4 ms·

It's not just this. For example, the third leading cause of death is believed to be preventable medical errors: https://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139 https

It's not just this. For example, the third leading cause of death is believed to be preventable medical errors: https://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139 https://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139 This statistic has been corroborated by other studies (search: "third leading cause of death medical errors US"). You cannot evade statistics like that by going to the "best hospitals", or by "having good insurance", or being "able to pay for it". I nearly died at age 22 from multiple medical errors over the same hospitalization. I am in my early 30s now. It still haunts me. I nearly died from severe diabetic ketoacidosis (blood pH got down to 7.03) from the hospital messing up insulin dosages (I have type 1 diabetes), and then I had to get a central line in my neck for treatment because I was so dehydrated. I got sepsis from the central line placement, which is never supposed to happen. I was not even hospitalized initially for any of the above mentioned reasons! US life expectancy is expected to go down from #43 in the world in 2016 to #64 in 2040. See: http://www.healthdata.org/news-release/how-healthy-will-we-be-2040 http://www.healthdata.org/news-release/how-healthy-will-we-b... Then there are things like this: Death or Debt? National Estimates of Financial Toxicity in Persons with Newly-Diagnosed Cancer (42% of newly diagnosed cancer patients exhaust their life assets, with the average losses being $92,098) Then if you have a rare disease, which 7-8% of the general population collectively has, you often have to rely on orphan drugs (like me). There are 8,000 or so rare diseases. I actually have 2 rare diseases, and one of them is so rare that it will not be cured without personalized medicine. One of the things which made me give up hope in the US was stuff like this, where very rare diseases become treatable, but the yearly cost of the drug (under contract via insurance) is ~$2 million/year, and it has to be taken for life. This is a new trend, and it makes me distraught. The $6 Million Drug Claim: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/25/health/drug-prices-rare-diseases.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/25/health/drug-prices-rare-d... Currently, the country I am a citizen of (besides the US), is about to have the same lifespan for females as the US (which I am female). The country went through a nasty war with the breakup of Yugoslavia. I am proud of my country, I mean Croatia. I also have the EU to fall back on. With the US, there is very little that can be done to protect me, from a work and insurance perspective.

readflaggedcomm 6y ago
I guess this entire thread is a dumping ground for other grievances, because nobody's able to explain how the GP comment's urge to vote connects with their experience, despite my asking.
- disabled 6y ago
  We do not know explicitly how, but we have shared a mutual experience trying to get things through the US healthcare system, one way or another. Things like prior authorization (getting a bureaucrat to give you permission to take this medication), prescription formularies (exclusion lists--you cannot take this medication under any circumstance), and step therapy (you must take a less effective medicine--and fail--before trying a more expensive and more effective medication. This occurs even with serious conditions like cancer and multiple sclerosis), quite literally kill. I know an American in Japan who is on 3 biologics there. In the US, all 3 would require prior authorization, and 2 of them would be denied, because you can only get authorization to get 1 at a time. He could fight for coverage, via ERISA, through his employer, in court, but he would lose his colon before he would win. Then, when he loses his colon, he cannot sue for damages because of ERISA. Dude, conversations break down on forums all the time. I use a screenreader and braille to read posts. I read things linearly because of this. It's not like I do not notice a coherent breakdown of conversation as the posts go further down the webpage.

readflaggedcomm 6y ago

I guess this entire thread is a dumping ground for other grievances, because nobody's able to explain how the GP comment's urge to vote connects with their experience, despite my asking.

disabled 6y ago
We do not know explicitly how, but we have shared a mutual experience trying to get things through the US healthcare system, one way or another. Things like prior authorization (getting a bureaucrat to give you permission to take this medication), prescription formularies (exclusion lists--you cannot take this medication under any circumstance), and step therapy (you must take a less effective medicine--and fail--before trying a more expensive and more effective medication. This occurs even with serious conditions like cancer and multiple sclerosis), quite literally kill. I know an American in Japan who is on 3 biologics there. In the US, all 3 would require prior authorization, and 2 of them would be denied, because you can only get authorization to get 1 at a time. He could fight for coverage, via ERISA, through his employer, in court, but he would lose his colon before he would win. Then, when he loses his colon, he cannot sue for damages because of ERISA. Dude, conversations break down on forums all the time. I use a screenreader and braille to read posts. I read things linearly because of this. It's not like I do not notice a coherent breakdown of conversation as the posts go further down the webpage.