Government run health care

[Miss Z]

Please explain that sentence.

I am sitting here, stunned.

And give me an example-I'm stripping my brain thinking about this.

Stunned? It's medical fact. Not like it's my opnion, or anything.

To echo ES, I don't understand how you don't know this if you indeed worked in a medical environment, but I'll explain it for you anyway.

Pathogens, bacteria in particular, undergo mutation in a number of their population. The change in their genotype may give them an immunity to the effects of a drug. Most of the time, it doesn't. But sometimes it does.

Under normal circumstances, i.e. without the presence of drugs, the typical strains and the mutated, resitant organism live alongside each other, in the ileum, for example. The strains compete with one another to survive. In these conditions, the resistant organism have no advantage over the typical strains, and it is highly likely that the resistant organism will die out. Thus, it's resistant gene is lost.

However, introduce a drug into the environment. All the typical strains are destroyed, but the resistant organism remains. It now has no competition and is able to reproduce quite happily, each of it's daughter cells carrying this saving grace gene. The drug administered is rendered useless against the pathogen. The pathogen spreads to other people and now we have nothing effective to fight it.

That is how natural selection works - a change in the environment favouring a particular genotype, causing extinction and evolution.

The more drugs that are being exposed to the pathogens, the better conditons we are providing for much more dangerous strains. Plus, many bacteria are able to exchange genetic information via plasmids, or indeed their own DNA, to other species of pathogen, so the resistance genes are not limited to only one condition.

An example? Staphylococcus aureus! S.Aureus is present in your respiratory system and on the surface of your skin right now. Occasionally, it will cause a mild throat infection. At first, we treated it with penicillin, as pencillin was the wonder, cure-all drug at that time. Before long, penicillin no longer worked. At that time, no one really knew why.

Then this condition was treated with methicillin. It was oversubscribed as people wanted to keep popping these pills everytime they felt a bit hoarse. So we get methicillin-resistant staphyloccocus aureus. The first MRSA.

So then we're in a bit of trouble, and combat MRSA with vancomycin. We can't find anything else to administer but vancomycin. The inevitable happens. Now the most dangerous form of MRSA is Multiple Resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

So, again, it is practically and morally wrong to oversubscribe drugs.

[Edwina's Secretary]

It makes you wonder, SAS, who pays rack rate or whatever the non-discounted rate is called. The uninsured? Those with the old style indemnity plans?

I looked at a new product - high deductible - sounds like Jo has a version of this. Like the concept but couldn't get comfortable with it...will people with this type of plan pay rack rate?

And imagine a doctor's office trying to keep track of all these different plans ahd how they work and what they pay!

Must be a nightmare.

[Marigold2]

You are correct it can be a nightmare to keep track of all the claims, rules etc. It's what I do for part of the day.
Why do Dr's in Ohio like Medicare because they pay the Dr well? They are one of the highest paying plans, and you have a year to submit claims where with United Health you have 90 days to collect your money.
Here in Ohio Medicare patients have no copay, most that I talk to love their insurance. Most here have a secondary I would say 97% do, either AARP, Medicaid, BCBS etc.
Knowing what your insurance covers is important.
I do not understand however how the office staff could not know what you were billed for, it's all coding which is universal throughout the US and. 367.1 means you are near sighted. 365.10 means gluacoma no matter what state you are in.
And yes we do have to wait for the insurance company to process the EOB, on it is the following info. Your copay, your deductable, the allowed amount, the amount to be written off, why it might have been denied and YES you should also recieve a copy from the insurance company with the same info. If you have questions, pick up the phone and call the insurance, you pay for it and it is there to protect you.
It is not the Dr's responisbiltiy to know your deductable or your benefits, it is yours. There are thousands of companys out there and each is a bit different.
However things are now changing and we will soon be able to look on-line at your info before you walk into the office. If you have not met your deductable and the office visit is $200.00 you will be expected to pay that up front or to make arrangements for a payment plan. Dr's have a hard time collecting from many people and this will change that. You cannot go into a grocery store or gas station and get the products and say bill me, soon you won't be able to do that at the Dr as well.
I hope Obama gives all Americans decent health care no matter how you slice it we all deserve that. I also hope that we take better care of ourselves if possible so that we may avoid or slow down heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and many other illness that come with a not so healthy lifestyle.

It makes you wonder, SAS, who pays rack rate or whatever the non-discounted rate is called. The uninsured? Those with the old style indemnity plans?

I looked at a new product - high deductible - sounds like Jo has a version of this. Like the concept but couldn't get comfortable with it...will people with this type of plan pay rack rate?

And imagine a doctor's office trying to keep track of all these different plans ahd how they work and what they pay!

Must be a nightmare.