I agree with this. Right now you get the whole, “YOUR TAXES WILL GO UP OMG THEY’RE SOCIALISTS!!!”
If everyone got paid the full amount then paid the full amount themselves every month, that argument would dry up REAL fucking quick. “My taxes will go up by $1200 a month but I’ll save $1,800 a month? I come out $600 a month ahead? OMG SOCIALISM YAYYYYYY!!!”
Remember that absurd ruling that the mandate was unconstitutional thus the entire ACA must be struck down? The one everyone said had no shot at getting Roberts to uphold it?
Well that’s the one they’re hearing a week after the election. The ACA probably died last night. Kavanaugh is our best hope it appears.
https://twitter.com/therealdoctort/status/1306277049674457090?s=21
https://twitter.com/therealdoctort/status/1306277050995662849?s=21
https://twitter.com/therealdoctort/status/1306277052258168836?s=21
Rest of this is a brutal thread, but we all know this shit is happening every day in USA #183, and it’s only going to get worse now.
The end hit me hard. My own father thinks my plight is not that serious or is amusing.
But should I really be surprised? My parents forgot my birthday until 10pm or so this year.
And we expect strangers to give a fuck about each other? We’re the weirdos guys.
Good lord this thread. I know I’m not well because too often tears are welling in my eyes. Or maybe that means I am finally well. I don’t know.
I mentioned this before, and fortunately we haven’t been in a position with a very serious illness or rationing medication, but since last November, we have had to spend $6,000 out of pocket (on top of copays, premiums, etc) because my kid had to go to the ER for what turned out to be massive constipation and my wife had a breast cancer scare. $6,000 in the past year to diagnose constipation and give an enema and to do tests that that showed my wife wasn’t sick. That’s a lot of fucking money for really not much of anything.
Not that the hospitals, doctors, clinics, labs, etc. don’t deserve to be paid - they did their jobs and did them well - but I’m already paying for all that shit with insurance. We’re still paying those bills off. Just paid $330 on one of them this week. We’re lucky we can afford it, but they were still significant enough expenses where we asked for a payment plan.
Yeah I mean outside like 10% of the country nobody reads their health insurance plan and understands their out of pocket max. So many people don’t understand that what happened to you can easily happen to them.
Insurers are free rolling most of their customers. Yet another area where the media has failed completely.
When I was in the ER for a few hours because of chest pain there was a woman who walks around collecting insurance information. I remembered her from the last time I was there. She walks into the room and I can tell she’s smiling (from her eyes, she’s got a mask on obv). I’ve got about a dozen wires attached to my chest, arms, legs, from the EKG. Mask on. Feel like shit. She has me sign about a dozen pages of legalese that I have no idea what it says. Gets my wallet for me from across the room because I can’t stand up. I scribble my consent on whatever tf she hands me and hope I didn’t fuck up my insurance, or go to the wrong hospital, or have someone out of network treat me without my knowledge.
I think about that woman quite a bit. What a job, wandering around a hospital collecting bills from people on the worst day of their lives.
That sucks and all, but you do realize (or maybe you don’t) that no matter what info you give or don’t give to that woman, you will get the same emergency room care. So, I don’t think it’s that hard for that woman to not feel bad about her job. She knows full well they will treat you the same no matter what she does.
Don’t get me wrong, they’ll come for the money, and it may ruin you. But it will be much later. And what she did will help. But it won’t change the care that you get on that day.
Shit like this so so insane, and people really don’t grasp it until it hits them personally. The system is also designed to prey on people incapable of maneuvering the bureaucratic bullshit. I met my $5k out of pocket deductible on like January 5th. In the last 2 weeks alone I’ve received over $1200 in medical bills that I shouldn’t have to pay, but it’s on me to contact all the right people and say the right things to get it taken care of before it goes to collection. It’ll be literally hours of phone calls to multiple entities.
Being sick in America is a full time job that you pay all your money for the pleasure of working.
Glad your kid isn’t constipated and your wife is healthy. Medical scares should put you in financial worry and it’s so absurd that they do.
Unrelated, has @hobbes9324 posted recently? Hope he is doing ok.
Oh, my kid is still has issues, but we’re managing them. We had a teledoc session and the doctor thinks it’s IBS, as did I. Could be worse.
Ugh that’s no fun, speaking as someone who has had Crohns disease since 2001. Hopefully it’s not anything worse than what he’s going through now. Feel free to reach out privately if it does end up being IBD (different from IBS) and you have questions or just want to talk.
Please forgive me if this is obvious but did you already rule out celiac?
David Chase did a great scene in Sopranos about this. I’m sure it was to show Tony’s woe is me persona and have the “wallet biopsy” but it does a great job highlighting this very situation.
Yes. The doctor had me take him to get blood work done and that was one of the things they tested. Everything was good.
He takes Miralax every day to help the issue. Every so often (last time was maybe four weeks ago, which prompted the teledoc visit), he has an extremely painful bout of constipation, where he sits on the toilet for an hour or two crying. We’ll just keep monitoring it and follow-up at some point to see if anything else needs to be done.
Have you considered an elimination diet? Only asking as blood testing for celiac is highly error prone. It’s also one of the most under diagnosed conditions in the U.S.
I know this as there are multiple confirmed celiacs in my family (not gluten insensitive) and have done some research on it. Looking around you will find endless anecdotes on failed detections using blood testing.
Endoscopies are much more reliable but also not completely fail proof. Highly recommend trying an elimination diet as that is an inexpensive way that many people have had success with.
Stool testing and genetic testing are 2 other alternatives thought I’m not read on the efficacy of those methods.
Wishing the best for your little guy.
Celiac is an interesting disease because it’s still a medical mystery to a large extent, especially on the epidemiology side. In the 1980s, it was believed that the prevalence was 1 in 5,000. Today it’s about 1 in 100 globally and somewhat higher or lower in specific countries or populations. Obviously they were just wrong in the 80s and couldn’t diagnose it, but the prevalence actually is increasing. Afaik they still don’t understand what triggers it (having the mutations is, by itself, necessary but insufficient) or why it’s increasing. This guy–described as the leading expert on celiac–thinks it could be due to changes in gut microbiome:
His paper here reviews the most recent evidence for this hypothesis:
My 13-year-old daughter collapsed at Publix today. Probably the most scared I’ve been in my life.
Fortunately, the doctor thinks it was a vasovagal reaction to the flu shot she had a few minutes earlier. The big fear was a seizure.
My family went to get our flu shots and shopped while we were waiting. When it was time to get the shots, the order went my wife, my daughter, my son, me. My wife went to checkout after she was done and my kids waited with me (this is to give an idea of the timeline, which was obviously only a few minutes). When I was done, the three of us headed to find my wife.
My daughter took a different route to checkout, so she was basically at the other end of an aisle from my son and I (I didn’t realize she was doing that at the time). When we got to the greeting card aisle, I heard some cards fall. Didn’t think anything of it until I heard a man say something. I looked and my extremely healthy, fit, gymnast daughter was face down on the floor. For a second, I thought she had just tripped and was embarrassed, but when I went over, she wasn’t responsive. For a full fucking minute, minute and a half, she was unresponsive. I did see her arm move, so I knew she wasn’t dead. Saw her eyes rolled back. Of course, I’m thinking seizure, flu shot reaction, or low blood sugar. I yelled for a pharmacist (closest medical professional) and my wife in the meantime.
When she came to, it was pretty much instant. She said she was ok and got up just fine. I made her go sit down and the Publix staff got her water and apple juice. After talking to her, she didn’t know what happened. Complete blackout. She only remembered feeling nauseous and then waking up.
Fortunately, it looks like worst-case scenario was avoided. Doc thinks it was just a reaction to the shot (flu or otherwise). Her jaw hurts like hell, but x-rays were negative. She had a gash on her chin that needed gluing. Also likely concussion.
But holy shit, the thoughts that went through my head when my daughter wasn’t responding to me.
EDIT: She thinks she has a chipped tooth, too, but we’ll deal with that later.
Sounds scary AF, dlk. Glad to hear that she sounds like she’s more or less fine.