8 ms·

Met someone coming from US to Australia to visit and was nicely surprised you can just go buy a CPAP, cheaply with no referral. Just like buying a dishwasher or

Met someone coming from US to Australia to visit and was nicely surprised you can just go buy a CPAP, cheaply with no referral. Just like buying a dishwasher or something. Makes me wonder if in the US a trip to mexico or canada or somewhere could make this easier.

RecycledEle 3y ago
Bingo! As someone with multiple "pre-existing conditions" who cares for a stroke survivor (my wife) and a stage 4 chronic kidney disease patient (my mother-in-law,) I suggest we do the following: 1. make private health insurance illegal 2. pass a Constitutional amendment allowing every human the unlimited and absolute right to buy, make, modify, and sell medical things including importing and exporting those items. It is cheaper just to buy things than to use insurance. The stock holders need to loose all of their equity then go to prison.
- ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
  Is step 3 to eliminate the FDA? The idea of letting randos modify and sell medical devices is terrifying.
  - RecycledEle 3y ago
    A CPAP is a simple device. It is a fan that generates constant air pressure, with a heater and a bit of water to humidify the air. The idea that the law prevents me from pulling defective foam out of a device I own is terrifying.
    - elteto 3y ago
      Typical libertarian strawman. You can pull all the foam you want out of _your_ device. No one cares. The government least of everybody. You are free to hurt yourself due to the consequences of your own actions. You can't go modifying some types of medical devices and then sell them to _others_ without going through some sort regulatory process. Simple as that.
  - elteto 3y ago
    This is the typical libertarian insanity: "Regulations are bad, ergo there should be no regulations. And once we get rid of them everything will just work because somehow everyone will still abide by _some_ rules, although they are not required."
- GiorgioG 3y ago
  The problem is most Americans don’t have these types of chronic health issues, so it’s not an issue for them. I have a type 1 diabetic son, the amount of money we have spent on health insurance and medical equipment/supples is criminal.
  - wwilim 3y ago
    I feel sorry for you, man. I have T1D as well, but pump supplies + CGM work out to something on the order of $200 a month in Poland. I am not even sure how much exactly, because I don't bother to count since it's not big money for me. Still a lot given the median pay, and you still have to buy the pump out of pocket, but nowhere near what's going on in the States.
    - GiorgioG 3y ago
      Yep, I have a cousin in France who is also a T1D, he pays effectively nothing for his supplies (he tried pump+CGM but he's been doing injections for so long he found the pump to be a hassle.)
- thfuran 3y ago
  >pass a Constitutional amendment allowing every human the unlimited and absolute right to buy, make, modify, and sell medical things including importing and exporting those items. I'm pretty sure I've never heard of a worse idea for a law. Removing any possibility of regulating the quality or efficacy of medicines and medical devices will injure and kill far more people than any resulting improved access would help.
  - dangus 3y ago
    Funnily enough, we have a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to own machines that are designed with the singular purpose of killing people. How could a “medical device second amendment” be worse?
    - j16sdiz 3y ago
      People owns and uses a gun know what can be done with it. People uses faulty medical device, however....
      - dangus 3y ago
        If you say so! https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/toddler-shoot-parents-maine-gun-b1846802.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/toddler-sh... https://apnews.com/article/toddler-shot-kenton-county-parents-charged-manslaughter-08f31327baa92318152055112883956e https://apnews.com/article/toddler-shot-kenton-county-parent...
    - thfuran 3y ago
      The second amendment doesn't guarantee an unrestricted right to sell guns and isn't even really interpreted as an absolute and unlimited ability to own then these days. Furthermore, the abusive ways to use guns to the detriment of others are inherently illegal and don't scale. If the right to sell medicine were absolute, thalidomide couldn't have been barred from the US market or subsequently pulled and probably would've been laced with nicotine or heroin to make sure people keep buying it. But maybe that wouldn't have been a problem because it would be lost in a sea of snake oil.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  > pass a Constitutional amendment allowing every human the unlimited and absolute right to buy, make, modify, and sell medical things including importing and exporting those items. The ironically terrifying evidence about what a horrible idea this is is that it was just in the news that the FDA said that recalled CPAP machines made by Philips killed 561 people: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-sleep-apnea-philips-recall-cpap/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-sleep-apnea-philips-recall-...
  - cabaalis 3y ago
    I also have experienced various delays related to my cpap machine. I wonder how much of this debacle is because people in the know knew that this was coming, and therefore intentionally delayed anything to do with cpaps.
  - Karunamon 3y ago
    How does that not demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the regulations? Plain old consumer device safety stuff would apply here.
    - snakeyjake 3y ago
      >How does that not demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the regulations? The only reason there was a recall was because of the regulations and the gargantuan and slow bureaucratic apparatus surrounding Philips. Philips tried, and would have succeeded without the regulations, to brush this off. They stalled, delated, cajoled, and lied. Consumer protection laws (i.e. just sue after someone dies) are almost worthless in this case. No amount of rationally acting rational actor's next of kins bringing individual actions after the death of a loved one would have gotten Philips to move. Those wouldn't have even occurred because the only reason the link was made was because of a medical device monitoring system put in place by the FDA and government medical researchers looking into anomalous death statistics whose only common factor was Philips CPAP machines and the ensuing technical evaluation. Numerous deaths occurred, were attributed by some other cause because dissecting a deceased person and examining their alveoli for microscopic particles isn't an action typically performed after someone dies of what appears to be a stroke in their sleep. Indeed, when this whole mess first started Philips deflected and delayed for years and their teams of lawyers would have annihilated each individually rationally acting rational actor's lawyers one by one to protect their bottom line drowning each litigant in delays, appeals, and litigation by financial attrition as the cases popped up one-by-one. "Duh gubmint" is slow and often ineffective, but in this case the only reason anything happened at all and Philips CPAP machines aren't still out there literally and actually killing people is because of "a fat cat gubmint parasite" enforcing "onerous and burdensome" laws. Of course I could be wrong. We all remember how magnanimous and ethical corporations were prior to all of these systems being put into place, don't we? Wait. We don't?

RecycledEle 3y ago

Bingo! As someone with multiple "pre-existing conditions" who cares for a stroke survivor (my wife) and a stage 4 chronic kidney disease patient (my mother-in-law,) I suggest we do the following: 1. make private health insurance illegal 2. pass a Constitutional amendment allowing every human the unlimited and absolute right to buy, make, modify, and sell medical things including importing and exporting those items. It is cheaper just to buy things than to use insurance. The stock holders need to loose all of their equity then go to prison.

ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
Is step 3 to eliminate the FDA? The idea of letting randos modify and sell medical devices is terrifying.
- RecycledEle 3y ago
  A CPAP is a simple device. It is a fan that generates constant air pressure, with a heater and a bit of water to humidify the air. The idea that the law prevents me from pulling defective foam out of a device I own is terrifying.
  - elteto 3y ago
    Typical libertarian strawman. You can pull all the foam you want out of _your_ device. No one cares. The government least of everybody. You are free to hurt yourself due to the consequences of your own actions. You can't go modifying some types of medical devices and then sell them to _others_ without going through some sort regulatory process. Simple as that.
- elteto 3y ago
  This is the typical libertarian insanity: "Regulations are bad, ergo there should be no regulations. And once we get rid of them everything will just work because somehow everyone will still abide by _some_ rules, although they are not required."
GiorgioG 3y ago
The problem is most Americans don’t have these types of chronic health issues, so it’s not an issue for them. I have a type 1 diabetic son, the amount of money we have spent on health insurance and medical equipment/supples is criminal.
- wwilim 3y ago
  I feel sorry for you, man. I have T1D as well, but pump supplies + CGM work out to something on the order of $200 a month in Poland. I am not even sure how much exactly, because I don't bother to count since it's not big money for me. Still a lot given the median pay, and you still have to buy the pump out of pocket, but nowhere near what's going on in the States.
  - GiorgioG 3y ago
    Yep, I have a cousin in France who is also a T1D, he pays effectively nothing for his supplies (he tried pump+CGM but he's been doing injections for so long he found the pump to be a hassle.)
thfuran 3y ago
>pass a Constitutional amendment allowing every human the unlimited and absolute right to buy, make, modify, and sell medical things including importing and exporting those items. I'm pretty sure I've never heard of a worse idea for a law. Removing any possibility of regulating the quality or efficacy of medicines and medical devices will injure and kill far more people than any resulting improved access would help.
- dangus 3y ago
  Funnily enough, we have a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to own machines that are designed with the singular purpose of killing people. How could a “medical device second amendment” be worse?
  - j16sdiz 3y ago
    People owns and uses a gun know what can be done with it. People uses faulty medical device, however....
    - dangus 3y ago
      If you say so! https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/toddler-shoot-parents-maine-gun-b1846802.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/toddler-sh... https://apnews.com/article/toddler-shot-kenton-county-parents-charged-manslaughter-08f31327baa92318152055112883956e https://apnews.com/article/toddler-shot-kenton-county-parent...
  - thfuran 3y ago
    The second amendment doesn't guarantee an unrestricted right to sell guns and isn't even really interpreted as an absolute and unlimited ability to own then these days. Furthermore, the abusive ways to use guns to the detriment of others are inherently illegal and don't scale. If the right to sell medicine were absolute, thalidomide couldn't have been barred from the US market or subsequently pulled and probably would've been laced with nicotine or heroin to make sure people keep buying it. But maybe that wouldn't have been a problem because it would be lost in a sea of snake oil.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
> pass a Constitutional amendment allowing every human the unlimited and absolute right to buy, make, modify, and sell medical things including importing and exporting those items. The ironically terrifying evidence about what a horrible idea this is is that it was just in the news that the FDA said that recalled CPAP machines made by Philips killed 561 people: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-sleep-apnea-philips-recall-cpap/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-sleep-apnea-philips-recall-...
- cabaalis 3y ago
  I also have experienced various delays related to my cpap machine. I wonder how much of this debacle is because people in the know knew that this was coming, and therefore intentionally delayed anything to do with cpaps.
- Karunamon 3y ago
  How does that not demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the regulations? Plain old consumer device safety stuff would apply here.
  - snakeyjake 3y ago
    >How does that not demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the regulations? The only reason there was a recall was because of the regulations and the gargantuan and slow bureaucratic apparatus surrounding Philips. Philips tried, and would have succeeded without the regulations, to brush this off. They stalled, delated, cajoled, and lied. Consumer protection laws (i.e. just sue after someone dies) are almost worthless in this case. No amount of rationally acting rational actor's next of kins bringing individual actions after the death of a loved one would have gotten Philips to move. Those wouldn't have even occurred because the only reason the link was made was because of a medical device monitoring system put in place by the FDA and government medical researchers looking into anomalous death statistics whose only common factor was Philips CPAP machines and the ensuing technical evaluation. Numerous deaths occurred, were attributed by some other cause because dissecting a deceased person and examining their alveoli for microscopic particles isn't an action typically performed after someone dies of what appears to be a stroke in their sleep. Indeed, when this whole mess first started Philips deflected and delayed for years and their teams of lawyers would have annihilated each individually rationally acting rational actor's lawyers one by one to protect their bottom line drowning each litigant in delays, appeals, and litigation by financial attrition as the cases popped up one-by-one. "Duh gubmint" is slow and often ineffective, but in this case the only reason anything happened at all and Philips CPAP machines aren't still out there literally and actually killing people is because of "a fat cat gubmint parasite" enforcing "onerous and burdensome" laws. Of course I could be wrong. We all remember how magnanimous and ethical corporations were prior to all of these systems being put into place, don't we? Wait. We don't?