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Deadly Drug-Resistant Fungus Sparks Outbreaks In UK (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: More than 200 patients in more than 55 UK hospitals were discovered by healthcare workers to be infected or colonized by the multi-drug resistant fungus Candida auris, a globally emerging yeast pathogen that has experts nervous. Three of the hospitals experienced large outbreaks, which as of Monday were all declared officially over by health authorities there. No deaths have been reported since the fungus was first detected in the country in 2013, but 27 affected patients have developed blood infections, which can be life-threatening. And about a quarter of the more than 200 cases were clinical infections. Officials in the UK aimed to assuage fear of the fungus and assure patients that hospitals were safe. "Our enhanced surveillance shows a low risk to patients in healthcare settings. Most cases detected have not shown symptoms or developed an infection as a result of the fungus," Dr Colin Brown, of Public Health England's national infection service, told the BBC.
Yet, public health experts are uneasy about the rapid emergence and level of drug resistance the pathogen is showing. In a surveillance update in July, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that C. auris "presents a serious global health threat." It was first identified in the ear of a patient in Japan in 2009. Since then, it has spread swiftly, showing up in more than a dozen countries, including the U.S., according to the CDC. So far, health officials have reported around 100 infections in nine U.S. states and more than 100 other cases where the fungus was detected but wasn't causing an infection.
Yet, public health experts are uneasy about the rapid emergence and level of drug resistance the pathogen is showing. In a surveillance update in July, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that C. auris "presents a serious global health threat." It was first identified in the ear of a patient in Japan in 2009. Since then, it has spread swiftly, showing up in more than a dozen countries, including the U.S., according to the CDC. So far, health officials have reported around 100 infections in nine U.S. states and more than 100 other cases where the fungus was detected but wasn't causing an infection.
Hopefully Mulley and Sculder are all over it.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
But don't you usually use anti-fungals on fungal infections? I could be wrong but I thought antibiotics usually only target bacterias or rather fungi are usually used to create antibiotics.
People will freak out thanks to the internet and media FUD over something they won't get.
I'm waiting for west nile to return. Maybe in 20 years.
I admit I'm a little confused. I'm getting mixed messages from this. Is the fungal infection deadly, or have there been no deaths from it. I admit I haven't read the source yet but it's sounding to me that it's not deadly and rather the concern is only the fact it's drug resistant.
US fear of socialised medicine makes them believe paying more than twice as much for the same outcomes with millions of people denied access is actually "superior".
Looks like someone just started a Fungus run. I could never beat it with a fungus . . .
USA
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
The National Institutes of Health
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Plus all of the different insurance companies, hospitals, etc etc etc
More than 200 patients in more than 55 UK hospitals were discovered by healthcare workers to be infected or colonized by the multi-drug resistant fungus Candida auris,
Should we blame the government, or blame society? Should we blame the images on TV?
No! Blame Candida... blame Candida..
US hospitals are required to do whatever it takes to save a life. Other countries have more reasonable policies.
I was in a motorcycle accident and no one asked for insurance info until after my third surgery. Too many people overstate how bad the US has if wrt medical care.
I'm sure you will find it reasonable to have yourself written off where taking some extra measures might have saved your life.
Toe jelly fungi is rotted to the core. Ja, first thing I thought.
US hospitals are required to do whatever it takes to save a life. Other countries have more reasonable policies.
That saved me after a motorcycle accident. I was rearended on I-405 in the Seattle area while stopped. The truck that hit me was doing an estimated 45 MPH according to the police report. I had seven surgeries of which three were needed to save my life. I wasn't asked about health insurance coverage until I was being discharged. My wife that was a nurse in the UK for 13 years said that in the UK, they would have just let me die. Health care in the US is expensive, but if you need it, it will save your life. It sucks having a $150k medical bill, but it's better than being left for dead.
Is "enhanced surveillance" anything like "enhanced interrogation"?
It can clean out dreaded gut infections. Look up best anti-fungal foods on the net.
I was in a motorcycle accident and no one asked for insurance info until after my third surgery. Too many people overstate how bad the US has if wrt medical care.
Try having an illness instead. See how that works out.
No sig today...
Not a doctor, but there is only a little overlap between antibiotics and antifungal medications. This stuff is resistant to Diflucan (I'm not trying to spell the generic name correctly right now), which is often handed out with much less oversight than antibiotics. Any bio-female could probably get a few doses for a yeast infection without seeing their doctor; calling in and asking is all most require since it is a common ailment.
The problem is that many primary care doctors have been told that C. albicans (the common human strain) can not become resistant. I was told the same, only to be corrected by a very indignant Tropical and Infectious Disease specialist who had seen that first line drug become useless in a few cases.
But this doesn't mean we need to panic and shut down Madagascar. There are other classes of drugs, like the old standby nystatin, and other families of antifungal medications in the larger azole drug category. This should be treatable if caught early. The danger is that drugs like nystatin can not be absorbed so they only treat dermal or gastric infections, while amphotericin B (same class) does kidney damage at the effective dose. So someone who has a systemic infection is going to only have treatments available that cause as much damage as they are trying to prevent. And hospital acquired infections can become systemic very quickly.
US hospitals are required to do whatever it takes to save a life.
It's amazing just how much of a motive profit is.
I had a heart attack in the US, and they kept me alive in the ICU for fifteen days. They wanted to be able to collect from insurance.
When I was in Mexico and was dehydrated and delirious from drinking several strong alcoholic drinks that were later proven to be counterfeits, they did nothing until I pulled out my American Express Gold card. Then, and only then, did they start treating me. They called AmEx, and they said they would approve any spending to keep me alive. I will never cancel my AmEx card or travel outside the country again.
The good news is that we've finally halted global warming! The bad news is that the Earth now hungers for the flesh of man. :-/
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Antifa?
Thank God someone is standing up to Fascism!
When I was bitten by a rattlesnake ... I would have just been written-off as dead.
Your (mis?)use of commas makes this sentence very difficult to parse. So let's deal with a single clause:
I got well over six figures of care while in a socialist country
That's the way it goes in a 1st world country with socialised medicine: We look to cure the patient irrespective of the cost and only later ask who pays. It's funny when we get American tourists at our hospital (here in Australia) and they are reaching for their wallets ... and we're "nah mate, don't worry about that, let's fix you up first."
Difficult to parse, yes, but what I believe he meant is that he got a lot of care in the US, while in a socialist country he would have been left to die. That has not been my experience, FWIW, but that's what he meant.
As a long-term athlete's foot patient, I've been under the impression that the anti-fungal drugs haven't worked very well for a very long time...
It begins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordyceps
I was in a motorcycle accident and no one asked for insurance info until after my third surgery.
Perhaps they were more concerned about keeping you alive - and so your insurance info would matter.
Hospital Emergency Rooms in the US are required by law to treat everyone regardless of insurance / ability to pay. Not so much in the other areas of the healthcare industry.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Fire still works.
I got a fungus that only a new drug could kill about 8 years ago. Even with the new drug it took over three years to completely kill it.
It just wasn't worth the risk of going to a health club and using their wet areas any more.
Smaller clubs have fewer members, dryer equipment, and are under $15 a month.
But it still worries me how resistant the stuff was.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The U.S. is the best health care in the world ...for about the richest 2% of the population.
For the rest of us, it's so bad that we have shorter adult lifespans and higher infant mortality rates.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Not Venezuela, but many other places. I had excellent OPLL surgery on my neck for about $14,000, including four nights in a private hospital room. In the US it would have been (I'm told) close to a quarter million.
That's what's wrong with (many of) you Americans. You see a dictatorial regime. It so happens to misuse socialist ideology in its oppression and you immediately use that country as a benchmark for 'the socialist state'. It's disgusting! The U.S. of A. Proudly ruining a fourth generation with the notion of capitalist supremacy.
You can mod me into oblivion now, I just had to blow off some steam...
Use potassium permanganate. Just buy some of the powder off ebay (whatever size you buy will last the rest of your life). Put a small amount in some warm water. When I say small amount, I mean small. Like the amount that you can get on the end of a house key. You want enough water to cover your feet, and enough potassium permanganate to dye the water a light pink. If it's purple, you used too much. If it's dark, you went way, way too far. Anyway, you can also add some epsom salt to the water. Make sure it's nice and warm, and soak your feet for a half-hour every couple of days until it clears up. Trust me, it will. In order for it to work, you'll need to treat your shoes with boric acid (again, ebay. Get a big bag.). A good dusting is all you need. Also, wash your socks in hot water, and keep your socks on around the house. Bleach your shower and bathroom floor daily. It's all easy stuff. Follow the protocol and your athlete's foot will be gone.
A fine effort to instantly derail the thread.
Here in the UK we've had quite enough of that already.
That comment and the parent are complete lies and such obvious lies I'm surprised anyone went with it.
In the NHS you get care for as long as you need it, free of charge if you're a UK citizen*. It almost certainly will cost a lot less than in the US largely because the NHS is more efficient than a million doctors, hospitals, insurers and drug companies all spending on advertising and sending bills to each other and all extracting profits from the patients.
It's not all great. Because recent governments have introduced the private sector into the NHS, the kind of shortcuts (do the minimum the contract requires - charge fees for everything else), incompetence (get rid of lots of staff, specially the more experienced, hire some new cheap not-as-good ones) and fiddles (no-one ever checks so we'll make up the figures) which grow when profits are the main motive are creeping in there too.
* For those not poor, old or chronically ill, prescription medicines are £8.60 and dentistry costs a maximum of £244.30.
Bullshit
>That's the kind of problem we get when crybabies keep asking for antibiotics for being sad.
It might be kind of problem, but this specific problem isn't caused by antibiotics being overprescribed. Yeast are eukaryotes, antibiotics don't really work to begin with against them.
I thought it was short for Anti-First Admendment.
I was in a motorcycle accident and no one asked for insurance info...
This is where my story would have ended in my country. No "until" qualifier required.
And you think the first amendment is "Kill all the Jews"?
"In the NHS you get care for as long as you need it, free of charge if you're a UK citizen*"
WRONG. Talk about a bald-faced lie.
You get care for as long as the NHS deems you are worth treating. The second the doctors (who work for, are paid by, and make decisions in the best interest of NHS) feel like you are likely to be terminal, you are cut off. This is FACT. ABSOLUTE FACT.
When my gran came up with a small skin cancer on her ear, the doctor said it was melanoma and untreatable and NHS declined to treat, saying she would die anyway.
I flew her to the US the next week where, within 6 hours of landing in Atlanta, she was in the office having the legion removed. The doctor said it was Stage 1, non invaded, and that there was no excuse for NHS not to simply cut it off.
We never went back to the UK, and I brought my wife and kids over some weeks after. I couldn't have my kids murdered at some point by those butchers.
It's a problem that we have fostered a culture of quick fixes and pills for everything. This is a direct result of our attempts to contain in control nature in these ways. Not directly related except through method.
What country do you live in that allows you to buy bleach?
It may come to pass that hospital rooms will get sterilised by fire and bleach each time a patient is discharged. Maybe go so extreme as to use temporary building structures in case these bugs stick around in the pores of the walls, and tear the walls down, grind them to dust, and pass them through fire and bleach before recycling.
There's big jugs of bleach in all grocery stores in Canada. What country do you live in that DOES NOT allow you to buy bleach?
#DeleteFacebook
The one good thing, nay, GREAT thing about NHS is that only the strong survive, and so the gene pool doesn't fade like it does in the US and other countries with the will and the means to spend 15% of their GDP on medical care.
Don't worry, the inefficiency of US healthcare more than makes up for the amount spent on it.
The top google ranked page - https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/dis... - says: ".... Based on information from a limited number of patients, 30–60% of people with C. auris infections have died. However, many of these people had other serious illnesses that also increased their risk of death..."
My wife that was a nurse in the UK for 13 years said that in the UK, they would have just let me die.
You can't blame your marital problems on the NHS.
What a rotten party, have we run out of beer or something?
I don't think that anyone ever said that there weren't better options than the NHS for someone in the financial position to pay for multiple trans-atlantic plane tickets and spur-of-the-moment relocation costs, rather than ask for a second opinion.
There is a point where treating any disease is no longer in the best interests of the patient - it's unethical to do so. Sounds like your Gran was misdiagnosed into that category - that happens under any system, regardless of cost. I'm glad you were able to help her.
First, there have been no reported deaths from this infection as per the article, so how exactly is this deadly? Dangerous, potentially deadly? So, please, lets title these articles responsibly. The remainder of this post is not meant to bash the parent, just to define terms and clarify concepts. My opinion is at the end.
Not a doctor, but there is only a little overlap between antibiotics and antifungal medications.
The term antibiotic covers both anti-bacterial agents (e.g. penicillin) used against bacteria, and anti-fungals (e.g. fluconaole/Diflucan), and technically, they also refer to anti-virals (e.g. aciclovir), but in the most common use, antibiotics refer to antibacterials, and never to antivirals. There are no medications that treat both bacteria (prokaryotes [no nucleus]), fungus (eukaryotes [true nucleus]) simultaneously; yes, bleach (sodium hypochlorite) can destroy both, but internal use is discouraged [and as referenced in the wikipedia article, your body's neutrophils (a type of white blood cell - cells that fight infection) uses hypochlorous acid as an antimicrobial . So.....yes and no. [sorry that kept getting longer and longer]
This stuff is resistant to Diflucan (I'm not trying to spell the generic name correctly right now),
Flu con a zole - that's not too hard....Talimogene Laherparepvec...that's hard. :-)
which is often handed out with much less oversight than antibiotics.
Ummm, no. You can get pretty powerful topical antibiotics and topical antifungals over the counter. Fluconazole is an oral antifungal that still requires a prescription (at least in the US and other "responsible" countries).
Any bio-female could probably get a few doses for a yeast infection without seeing their doctor; calling in and asking is all most require since it is a common ailment.
It is a common ailment, but it is also a true infection that can be cultured and proven, and usually requires treatment. (I don't want you to poo-poo this aliment :-), pretty miserably for those afflicted), and unless there is a well established relationship between physician and patient, an exam is required (and strongly encouraged to rule out other more dangerous diagnoses).
The problem is that many primary care doctors have been told that C. albicans (the common human strain) can not become resistant. I was told the same, only to be corrected by a very indignant Tropical and Infectious Disease specialist who had seen that first line drug become useless in a few cases.
I see fluconazole resistant candida albicans frequently (reported 7% resistance rate), but I work at a tertiary care referral center, so YMMV. Never been under the illusion that it could not become resistant. Every organism (meaning microbial species) given enough time and opportunity can become resistant to just about anything.....The only thing that microbial organisms will never become resistant to is fire, well heat anyways (shout out to the the post below).
But this doesn't mean we need to panic and shut down Madagascar. There are other classes of drugs, like the old standby nystatin, and other families of antifungal medications in the larger azole drug category. This should be treatable if caught early. The danger is that drugs like nystatin can not be absorbed so
That happened.
Socialism is oppression. All that varies are the methods and targets of the oppression.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
read up on this there have been plenty of studies on this that show your statements as wrong. The reality is the early infant deaths are caused by illegals not going to hospitals and premature births. The other factor for young deaths is that Americans do lots more adventurous and feet into more accidents. On the good side of you do get into an accident or life threatening injury and if you make it to an ambulance you have a better chance of being kept alive then any other country.
Use potassium permanganate. Just buy some of the powder off ebay (whatever size you buy will last the rest of your life). Put a small amount in some warm water. When I say small amount, I mean small. Like the amount that you can get on the end of a house key. You want enough water to cover your feet, and enough potassium permanganate to dye the water a light pink. If it's purple, you used too much. If it's dark, you went way, way too far. Anyway, you can also add some epsom salt to the water. Make sure it's nice and warm, and soak your feet for a half-hour every couple of days until it clears up. Trust me, it will. In order for it to work, you'll need to treat your shoes with boric acid (again, ebay. Get a big bag.). A good dusting is all you need. Also, wash your socks in hot water, and keep your socks on around the house. Bleach your shower and bathroom floor daily. It's all easy stuff. Follow the protocol and your athlete's foot will be gone.
This. Potassium permanganate. This was how we treat athlete's foot and most nail fungal infections back in my country of origin. Pretty safe to use when we follow the instructions. Same things with Borax or boric acid, bleach or hydrogen peroxide.
Hell, I suffered all my life of sinus infections till I started doing nasal rinses with a neti pot using a solution containing borax and diluted alkalol. Alkalol helps breaks mucus when/if I have a stuffy nose, but it is borax the thing that has eliminated whatever fungal/bacterial problems I had.
On remote areas, one way to deal with scabies (typically when in contact with an infected animal), we'd apply kerosene to the area. Painless and effective. We'd also give kerosene baths to dogs infected with scabies. Not the best thing to do to a family pet, but that was the first (and many times) course of action for people who could not afford make a trip to a vet.
The alternative in the US is you die or go bankrupt.
What country do you live in that allows you to buy bleach?
Where the hell do you live?
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
The alternative in the US is you die or go bankrupt.
I'm confident that no one in the US has died or gone bankrupt because they were on vacation when their blood pressure appointment rolled around.
Hasn't killed anyone yet.
there was no excuse for NHS not to simply cut it off
I couldn't have my kids murdered at some point by those butchers.
If they wouldn't cut up your Gran why do you think they'll cut up your kids?
HUNGRIES!
All the Gifts...
Try living in Sweden. I have 30km to the closes "first aid hut" and If I try to see a doctor I am given a time and when I show up I am told to f*ck off and try again later.
Have ya considered moving back to civilization?
In the USA, we don't have hospitals out in the wilderness either.
One great plus about "repeal and replace" - the Medicaid cuts would close many smaller hospitals serving smaller communities. Those who voted for the republicans just don't realize yet that they'd voted for the deaths of family members.
Candida isn't drug resistant in the US. We are superior lol.
This is marked -1? Come on liberals, we get it, you have no sense of humor, but this funny. Learn to laugh at yourselves a little. It's healthy.
This started happening over a year ago, affecting the brains of a significant percentage of the British population, including most of its politicians.
A fine effort to instantly derail the thread.
Here in the UK we've had quite enough of that already.
Glad nobody was seriously injured.
Is it just me, or is this happening more frequently since May has been in charge?
As a long-term athlete's foot patient, I've been under the impression that the anti-fungal drugs haven't worked very well for a very long time...
Athlete's foot - another reason I refuse to excercise.
Oral thrush (oropharyngeal candidiasis) is a yeast infection that develops on the inside of your mouth and on your tongue. This infection is caused by the fungus Candida albicans. Even with treatment, it can be difficult to control and has been known to spread to other parts of the body
The unspoken fear is that Candida auris will start to appear in association with oral sex. When that happens - and it will - all bets are off.
We never went back to the UK, and I brought my wife and kids over some weeks after.
Trump will deport you and rest of your illegal alien family.
Socialism is oppression. All that varies are the methods and targets of the oppression.
Capitalism is oppression.All that varies are the methods and targets of the oppression.
Nice theory, but utterly wrong. The US has a huge public healthcare system (socialized medicine) that spends more per American citizen than many European countries or New Zealand. So, if your theory was true, the US government could simply extend that public healthcare system to the entire population, just like in Europe, without changing anything about the existing private health insurance system. The private system would just go away if everybody got everything covered through taxes they already pay.
The problem with US healthcare is precisely that the US system of socialized medicine lacks sufficient cost controls, and forcing more people into such an inefficient system would make things work.
And the reasons the US system is so costly are also fairly straightforward: the US has powerful medical, healthcare, and pharma lobbies that get their way; and the US has powerful lobbies for the elderly who also get their way. And their way is that they want everything to be done to "save people's lives", as opposed to saying things like "cancer treatment doesn't make sense for you", or "it's probably nothing, you don't need an MRI", or "a 20 year old generic drug will do, you don't need the latest patented drug".
The idea that differences in life expectancy are mostly due to large differences in the quality of medical are are not supported by data. In fact, they are largely determined by public health issues and lifestyle choices: obesity, tobacco, alcohol, sedentary lifestyle, lack of exercise, drug addiction, communicable diseases, national origin, STDs, single parenthood, stressful jobs, driving, guns, etc.
Furthermore, the bottom 98% also receive vastly more sophisticated and costly medical care than people in countries with much cheaper health care systems and longer life expectancies.
Candida infections are often a sign of some underlying problem. For example, Candida infections are strongly associated with both obesity and diabetes, through multiple mechanisms; there are other common causes. Treating people for Candida without diagnosing and addressing the underlying problem or behavioral issue is irresponsible.
Correct. But "as long as you need it" is not sufficient for US voters: US voters want treatment "as long as they want it and as they want it". There is a big difference. US patients often want heroic end-of-life treatments and the latest technology and gadgets, none of which is actually needed. Furthermore, the UK has a significant private healthcare sector, which provide higher quality services to those who want them and can pay for them.
Well, yes: the NHS is a nationalized system with public providers and strict cost controls (the Beveridge model). An NHS-like model is a political non-starter even among the most progressive and left wing voters and politicians in the US.
People pushing for single payer in the US aren't talking about such a model. The model they are talking about is one in which drug companies, hospitals, and doctors continue to operate privately, make massive private profits, and use advertising, while tax payers are coerced to pay for it pretty much without limit. And that is really the worst of all possible "single payer" systems.
I don't use those dirty communist measurements, but I live in America. It's further than that, ~24 miles, just to a town. A hospital is a 1.25 hour journey, in good weather. The VA is about 2 hours away.
To be clear, I live here by choice.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The same outcome? I don't have to wait for diagnostic services as an American. I have never felt the need to go to the private market in order to get a CAT scan in a timely fashion.
Your claim of "millions denied access" is just bogus media narrative.
Basic medical care is no more expensive than what Americans blow on pets, beauty treatments, and over priced lattes.
Besides, Obamacare was supposed to solve that whole "access" problem.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The screeching liberals tend to forget about the socialized medicine systems we already have in place. People that are genuinely bad off in the US get free health care.
The only real issue is whether or not able bodied, young, working people that can fed for themselves get something for nothing.
That's what American liberals are really screeching for. They want government benefits and don't want to contribute to the collective price for them. THAT is the real difference between the US and Europe.
Our liberals are total deadbeats.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
...subject to rationing and waiting lists.
You may need some life saving surgery and you might eventually even get it. You will have to wait for it though. You may even die in the meantime.
You can see people on protest sites appealing the meds they've been denied or see people raising private money to pay for their own NHS operations on GoFundMe. Or you could simply read the British press for plenty of reasons to rubbish the NHS.
None of this stuff is secret or hidden.
The liberal press in Britain will happily rubbish the NHS.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Pretty much. Don't do CPR on me. Don't do any heroics. Don't keep me alive if I'm brain dead. Just drug my ass and let me die. I can afford that stuff, but death doesn't scare me. Being unable to enjoy life scares me, but not death.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
> Try having an illness instead. See how that works out.
So you've got some actual experience with this or are you just some moron repeating something he heard from CNN or The Other 98%?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> Not Venezuela, but many other places. I had excellent OPLL surgery on my neck for about $14,000, including four nights in a private hospital room. In the US it would have been (I'm told) close to a quarter million.
Except you wouldn't have actually paid that.
Your medical tourism requires a big bag of money.
Getting treated in the US doesn't.
If you've got the big bag of money to engage in medical tourism, or even just regular foreign tourism, then you're clearly not in a position to be forced to pay cash for medical care.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I have a keen interest in social justice. The fact that people openly and blatantly talk about the extermination of innocent fungus destroys my faith in humanity. You are just like the NAZIs who want to kill all the jews and brag about it. Is any concern being given to these fungi and the lives they are trying to live. We need to celebrate our toenail fungus, not try to destroy it.
Can we get a candle light vigil.
No. We distrust central authority in general.
That's the problem with the current liberal narrative about Confederate monuments or even the Electoral College. It glosses over a lot of the relevant history and background material.
The EU doesn't have a single continent wide medical system but the US is expected to magically build an effective one. That's deranged.
The "shining examples" that tend to get held up in Europe are the size of American cities. They aren't even as large as most of our States. The closest reasonable comparison to the US is the UK and their actual results suck compared those same nordic utopias.
Plus we already have BADLY implemented forms of socialized medicine.
Bernie wants to force Medicare on me and the jackass doesn't even use it himself.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Yes. In the US you get to make that choice. It's not made for you.
I really can't imagine what kind of mindset you need to have to consider anything less as acceptable. Is life really seen as so cheap in Europe that it's acceptable to give up on people?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
That's because you do not pay for your health care directly. Direct Pay is the way to save health care. In the current system the doctors are paid by the hospital, which is paid by the insurance company, which is paid for by the patients employer. If you get good care it is an accident. The only incentive the doctors / hospitals have for providing reasonable care is the threat of being sued. This is the opposite of how it should work.
The doctors should feel the need to provide the patient with good care because they are the ones paying for the service.
Imagine how much an apple would costs in instead of buying food directly, you purchased 'food insurance' that worked out special deals with farmers to get good deals on food, and if there was an government agency ensuring only the best nutritionally proven foods could get to the market. Also imagine it took 20 years of schooling to be certified to grow food. Also there were lawyers looking to sue the farmer for every apple sold with a worm in in.
Insurance companies are the problem, but the solution is not to have a government agency provide health care. The socialized system would ultimately be no more responsive than the current system. The patient needs to be paying their doctor directly. If the patient can not afford the doctor, then the doctor will have to lower her or his price or not have enough patients to stay in business. The is how the free market works, and is the means to provide the most goods and services to the most people at the best price. We do not have a free market. We have monopolistic government backed corporations bribing our congressmen to create the most inefficient system imaginable to grantee a steady source of income for the folks living in ivory towers
I'm not sure that the private sector in the UK is of "higher quality". More comfortable accommodation, and you can get treatment when you want it without waiting, but you know what happens if something goes wrong in a private hospital? They pick up the phone and dial 999 and an NHS ambulance comes along and takes you to the nearest NHS hospital that does A&E. If it were a real emergency, with a risk of dying in the ambulance, you might wish that you'd been in the NHS hospital to start with.
Apparently it's almost true to say that non-emergency NHS hospital services are a by-product of providing adequate emergency cover: it doesn't cost anything extra for the NHS to provide a modicum of cosmetic surgery, for example, because all the staff and equipment would have to be there anyway just in case there's a big motorway pile-up. When such a pile-up occurs all the non-emergency patients get shunted to the side, obviously. That's one of the ways in which the NHS manages to be relatively efficient (compared to healthcare in other countries).
Amongus! It's humongous.
None of that is true. Sorry about that - I suffer from mental health problems and am a compulsive liar. My therapist has told me I have to come clean when I catch myself lying. I'm actually from Springfield, New Jersey and live in my mom's basement.
I hope you can all forgive me.
Or perhaps they are just more selfless than you? Maybe what you are doing is what's called projection - 'I'm a selfish bastard therefore everyone else has selfish motives too'.
In 1981, 8 percent of bankruptcy filing were for medical reasons.
By 2009, just before the ACA was passed, 62.1% percent of bankruptcy filing were for medical reasons. (American Journal of Medicine)
Medical bankruptcy appears to be back down to 30% as of 2016. If the ACA is repealed, that's expected to quickly return to and then exceed 60% levels again. Additionally, under the House plan 27,000 more americans would die per year each year going forward for the next 10 years. Under the Senate plan only 22,000 more americans would die per year each year for the next 10 years. That's going to bring up the adult mortality (and probably the infant mortality) rates quite a bit.
About 15% of Canadians had medical bankruptcy's the same year.
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The age ranges most often bankrupted by medical bills are 35-44 (29%). Followed by 44-55 (27%) and 25-34 (19%).
I personally know a 34 year old who was forced to get insurance by the ACA who was bitter that she didn't need it and then three months later had a car accident with $90,000 (and counting) medical bills. Her cut under her ACA insurance?- about $4000. Without it, she would have a) not had a lot of therapy she needed (and have ended up permanently crippled like another person I knew years ago who had a car accident without insurance) and she still would have had over $40,000 in medical bills (ambulance, ICU for a couple days, then hospital for a couple days.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I don't know? Let's try changing that? Is life so valuable that it's worth any expense and/or hardship - even if that hardship is borne by other people who are paying for your care?
In my view, no. Death is the ultimate outcome of life. We all get older, sick, and die. Accepting it seems to be better - for me - than trying to oppose the only possible outcome of life.
For the record, I think we should have single-payer health care. What that should look like is up for debate, but I'm pretty sure it's less expensive and has been shown to have better outcomes than what we currently have. Personally, I'm okay with no heroics performed on me. Hell, I don't even want someone to do CPR on me. I have even signed an DNR.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
America pays à price for worshipping Sodom, gomorrah and cynicism. And for watching too much Hollywood.
Communism has killed more people than its stepchild fascism.
The fact Stalin won the war and was Americas Ally does not Change this fact.
Antifa are commies.
I love arguments like this. They make claims and instead of providing sources they expect the reader to go supply their own.
All this does is ensure that everyone who is discussing the topic has read different things!
If you have a position, and make claims about that position, it behooves YOU the most to backup that position with sources.
I just want reasonable health care costs. The US spends 17% of GDP on health care, which is more than nations with socialized health care pay. We are paying enough that everyone should get health care, but our in system a lot of that money goes to administration, profit margins, etc. A single-payer system is superior.
Let's see, on top of the premiums I pay... I pay a $30 copay every time my son see's a specialists. He has 6 and has a speech intelligibility rating of 24% requiring therapy 4 times a week. So in the grand scheme of things I have to pay over $6000/year for speech alone (presuming they dont limit the amount of therapies/year) not to mention other therapies (occupational, behavioral) I have to pay. Oh did I mention that my insurance will only pay for him to have 50 therapy sessions a year (this lumps them all together). So if I forgo the occupational and behavioral therapy, sending him only to speech I pay $1500 copay and 158 more therapies that I pay completely out of pocket (if I am lucky, ~$6000/year). Oh, did I mention that $6000 does not count towards my annual maximum, because... you know... they only allow 50 therapy sessions a year? Its okay, I am sure that speech therapy will do much more for his autism than occupational and behavioral. I have a lot better insurance than I have had in the past but why then can I not afford to give my child the care he needs even with "really good" insurance? Society can pay for the care he needs now or pay for it later when he is an adult (I am pretty sure incarceration is more expensive though).
Interesting statistics. Also interesting that in Canada, with it's highly socialized health care system, the rate of medical bankruptcy is half of America's under the ACA. Why isn't it almost zero? Oh, that's because in both cases, loss of income due to illness is part of medical bankruptcy statistics. In other words, if you break your leg the medical costs won't bankrupt you, but staying home from work for a couple of months just might. Guess they need AFLAC.
At any rate, I'm still confident confident that no one in the US has died or gone bankrupt because they were on vacation when their blood pressure appointment rolled around.
I don't know... 120 million adults, 120 million seniors.
If the odds are 1:1,000,000 it happens roughly twice a year.
If the odds are 1:10,000,000 it happens roughly twice a decade.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
No-one raises private money to pay for their own NHS operations. NHS operations are free.
IIRC, Candida blood infection means the thing managed to grow mycelium inside blood vessels. I am not sure wether a patient is supposed to recover from that if antibiotics are of no help.
Who would have paid for it?
I've lived in over half a dozen countries, including central Africa. What country do you live in that doesn't allow you to buy bleach?
Experience with going to the doctor for an illness? Something literally everyone has done? They WILL ask for your insurance information before you see a doctor if you're not showing up at the ER with something requiring immediate care.
Just don't mix the potassium permanganate crystals with anything containing glycerin (some liquid soaps do, I think). Potassium permanganate + glycerin => spontaneous combustion.
"Can not", or "has not" (with a silent but implicit "yet, that we know of")?
IANA-medic, but between creationist-bashing and simple interest in the mechanisms of evolution, I'm struggling to think of a chain of logic that could lead to a reasoned claim that "(any human-infecting organism) CAN NOT become resistant to (any treatment, be it chemical, biological)". If you kill off only one bacterium out of a quadrillion, leaving the rest to continue reproducing, you'll have some effect on the composition of the gene pool even if it is undetectably small. If you're killing off more (say, 30% of a population per generation), the you're clearly going to put a significant (novel) selection pressure on the population, which will evolve purely by the cull-reproduce-cull cycle, and it will evolve in the direction of resisting the selecting effect.
It's actually slightly scary that either an appropriately qualified biological scientist could make such a claim, and that trained physicians might actually believe it. I know that doctors aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer when it comes to genetics (in the same way that rocket scientists aren't necessarily up to speed on the materials science of why such-and-such an alloy has the properties they desire), but you do expect a university-educated degree of competence.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Anonymous coward wrote:
"I just want reasonable health care costs. The US spends 17% of GDP on health care, which is more than nations with socialized health care pay. We are paying enough that everyone should get health care, but our in system a lot of that money goes to administration, profit margins, etc. A single-payer system is superior."
If someone wants to mod them up.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Why adding epsom salt to the bath water, though? As a materials scientist, I am baffled by that, seemingly random, addition.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
"Can not" is what was repeated to me. I don't recall if it was my GP, one of the nurses, or who.
Why? I have no idea. Maybe they thought it worked like bleach. Maybe the drug reps repeated it so many times that they believed it. Maybe they knew better and were trying to allay my concerns (not knowing I would go over their heads).
Yes, I used antibiotics in the common sense. I did say I'm not a doctor.
Diflucan is saved in my phones autocorrect. Fluconazole wasn't. I couldn't remember the second vowel; my memory is sometimes junk.
I didn't say a C.albicans infection wasn't a true infection. I know it is. I've had it turn into a kidney infection (long story involving caths, neo-bladder surgeries, and congenital defects). I said that they can be handed out without an exam by some doctors. Some offices want a positive swab culture before they let you just call in and ask, others just ask "have you tried OTC treatments?". I think that can be problematic.
I don't recall who it was at my GP's office who repeated the "can not be resistant" line to me. May have been a practising nurse writing my script, may have been a doctor thinking I wouldn't double-check with someone who deals with the strange amd nasty. Could be they believed the drug reps who love to repeat what ever story they have been told.
As for the other details, thanks for the links. Those paywalls may bug some, but I know the password for the local medical campus wifi and can access most of those. I don't disagree with anything you added. I was replying as a layman; who happens to have some colonization by Vanc-resistant E.coli occasionally (just Vanc resistant. macrobid, cipro, even some mild b-lactums will kill it. And hell no we're not trying to kill it). I've seen the ease with which some doctors want to treat colonies; going to see a nurse, or the ER, for an unrelated problem can result in a resident really wanting to prove themselves by "treating all the things". I've had a consulting specialist schedule me for surgery without my knowledge, because he 'knew' what the real problem was and didn't need to speak to the doctor who's work he was messing with.
There is a lot of ego in the primary and secondary levels of medicine. They see 90 some percent of their patients get better, and sometimes never again see the patients they send further up the chain.
I'm glad to see that tertiary care is on top of this problem. I had heard rumors of the problem years ago, but my primary care center had not and neither had the local ER cleaning staff. The more this gets talked about, the better.