Slashdot Mirror
Steve Jobs Had a Liver Transplant Two Months Ago
evw writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago (subscription required, alternative coverage is available based on the WSJ's report). He is on track to return to work at the end of June. 'William Hawkins, a doctor specializing in pancreatic and gastrointestinal surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., said that the type of slow-growing pancreatic tumor Mr. Jobs had will commonly metastasize in another organ during a patient's lifetime, and that the organ is usually the liver. ... Having the procedure done in Tennessee makes sense because its list of patients waiting for transplants is shorter than in many other states.' There are no residency requirements for transplants."
It's hard to compare to 'normal' people, because someone like Steve Jobs would have had an team of the very best surgeons working on him, and generally the best medical care that money could buy..
Aren't we supposed to care about the technical side of things and his ideas, but by no means about his private life?
Unless Jobsy himself has told you this, I'm pretty sure that running this article either violates HIPPA, or is simply full of lies...
Where did the information about a transplant come from? I hope the source was verified, and re-verified, and then re-verified again. Remember when CNN posted that Jobs had had a heart attack, but it simply turned out to be "citizen journalism" gone horribly, horribly wrong? Gotta be careful with this crap.
Either way, all the best to The Steve.
Informatus Technologicus
It's hard to compare to 'normal' people, because someone like Steve Jobs would have had an team of the very best surgeons working on him, and generally the best medical care that money could buy..
This being Slashdot, that raises interesting questions. Steve's not rich because he was born into a banker family, in fact, he was adopted. He's rich because people bought his products.
So, is it bad if he uses that money to get the kind of treatment you and I can't afford?
"So, is it bad if he uses that money to get the kind of treatment you and I can't afford?"
Always an interesting question. I would say yes, it is a bad thing. Not for Steve of course, but for what it represents.
Steve Jobs has large wads of cash as that is what we give people who prove themselves to be great assets to the economic system. No doubt, Steve Jobs is exactly that, but should your value to the economic system be the primary factor behind the level of medical care you receive? I would say no. Steve Jobs has no more right to the best standard of care than does somebody who has been in the police force, or a teacher (for example) their entire lives. In fact, I would say that anybody who has lived a moral, decent life should receive the same level of medical care, and that should be the highest available at the time. The only people that I would say might not deserve this are serious/career criminals.
It is easy to get confused in this matter because we are talking about Steve Jobs, who seems a pretty smart and decent guy anyway. How about if we replace Steve with Ken Lay, should 'Kenny Boy' receive a much higher level of medical care than somebody who choose to be a librarian rather than a 'business tycoon'?
You can probably guess I one of those evil socialist types ;o), but I come from a country where we have socialised medicine. It is certainly not perfect, but I don't believe that is a fault with the system, but a fault with the people running it.
In today's news world, the big news is that we hear about it only now and not two months ago.
Show me an HMO that doesn't ration health care.
>> but I come from a country where we have socialised medicine. It is certainly not perfect
If your country has socialized medicine; then I'm guessing that people go OUTSIDE the system (or even the country) to get the best care possible.
This Churchill quote seems appropriate right now: The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Stem cell therapy? On cancer? Please tell me you're joking. That'd be like putting out a fire with gasoline.
And no matter how much money you have, you can't just "buy" a new medical technology in a matter of a few months.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
you are GUESSING that, just like you said.
just like how americans run away to canada.
and therefore churchill quote is totally inappropriate.
Read radical news here
I wouldn't be immoral for me to accept the work, but it would be immoral of me to demand access to the liver so that I could use that during my 'overtime'
Wrong. This is pretty much the same as saying that when the goverment wouldn't subsidise car manufacturers, everyone could afford a Porsche.
A private education system, same as a private healthcare system, will charge for the services whatever the market can bear. That means for healthcare that the doctors will charge real shitloads of money. Just because they can - if people are seriously ill, they'll pay any cost to get healthy again. Those, who cannot afford to pay that huge sums of money would receive no healthcare - thre is no reason doctors would waste their time for the poor when they can use the time to treat wealthy patients. Everyone else would have to pray to their personal deity or to resort to traditional medicine (which is also pretty costly these days since there aren't that many places anymore where you can harvest herbs).
Same would happen to education.
Nope, your position is illogical because it is based on beliefs. In other words, economy is a religion for you.
What I describe are just facts. We have already had fully private education and fully private medicine. There is a good reason why 20th century has changed that.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
The true measure of a society is not how they treat the most valued, but how they treat the most despised.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
What's being suggested is all the same HEALTH benefits. The answer is of course that people "do" for a mixture of reasons possibly including getting paid and enjoying it. You don't need to bribe people with their health to get them to "do".
Conversely, punishing the poor with third rate or none existent healthcare, as you already do, has done nothing whatsoever to solve the problem you highlight, has it? Look at this list of recent unemployment rates. America is mid table amongst other countries that have "socialized" healthcare.
No, it doesn't need any explaining at all. You cast some people are vermin that don't deserve healthcare. Your analogy contains no possibility of any such vermin proving themselves worthy of healthcare. Your analogy casts people as vermin from birth to death, with no possibility of change. Or possibly, just possibly, your analogy that you thought unquestionable was a little silly.
That rather reveals that you don't know enough about "socialized" medicine to be passing any comment at all. Most countries that have "socialized" medicine don't make private medicine illegal.
Question: Why aren't you campaigning to get rid of the "socialized" fire service, "socialized" highways, and "socialized" police services you already have. Surely according to your line of thinking they will never work.
Is it just medical care that gets this treatment, or do you extend this to all goods and services?
It was the Washington Post that brought Nixon down, not the Wall Street Journal.
But when such a society treats the most despised better than they treat the most valued, what does that say about how they understand value? There are millions of disenfranchised working poor who cannot get medical treatment that prisoners in jail get simply by being incarcerated. If you can advance the constitutional rights of criminals, why is it that such arguments are not made for those who are financially imprisoned?
... to see how many people can't grasp the concept of human rights.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Must be great for Jobs, who has probably never before set foot in Tennessee in his life. Meanwhile, all the other transplant waiting list patients around the country, who either cannot afford the trip to Tennessee, or whose insurance won't pay for organ transportation, they can spent an extra eight months waiting...
So if any of these people or these people need a liver transplant, they should be front and center in line to get a brand new liver, well ahead of a supportive member of society that regularly pays his contribution to society?
Strawman. No one is suggesting elevating them to a higher status and pushing them to the front. What we're saying is that being arrested for shoplifting, DUI, or driving on a suspended license should not get you kicked from the "first come, first served, weighted for urgency" organ transplant list.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
This is actually an interesting question and while I don't know that I have a specific answer, if you ever have to deal with any of these three systems directly you know what a mess they are. Police and road work are easy to pick on.
Few people with a brain think, "Wow, those boys in blue do nothing but protect the innocent and save lives. They always tell the truth and never pull anyone over just to increase state revenue." And I've never been anywhere in the USA where people say, "Man, the road work here is done in such a well thought out manner and they're not constantly ripping things up over and over again and they're always on schedule." Corruption and greased palms go hand in hand with everything the government pays for--this includes the FEW things I think the government ought to pay for. So, even for someone like me (who is very much opposed to socializing most things), you're right that there are some things meet a certain threshold where they're good that the government pays for them.
Those aside though, I want to point out something that 2.5 of those have that most people proposing socialized medicine advocates generally don't advocate: local control. I don't have federal police officers or federal firemen and although there are SOME (this is the 2.5 deal) federal highways, a majority of the roads are handled by the state and county, not by the federal government. This gives locals more control and, in theory, leads to higher accountability to the people directly.
I would be much more willing to consider some kind of socialized medicine IF it was at a state level with no federal strings attached.
However, socializing medicine is a government "solution" to a government "problem" and the problem of corrupt medical and pharmaceutical companies. It's a way to get the government to pay for the excessive costs and fees being pushed out by the medical industry in general rather than dealing with the problem of what is, more or less, a price fixed quasi-monopoly. So now you have the government paying into these companies and with that kind of money they buy all the government they need to keep their cartel going. At least if it's localized there's a competitive market of sorts among the states rather than a big fat stupid bloated contract from the feds.
Health care in this country is broken and I have to say, it wasn't always broken. When my grandfather was born a stay in the hospital (and I have the bill) for his mother including all the delivery and care and everything came to a wooping $28. While inflation accounts for some of the disparity in costs, think of how much a week's stay would cost now without insurance. Why has the cost risen so much?
That's the real problem with healthcare. Instead of just saying, "No one can afford it, the government needs to pay for it..." no one seems to be asking, "Why can't people afford it?" The generations before my parents, my grandparents and up managed to be healthy and afford their doctors on the wages of working men and women. What's changed?
The answer is not as simply "do we socialize or not socialize?"
And it's not just the medical industry either. It's the American lifestyle. Healthcare is about surgery and pills and not about taking care of yourself. All one has to do is look at the rise of obesity here. My mom was on what seemed like 100 medications for multiple sclerosis for years. She was living in a state of just... numbness. More or less, one day she had an epiphany of sorts and changed her diet, started exercising regularly, lost 100ish pounds over the course of 16 months and now is on no meds, has stable blood pressure and is doing better than she's done in her entire life.
Should me or my neighbors have been forced to pay for someone like my mom
Money is pissed away by DOD like you wouldn't believe. I shudder sometimes at the huge amounts of money I see foolishly wasted...with no repercussions to the people who made the bad decisions. In fact often the most ineffective managers get the most promotions and awards.
I've seen the same kind of inefficiency, waste, and idiotic management... in large corporations. What you're talking about is not a feature of public vs. private sector, it's a feature of large vs. small. The exact same kind of bureaucracy, inefficiency, etc. infects any organization once is surpasses a certain size.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
The reason public run fire and police makes sense to you and public run healthcare doesn't is because that's the way it happens to be organised at the moment in your country. It's easy for me to envisage government run healthcare because I've seen it in my country. It's just as "obvious" as fire service, police, schools and highways to most people who have experience of it. The couple of American ex-pats I know that live in Britain don't need any more convincing. They know it's a better system than the one they grew up with.