Private Heath Care vs universal in covid fight

Otherground
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Who takes it and why?

will privatized health care systems crush the virus while countries with universal health care get decimated?

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Universal obviously. Who wouldn't want the same DMV workers handling a crisis like the current one?

2 Likes
3

Define crush the virus?

It would seem to me private stands to profit pretty nice off a bunch of sick people needing lots of treatment.

The universal heare care would seem to have a vested interest in preventing and containing an outbreak.

The for profit health care system ensures everyone who can pay for it gets treated. Beds for all.

The universal health care will be forced to ration care and treatment to handle the sheer volumes a pandemic brings.

Pros and cons

1 Like
4
Richardjohnson81 - 

Define crush the virus?

It would seem to me private stands to profit pretty nice off a bunch of sick people needing lots of treatment.

The universal heare care would seem to have a vested interest in preventing and containing an outbreak.

The for profit health care system ensures everyone who can pay for it gets treated. Beds for all.

The universal health care will be forced to ration care and treatment to handle the sheer volumes a pandemic brings.

Pros and cons

Why would you assume that private hospitals have unlimited resources such as beds or staff, as opposed to countries with universal healthcare?

5

Well it’s $1500 to get tested for covid in Seattle without insurance.

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We have a fragmented healthcare system. There isn't an actual privatized healthcare system in the first world.  

Ours is only part-privatized.

7
banco - Well it's $1500 to get tested for covid in Seattle without insurance.

Price is important.

I know this is lost every time somebody gets their panties in a wad...but resources arent unlimited.  

If there is an infinite number of testing measures and the government wants to freely distribute them then great.  My guess is this is likely trying to be done as we speak.

But it sounds like that ain't the case.  

This means it's a good thing there is actually a mechanism for controlling their usage.  

8
CavemanDave - 
banco - Well it's $1500 to get tested for covid in Seattle without insurance.

Price is important.

I know this is lost every time somebody gets their panties in a wad...but resources arent unlimited.  

If there is an infinite number of testing measures and the government wants to freely distribute them then great.  My guess is this is likely trying to be done as we speak.

But it sounds like that ain't the case.  

This means it's a good thing there is actually a mechanism for controlling their usage.  

How does using price as a rationing method in an epidemic make an sense?

Plus Korea is doing exponentially more tests because their Government aren’t a bunch of fucking incompetents.

9
banco -
CavemanDave - 
banco - Well it's $1500 to get tested for covid in Seattle without insurance.

Price is important.

I know this is lost every time somebody gets their panties in a wad...but resources arent unlimited.  

If there is an infinite number of testing measures and the government wants to freely distribute them then great.  My guess is this is likely trying to be done as we speak.

But it sounds like that ain't the case.  

This means it's a good thing there is actually a mechanism for controlling their usage.  

How does using price as a rationing method in an epidemic make an sense?

Plus Korea is doing exponentially more tests because their Government aren’t a bunch of fucking incompetents.

Because things have costs?

I dont know why I even get involved in these discussions anymore.

  I keep on forgetting as soon as there is an emotional component to the discussion, its rude to do anything but eschew 2/3rds of reality entirely.

1 Like
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.

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CavemanDave -
banco -
CavemanDave - 
banco - Well it's $1500 to get tested for covid in Seattle without insurance.

Price is important.

I know this is lost every time somebody gets their panties in a wad...but resources arent unlimited.  

If there is an infinite number of testing measures and the government wants to freely distribute them then great.  My guess is this is likely trying to be done as we speak.

But it sounds like that ain't the case.  

This means it's a good thing there is actually a mechanism for controlling their usage.  

How does using price as a rationing method in an epidemic make an sense?

Plus Korea is doing exponentially more tests because their Government aren’t a bunch of fucking incompetents.

Because things have costs?

I dont know why I even get involved in these discussions anymore.

  I keep on forgetting as soon as there is an emotional component to the discussion, its rude to do anything but eschew 2/3rds of reality entirely.

You save $1500  because thr government doesn't pay for the cost and then medicare spends $100 k on an icu bed when the person who didn't get tested infects some 70 year old who lingers for two weeks before dying. 

Because things have costs.

1 Like
12
banco -
CavemanDave -
banco -
CavemanDave - 
banco - Well it's $1500 to get tested for covid in Seattle without insurance.

Price is important.

I know this is lost every time somebody gets their panties in a wad...but resources arent unlimited.  

If there is an infinite number of testing measures and the government wants to freely distribute them then great.  My guess is this is likely trying to be done as we speak.

But it sounds like that ain't the case.  

This means it's a good thing there is actually a mechanism for controlling their usage.  

How does using price as a rationing method in an epidemic make an sense?

Plus Korea is doing exponentially more tests because their Government aren’t a bunch of fucking incompetents.

Because things have costs?

I dont know why I even get involved in these discussions anymore.

  I keep on forgetting as soon as there is an emotional component to the discussion, its rude to do anything but eschew 2/3rds of reality entirely.

You save $1500  because thr government doesn't pay for the cost and then medicare spends $100 k on an icu bed when the person who didn't get tested infects some 70 year old who lingers for two weeks before dying. 

Because things have costs.

Yes yes.  Costs are irrelevant.  Supplies are infinite. 

We should decide order of testing by straight democracy.

13
banco -
CavemanDave -
banco -
CavemanDave - 
banco - Well it's $1500 to get tested for covid in Seattle without insurance.

Price is important.

I know this is lost every time somebody gets their panties in a wad...but resources arent unlimited.  

If there is an infinite number of testing measures and the government wants to freely distribute them then great.  My guess is this is likely trying to be done as we speak.

But it sounds like that ain't the case.  

This means it's a good thing there is actually a mechanism for controlling their usage.  

How does using price as a rationing method in an epidemic make an sense?

Plus Korea is doing exponentially more tests because their Government aren’t a bunch of fucking incompetents.

Because things have costs?

I dont know why I even get involved in these discussions anymore.

  I keep on forgetting as soon as there is an emotional component to the discussion, its rude to do anything but eschew 2/3rds of reality entirely.

You save $1500  because thr government doesn't pay for the cost and then medicare spends $100 k on an icu bed when the person who didn't get tested infects some 70 year old who lingers for two weeks before dying. 

Because things have costs.

You’ve unintentionally nailed the problem, old people. They’re always the problem with any healthcare discussion. Every system wastes 80% or more of their healthcare dollars on end of life patient care and it’s extremely stupid. It’s emotional based bullshit and it’s really driven by greedy profit driven assholes. I don’t expect it to change. 

14
Caveman Dave - Yes yes. Costs are irrelevant. Supplies are infinite.

We should decide order of testing by straight democracy.

That’s not how universal healthcare systems work.

Cost is a crucial factor in such systems as well. Money is not unlimited.

Patients have to qualify for procedures. They can’t just demand procedures because “democracy.”

Usually doctors and government officials hash the cost/benefit/qualification issues out at the policy level.

Then the doctors on the ground make the call about who qualifies for X and who doesn’t.

But not on the basis of who has more money.

15

I dont get it. 

There were multiple times the party that controlled both congress and the White House 3 years prior could have tried to fund the CDC with trillions of more dollars.  There were pandemics that effected Americans.

Nobody was issued a pack of 500 masks.  There were no protocols put in place to let localized measures be put in place like ohio and Seattle automatically regardless of costs and COC.  There is concern about bed space but that isnt new, yet the Obama administration didnt build 2 million extra medical bedspaces.  

We have a CDC, which sucks, but top down government structure is the answer to this problem.  Manufacturing issues would be solved by government control, because that's who's capable of manufacturing all these tests fast....that's what happening in other nations at their fictional government manufacturing centers operated my the ministry of test manufacturing plants.  

Also cost doesnt matter. Supplies are unlimited.  Time constraints arent a thing.

  Government sucks.  It used to be awesome 3 years ago.  It's also the answer, but it sucks.

All this makes sense.  

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Scythrop -
Caveman Dave - Yes yes. Costs are irrelevant. Supplies are infinite.

We should decide order of testing by straight democracy.

That’s not how universal healthcare systems work.

Cost is a crucial factor in such systems as well. Money is not unlimited.

Patients have to qualify for procedures. They can’t just demand procedures because “democracy.”

Usually doctors and government officials hash the cost/benefit/qualification issues out at the policy level.

Then the doctors on the ground make the call about who qualifies for X and who doesn’t.

But not on the basis of who has more money.

 

Well we have funding and a CDC.  Where are all the free tests being administered?  They should be here by now right?

Also private hospitals dont worry about cost, priority, and order.  Only public systems do that.  Also the CDC sucks...because it's not public...wait.

17

I work in a medical reference lab and here’s my experience so far with Covid19.

Place I work for is part of a huge non-profit hospital chain with urgent care facilities throughout the region. We don’t have the kits/instruements to test for Covid19. We can test for many of the other respiratory pathogens though. We started accepting specimens to send to the state lab to test for Covid19 last week. The state lab has a strict protocol before they will allow a specimen to be sent to them. There’s a bunch of conditions regarding the patients that has to be met first. Then the doctors have to send a specimen to us to rule out that the symptoms the patient shows isn’t caused by the flu or other viruses that cause similar symptoms that are in our set of test panels. If our respiratory pathogen test panel is negative for these other pathogens, then the state lab gives the doctors permission to send the specimen to them to be tested for Covid19 itself. So we do the rule out testing, while the state does the rule in testing after our test can’t rule out Covid19. The state’s Covid19 test is free. Our pathogen panel test is not.

Within a few days we were already starting to get a backlog of specimens to do the rule outs. We were barely keeping up with the tests coming in. Starting yesterday we no longer can keep up with the specimens coming in from our 5 hospitals. The amount of specimens coming in each day exceeds our 24/7 output. Part of this is our lab’s own fault for not having enough equipment in the first place. We’ve been running these respiratory pathogen panels for about 3 years now and every flu/cold season we barely keep our head above water to meet the turn around time. Our manager and department director knows this but request for more equipment to handle the volume had been denied from higher up the chain. With the Covid19 scenario now occurring and our own doctors being mad at us for having to wait so long for their test results before they can know if they can send their specimen to the state lab, maybe the request for more equipment will be approved.

Meanwhile one of the commercial lab companies in our area announced that they will be doing Covid19 rule in tests about a week ago and started taking them yesterday. They don’t have a protocol of patients having to meet certain conditions nor do they have to go through rule out testing. Another commercial lab, this one a bigger company that’s more widespread through the US, is also gearing up and they announced that they too will soon do rule in testing for Covid19. I don’t know how much they charge for their Covid19 tests but I doubt that it’s as expensive as what we charge for the pathogen panel that we run. Our panel can detect something like 20+ pathogens and is normally a really good test when used for many of the “usual suspects” of respiratory pathogens. Because it tests for so many pathogens at once and there’s no option to cut it down to fewer pathogens since the panel is manufactured as one package, it costs the same to the patient whether it detects nothing or detects a common cold virus or detects something dangerous and exotic like Bordella Pertussis (whooping cough). The state requires the rule outs because they in turn cannot handle the volume if every hospital in the state sends them specimens to run for everybody who wants to know if they have Covid19. The private physicians and urgent care centers can send their specimens for direct Covid19 testing to the commercial labs instead of waiting for the rule outs. Hopefully the five hospitals under our org’s umbrella will get the okay from the governing board to do the same because our lab who handles their microbiology tests can’t handle the volume of just rule outs.

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CavemanDave -

We have a fragmented healthcare system. There isn't an actual privatized healthcare system in the first world.  

Ours is only part-privatized.

This. The federal government fucked it up decades ago.

Goes to show that you cannot trust the government with your healthcare...