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Hospital discharged seriously ill man, left him on the street
- rp1 5y agoHospitals are vile and disgusting organizations designed to extract wealth from the most desperate. Medicare stopped paying for treatment? Ok. Please go die on the sidewalk.
- munk-a 5y agoHey - when we rely on money as the motivator for healthcare and assume the "market will fix it" this is what we get. The market fixed it. It just fixed it in a way that most people would consider immoral.
- abfan1127 5y agoI'd hardly call the current American system Free. The market responded to the [ridiculous] capricious regulations. You get what you ask for.
- munk-a 5y agoOh - that's a new one. It's essentially the "there's never been a true communist government" argument but the other way around. Canada has more regulations than the US and my stepson has extremely special health needs - there have been times we've been nervous that no health agency will cover them but thankfully, so far, that's never happened. The instance where he was truly up a creek the hospital holding him simply refused to release him due to the lack of available care.
- abfan1127 5y agoNots not about "true this" or "true that". Incentives are real. Hospitals have real costs. Doctors want real wages. Electricity costs money. Machines cost money. Land costs money. To cover these costs, you must have income. Manipulate how income can be received, or manipulate how costs must be bared. But these don't change the fact that healthcare has costs. You can argue that one particular system has better trade-offs than another. But that is based on your incentives. We, as consumers, want the best healthcare for free right now. Consumers and providers must meet in the middle somewhere. However, if government eliminates meeting places on the map, you can expect non-optimal locations.
- rp1 5y agoNo one is arguing that healthcare doesn’t have costs. But healthcare in the U.S. costs a lot more than in other places, and the reason it costs so much is that we allow doctors, hospitals, and pharma companies to exploit the vulnerable for profit. The machines and drugs are the same across the world, but we pay a ridiculous markup so doctors and execs can earn 500k+ a year. 25% of U.S. GDP is spent on healthcare. Think about how insane that is: one out of every four dollars of economic activity is spent on healthcare.
- abfan1127 5y agoAmerican Healthcare is visibly expensive. Other countries hide their expenses in taxes. Further, where is most healthcare innovation? that has costs as well. I'm not defending the current American model as it has many features which make things worse (from my perspective).
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoThe market would have fixed this, or at least made it suck a lot less, if it weren't for a very strong regulatory capture, certificates of need for hospitals, regulatory bottlenecks to creating doctors, etc, etc. Notice how the dental industry doesn't have nearly the same problems even if you control for the scope of the work they do.
- munk-a 5y agoAmericans have a higher than normal instance of late life dental issues because nobody ever actually pays to go to the dentist before they're thirty. Most employee healthcare doesn't significantly cover dental and paying out of pocket is unreasonable - this is much the same for the vision market.
- _lz4k 5y agoThe problem is we don’t let the market fix it. Instead we continue to pile on regulations that decentivize competition for better health outcomes. Blame the socialist democrats and conservatives that continue to strengthen the monopolies on healthcare because there’s no question about it, too much regulation is the culprit
- agustif 5y agoThe other day there was a medicine that sold for 1000usd in the US, and 4euros in France. Healthcare US system is bonkers!
- torpfactory 5y agoDefinitely sounds like an EMTALA violation. You aren’t allowed to release a patient who is in that bad of shape, regardless of ability to pay. My wife was an ER nurse until recently and they were often in a bind with abusive patients who refused treatment. They couldn’t release them for fear they’d quickly degrade, and they couldn’t keep them around because the staff would get hurt. ERs are kind of the dumping ground of society.
- gwbas1c 5y agoI think the article is leaving out critical details: > We can only provide the best care with the cooperation and consent of the patient. We do our best to connect patients in need with ... social service organizations to provide appropriate after-hospital care. Is this a failure of local social services? The patient clearly was ready to move to a different facility; and according to the hospital, refused assistance at placement. Were local social services involved? What were the conversations with Medicare? We may not know, because HIPPA could keep the real story confidential. Hospitals are often stuck in a hard spot: Often, people are admitted to the hospital because there is no other place for the person to go. My wife was a pediatrics resident, and sometimes social services would admit children to the hospital until the local foster care system could find them a place. Furthermore, patients leave against medial advice all the time. I wouldn't read too deep into this without knowing more about what the hospital did to place the patient.
- rp1 5y agoDid you miss this statement by a hospital employee? > Freeman said the 68-year-old man was discharged from the hospital Thursday. A hospital employee told officers that the man had been at the hospital for 35 days and that Medicare would not continue to pay for his treatment. The employee said that security dressed the man and walked him out. Freeman said an officer was told the man was cleared as “fit to leave” by two doctors and the hospital wanted him gone.
- gwbas1c 5y ago> Medicare would not continue to pay for his treatment. You just made my point. Remember, the hospital tried to advise the patient. We don't know the exact advice, because it's confidential due to HIPPA. I suspect that the patient was offered to be transferred to a facility like a nursing home, rehab center, or home care. The hospital can't transfer the patient against their will, nor can they continue to bill for treating someone who's condition is stable enough for cheaper treatment at a less expensive facility. It's a beuracratic nightmare. Without knowing more, I wouldn't cast blame on anyone.
- EMM_386 5y agoKeep in mind, without the full details we don't know what the case was. It's entirely possible he was fit for discharge and had a totally unrelated stroke. But I would agree the facts as presented don't look great.
- gwbas1c 5y agoFrom the picture, it looks like he had a catheter. (The article mentioned that he had tubes coming out of his body.) He basically was supposed to be transferred to some kind of facility, like a nursing home, or under the care of a competent adult at home, or similar. The quote from the hospital at the end of the article implies that he refused service. Reading between the lines, he probably needed to be sent somewhere against his will, but it sounds like bureaucratic problems prevented this.