#us health system

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

HOW CHRISTIANITY SUPPORTS MULTIRACIAL, MULTICULTURAL DEMOCRACY

'The Bible doesn't mention abortion or gay marriage, but it goes on and on about forgiving debt, liberating the poor, and healing the sick' — This pastor perfectly explained how the values expressed in Christianity can support a multiracial, multicultural democracy instead of right-wing extremism (via jamestalarico on TikTok)

#christianity #religion #democracy

[singsongraptor]

Can someone please help me out with feeding my kids tonight? This last two weeks has been a hot mess for my family as we experience the "joys" of US healthcare and its absolute hatred for elders in general, but especially Black elders.

This all started with my grandmom needing an arterial bypass to save her foot. She got an infection in the rehab center. Cleared it up, sent home. Needed surgery on the other leg, last month and that's where it really dovetailed.

She got another infection, & this one was big. She was in the hospital for a month, needed 3 surgeries to clean the wound and came home needing both oral antibiotics and IV antibiotics. I had to learn how to give her infusions, change her bandages and she's got a wound vac.

The home care company has been a menace the last two weeks. They lied about her medicare insurance stopping payment on her services, lied to her doctor about it, which led him to write orders to drop the wound vac, which they used to try and take her vac and discharge her.

Meanwhile, my sis and I are handling all the practical care, keeping our parents abreast of her health while they handle the clerical side, as well as get our kids prepared for the school year starting, and they all have uniforms, which ate what little spare funds we had

tldr, our circumstances have been extremely high stress and miserable, I'm exhausted and in more pain, I'm worried about my grandmother, and I still have to feed this household for Sept with 8 dollars to my name, get shoes and masks for the kids

And ya know, med care for myself would be nice too, though what I'd really like is another air purifier. Food and masks for the kids come first tho, so please, any and all survival appreciation for this capitalist, racist hellscape is love

Also, we need sick people stuff, like soup and otc meds like ibuprofen and cold medicine.

[starry-genome]

If you have ever wondered why health insurance in the US is so messed up, I highly recommend checking out Dr. Glaucomflecken’s 30 days of Healthcare series. Click here for the YouTube playlist or click here for the TikTok playlist.

Each video is about 1-3 minutes and goes through different aspects of the healthcare industry explaining how it works and especially how corrupt it is.

I spent 5 years working hospital finance watching the way health insurance directly affected my patients, and oftentimes seeing the ways lack of access to affordable healthcare resulted in chronic and emergent conditions, and even death. I cannot stress enough that I literally saw people die because their insurance denied them treatment. And on the billing side, the things people would complain about to me as something the doctors or hospital were doing wrong were usually a direct result of the way health insurance runs everything. It’s disgusting.

At the end of the series, he has a call to action - ways we (as regular people) can help work to improve healthcare (other than pushing for universal healthcare/Medicare for all). A lot of people talk about how ridiculous US Healthcare is but rarely do I see anyone talking about what we can do to change it. I think this is the most important video of all, so I’m including it here.

This video series is probably the most comprehensive, easiest to understand breakdown of the way healthcare fucks everyone over - patients, doctors, and hospitals alike. Please check it out!

[destielmemenews]

"Picketers across California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington who are represented by a coalition of unions walked off the job Wednesday. They are seeking higher wages and solutions to a short-staffing crisis, exacerbated by the pandemic, that has left workers feeling overburdened and run down."

source 1

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[turtlesandfrogs]

Uh, just saw this:

The website is costplusdrugs.com I just checked and they don't carry Adderall or insulin, but they do have a lot.

[thypandatetor]

Hey, Americans, open enrollment is sooooooonnn. And the US health care system is a mess, but Brian David Gilbert made this great video about how to navigate it.

I use to work in health insurance as customer service, worked there for a little over 2 years and was very good at it, but the ✨anxiety✨ got to me... BUT ANYWAYS, BDG is totally right on all of this and also fun to watch

[spooniestrong]

When insurance is confusing, patients can unknowingly receive more expensive care. For example, they may go to a doctor that is out of network, or receive a service that's not covered.

But new poll results from The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, RIP Medical Debt, and American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network - ACS CAN show that there's another problem: patients often don't know what to do when they get a bill they can't afford.

❌ 1 in 2 didn't know about patient assistance programs run by hospitals or doctor offices to reduce bills

😖 Only 1 in 4 said they'd been offered this type of assistance

😕 Nearly 1 in 4 didn't know you can fight medical bills

❓ Almost 1 in 5 didn't know how to start fighting a bill

[lunasloveisgood]

Kaiser Permanente reported $8.1B net profit in 2021

[notmedicaladvice]

Gender is not Biological

XX is not always female. XY is not always male.

XX and XY are not the only options.

Upwards of 1.7% of people do not fit your biological definition. That is more common than Type 1 Diabetes in the US.

Gender assignment surgery is routinely done on intersex infants.

I apologize for pathologizing these states, but if you fall under one of the headings mentioned above, then you already know all this and you're not my target audience.

Any arguments about gender having a biological basis are made in bad faith. You're just wrong. Flat wrong. Full stop.

Health care decisions for transgender and intersex individuals need to be made between the individual and their doctor. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.

[silvermoon424]

There's an actress named Ellen Barkin. Last night, she posted on her Twitter that her health insurance is no longer in service because the insurance company says that residual pay doesn't count. Btw Ellen Barkin is a senior. Boy, the USA is really ableist when it comes to people who are sick or elderly or both.

It's insane how ableist the US is and how ableist conversations around universal healthcare are. Like people will go straight up mask-off and say that they think people who don't "contribute" to society don't deserve to get healthcare if they can't pay for it themselves.

It always makes me laugh when conservatives cry about "death panels" in other countries (basically, they argue that with universal healthcare the government decides who gets to live and who dies) when in reality insurance companies are de-facto death panels in the US. Like you can literally have insurance, have been paying for that insurance for years, and they'll still decide helping you will cut into their bottom line too much. Fuck them.

[kandoros]

Guy gets cancer in his head.

Doc says he needs proton therapy, because other types of radiation will injure other stuff that he needs. Because it's in his head.

Blue Cross denies it.

He appeals.

Blue Cross denies his appeal, citing their Pet Appeal Denial Contractor.

He appeals again, using a law that allows a third party to look at it. The third party denies again, citing Pet Appeal Denial Contractor's 'studies'.

The guy thankfully has enough money that he just goes ahead and pays out of pocket, to the tune of $95,862.95.

But guy is super-duper lawyer, and PISSED. So he sues. And wins, because the 'studies' reference things like "Here's alternatives to proton therapy for cancer in places other than your head" and "Here's why proton therapy might not work for head cancer". The 'studies' neglected to refer to the followup to the second one, which was "NVM, we checked, it's great."

And guy wins! Great news!

Unfortunately, the law that allowed him to sue only allows his to collect for the amount of treatment and legal bills. Being a super-duper lawyer, he had other great lawyer buddies who only charged him $36,185, or basically pro-bono for going up against an insurance company.

But no punitive damages. In other words, nothing to teach Blue Cross a lesson on why this is a bad way to treat people.

Double unfortunately, Blue Cross is only willing to pay out the amount that would have been their negotiated rate of $35,170.47.

Add in the legal bills, and the total cost to Blue Cross for losing this case was about $24,000 LESS than what it cost him to not die from head cancer. You can have the best lawyers in the world, and you still end up getting fucked. The game is rigged. Time to flip the table.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[neuroticboyfriend]

i would like every doctor who refuses to take medicaid to experience the level of suffering i am going through. what's inconvenient for them is a lack of health care for me.

[ahedderick]

Well, well

Just about the only household paperwork I don't do is medical insurance. I pay the bills, but if there are insurance questions, my husband makes the calls, because the plan is through his work. This works well because at least 70% of those calls require someone to be, bluntly, a dick, and I don't do that well.

Last week we got a surprise bill for hundreds of dollars for anesthesia from the appendectomy our daughter had in September. That was a little surprising, because bills had been sent for our copay and the insurance-covered portion quite a while ago. I serenely handed the bill to Husband.

And didn't he have a time of it on the phone this morning, on a three-way call between Wellspan health, our ins carrier and him! As he told me later, highlights included:

Wellspan saying that they hadn't sent a bill (It's - literally here in my hand! Invoice [number]! he responded).

Wellspan saying that it wasn't THEM, it was a different, uh, office, uh, also Wellspan but. not them.

The different Wellspan who was not the first Wellspan (?) admitting they had . . literally no idea* why that bill was sent. Because everything, yes, HAD been paid before. Um. They would investigate and get back to him. Within thirty days. Or forty-five, maybe. Um..

As sleazy and deceitful as that all was, I was glad to be watching it from afar, instead of dealing with it myself. It should be noted that the actual healthcare Daughter got was very good. It's just the double-billing that's the problem.

.* I think we all know why that bill was sent.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Moderna will keep its COVID vaccine on the market at no cost to consumers, even after the federal government stops paying for it, the company announced Wednesday.

"Everyone in the United States will have access to Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine regardless of their ability to pay," the company said in a statement.

Last month, the vaccine maker was slammed for reportedly considering a dramatic price increase for the shot, which it had developed with the help of the federal government.

The proposal was also bad timing: The Biden administration was moving toward ending its designation of a public health emergency on May 11, which meant that federal funding for vaccines would soon dry up and uninsured Americans would have to pay out of pocket for their boosters.

Among the critics of Moderna's reported consideration of a price increase -- from about $26 a shot to as much as $130 -- was Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has long advocated for government-funded health care and alleged the move would result in deaths.

"How many of these Americans will die from COVID 19 as a result of limited access to these lifesaving vaccines?" Sanders, I-Vt., wrote in a January letter to Moderna.

"While nobody can predict the exact figure, the number could well be in the thousands. In the midst of a deadly pandemic, restricting access to this much needed vaccine is unconscionable," he added.

Now, Moderna will be the sole manufacturer of COVID vaccines offering its shot for free to the uninsured. Under federal regulation, insurance companies are already required to foot the bill for COVID vaccines.

"Moderna remains committed to ensuring that people in the United States will have access to our COVID-19 vaccines regardless of ability to pay," the company wrote in its statement.

"Moderna's COVID-19 vaccines will continue to be available at no cost for insured people whether they receive them at their doctors' offices or local pharmacies. For uninsured or underinsured people, Moderna's patient assistance program will provide COVID-19 vaccines at no cost" after the public health emergency expires.

To date, the federal government paid for all COVID vaccines for Americans, whether they were insured or not using emergency money passed by Congress. But President Joe Biden says he plans to let the nationwide public health emergency expire May 11.

Once that happens, federal support ends for many of the programs put in place to help uninsured Americans, including expanded Medicaid, testing and treatments.

Last month, the World Health Organization said COVID-19 remains a public health emergency worldwide, but that the pandemic was at a "transition point."

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the "global response remains hobbled because in too many countries, these powerful, life-saving tools are still not getting to the populations that need them most – especially older people and health workers."

[madfoolish]