US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9353

On November 29 2017 13:28 Plansix wrote:
Piece of shit conservative blogger funded by god knows who to spread their bile across college campuses. Clearly he couldn't handle a little free speech being thrown back at him.

Two years ago, Margaret O'Neill brought her 5-year-old daughter to Children's Hospital Colorado because the band of tissue that connected her tongue to the floor of her mouth was too tight. The condition, called being literally "tongue-tied," made it hard for the girl to make "th" sounds.

It's a common problem with a simple fix: an outpatient procedure to snip the tissue.

During a preoperative visit, the surgeon offered to throw in a surprising perk. Should we pierce her ears while she is under?

O'Neill's first thought was that her daughter seemed a bit young to have her ears pierced. Her second: Why was a surgeon offering to do this? Wasn't that something done for free at the mall with the purchase of a starter set of earrings?

"That's so funny," O'Neill recalled saying. "I didn't think you did ear piercings."

The surgeon, Peggy Kelley, told her it could be a nice thing for a child, O'Neill said. All she had to do is bring earrings on the day of the operation. O'Neill agreed, assuming it would be free.

Her daughter emerged from surgery with her tongue newly freed and a pair of small gold stars in her ears.

Only months later did O'Neill discover the cost for this extracurricular work: $1,877.86 for "operating room services" related to the ear piercing — a fee her insurer was unwilling to pay.

At first, O'Neill assumed the bill was a mistake. Her daughter hadn't needed her ears pierced, and O'Neill would never have agreed to it if she had known the cost. She complained in phone calls and in writing.

The hospital wouldn't budge. In fact, O'Neill said it dug in, telling her to pay up or it would send the bill to collections. The situation was "absurd," she said.

"There are a lot of things we'd pay extra for a doctor to do," she said. "This is not one of them."

Kelley and the hospital declined to comment to ProPublica about the ear piercing.

Surgical ear piercings are rare, according to Health Care Cost Institute, a nonprofit that maintains a database of commercial health insurance claims. The institute could only find a few dozen possible cases a year in its vast cache of billing data. But O'Neill's case is a vivid example of health care waste known as overuse.

Into this category fall things like unnecessary tests, higher-than-needed levels of care or surgeries that have proven ineffective.

Wasteful use of medical care has "become so normalized that I don't think people in the system see it," said Dr. Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute, a Boston think tank focused on making health care more effective, affordable and just. "We need more serious studies of what these practices are."

Experts estimate the U.S. health care system wastes $765 billion annually — about a quarter of all the money that is spent. Of that, an estimated $210 billion goes to unnecessary or needlessly expensive care, according to a 2012 report by the National Academy of Medicine.

ProPublica has been documenting the ways waste is baked into the system. Hospitals throw away new supplies, and nursing homes discard still-potent medication. Drugmakers combine cheap ingredients to create expensive specialty pills, and arbitrary drug expiration dates force hospitals and pharmacies to toss valuable drugs.

We also reported how drug companies make oversize eyedrops and vials of cancer drugs, forcing patients to pay for medication they are unable to use. In response, a group of U.S. senators introduced a bill this month to reduce what they called "colossal and completely preventable waste."

But any discussion of waste needs to look how health care dollars are thrown away on procedures and care that patients don't need — and how hard it is to stop it.

Just ask Christina Arenas.

Arenas, 34, has a history of noncancerous cysts in her breasts, so last summer when her gynecologist found some lumps in her breast and sent her for an ultrasound to rule out cancer, she wasn't worried.

But on the day of scan, the sonographer started the ultrasound, then stopped to consult a radiologist. They told her she needed a mammogram before the ultrasound could be done.

Arenas, an attorney who is married to a doctor, told them she didn't want a mammogram. She didn't want to be exposed to the radiation or pay for the procedure. But sitting on the table in a hospital gown, she didn't have much leverage to negotiate.

So, she agreed to a mammogram, followed by an ultrasound. The findings: no cancer. As Arenas suspected, she had cysts, fluid-filled sacs that are common in women her age.

The radiologist told her to come back in two weeks so they could drain the cysts with a needle, guided by yet another ultrasound. But when she returned she got two ultrasounds: One before the procedure and another as part of it.

The radiologist then sent the fluid from the cysts to pathology to test it for cancer. That test confirmed — again — that there wasn't any cancer. Her insurance whittled the bills down to $2,361, most of which she had to pay herself because of her insurance plan.

Arenas didn't like paying for something she didn't think she needed and resented the loss of control. "It was just kind of, 'Take it or leave it.' The whole thing. You had no choice as to your own care."

Arenas, sure she had been given care she didn't need, discussed it with one of her husband's friends who is a gynecologist. She learned the process could have been more simple and affordable.

Arenas complained to The George Washington Medical Faculty Associates, the large Washington, D.C., doctor group that provided her treatment. Her request to have the bill reduced was denied. Then bill collectors got involved, so she demanded a refund and threatened legal action.

At a Monday event honoring the Native American Code Talkers, President Trump revived one of his favorite lines of attack against Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., questioning her claim that she’s part Native American and calling her “Pocahontas.”

...

Trump made his remarks standing beneath a portrait of Andrew Jackson, whose military campaigns against Native American tribes in the early 1800s earned him the nickname “Indian Killer.”

On November 28 2017 13:58 Doodsmack wrote:
One wonders if those who claim that Trump does not make any racist statements will ever come to terms with the quantity of quotes with double meaning where if you give it 100% charity, it's not racist, but if you view it in another light, it is.



www.yahoo.com

On November 28 2017 13:58 Doodsmack wrote:
One wonders if those who claim that Trump does not make any racist statements will ever come to terms with the quantity of quotes with double meaning where if you give it 100% charity, it's not racist, but if you view it in another light, it is.



www.yahoo.com

On November 29 2017 19:29 biology]major wrote:
The left has had a really tight grip on the culture for a long time now, when it comes to being overly protective of minorities or women. This is an area where they should loosen up if they want to do better in future elections. Trump through all his failures is just a giant middle finger to that culture, and him being in the White House for 4 years might shift the tide a little but not by much.

I think when your default position comes from the thought process of moral superiority and anyone who opposes is just a bigot, you end up with where we are now. A turd in the whitehouse elected by people who don't care for the current culture. This means actually standing up against racism or sexism, but not having prejudiced views for or against minorities/women as a default, which is just a type of reverse bigotry.

On November 29 2017 20:28 Plansix wrote:
"The left has had the grip on culture" = "Obama has been president for most of my adult life and I don't remember the Bush administration all that well."

On November 29 2017 21:01 oBlade wrote:

The Bush administration was such a markedly different time culturally, I remember coming home and turning on late night shows, it's hard to even remember their names now because it feels so long ago, like SNL and The Daily Show, now that was a Republican president they really admired.