The insurance said it was "virtually the same". Bullshit. She took too much the 3rd day and had to take the day off, while asking friends to check up on her. Diabetic comas and death are a thing. She's never had that happen before. (Her A1C stays around 5.1-5.2 , which is impressive for any diabetic.)

bduerst 9y ago

The Walter White character continue to make meth even after completing the treatment for cancer. I'm sure the writers could have come up with some other monetary reason for a HS Chemistry teacher to start cooking.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]