It’s a whole lot easier to "shut down" hospitals in a place like New York City—everything is right there, just a quick subway ride or a short drive away. But if—and when—the government starts looking at cutting hospitals scattered across different states, they’re going to run into a massive wall of resistance and confusion. Why? Because you can't just hide behind logistics there; you'd actually have to physically shutter the doors. At first, they'll probably try to play it smart by just closing off specific departments—just enough to see how much the public can swallow before people start losing their minds.
I haven't had the luxury of sitting down to dig through the entire legislative program yet—all I've managed to scrape together from snippets on TV and whatever I've stumbled upon online—so it’s honestly hard to say for sure.
If you want my personal take? I think we actually need fewer state-run public hospitals than we have right now. In my view, the real priority should be consolidation—bringing people and resources together into more efficient hubs rather than having everything scattered everywhere. As for the proposal to scrap those supplemental insurance subsidies for about 360,000 people... well, I can see how that would be a logical next step in a restructuring, though I'm not necessarily jumping on the bandwagon for or against it just yet.
I can't shake this nagging feeling that what they're presenting to us is nothing more than a carefully staged show for the public. In reality, there's likely some much heavier, more significant shifts happening behind the scenes—changes that I can't even begin to pinpoint the direction of from where I'm standing.
Hannah Hill said:It’s basically like this... over the last five months, I’ve had two complete blood counts, two urine cultures, and two abdominal ultrasounds done... plus my OBGYN exams... and according to every single result, everything is perfectly fine. Except for this most recent one where this specific thing came back elevated... I mean, I have a family history of high bilirubin, but it’s never shown up positive in my urine before, which is why I wanted someone to actually explain this to me—since, unfortunately, I can't get much of an answer from my own doctor. The truth is, I've been dealing with constant pain for six months now, and my doctor's response is just, "if your blood work and ultrasound look good, then you're fine." So, yeah, 😢
A urine analysis... honestly, there's so much wiggle room there that it's hard to say anything definitive. Personally, I don't think that urine sample is the smoking gun here. If it's really eating at you, just go get the test repeated just to clear the air and get some peace of mind. But as for those stomach pains? Man, that is a massive, wide-open territory—there are probably more possible diagnoses for abdominal pain than there are stars in the sky.
At the end of the day, the gut feeling you get during a face-to-face visit matters most. If you are genuinely hurting—and you aren't just imagining it—and your doctor isn't getting you anywhere, then demand a referral to a gastroenterologist. That’s their specialty, after all. If they take one look and tell you nothing is wrong, then you're pretty much left with only one move: getting a second opinion. I don't know exactly what kind of pain we're talking about, but there's always that nagging possibility where they just slap an "Irritable Bowel Syndrome" label on you—which seems to be the go-to diagnosis whenever nobody can figure out what's actually happening but all the major red flags have been ruled out.
Drew Thompson5 said:Can someone please explain this finding? In the projection of the posterior aspect of the first rib, there is a visible soft tissue oval lesion measuring 1 cm on the left side. Thanks in advance.
The very first thing that jumps to mind—and honestly, it’s the worst-case scenario—is a lung metastasis. But look, it could also be something completely benign; you absolutely have to run this by a pulmonologist. That said, we're working with next to nothing here. There isn't nearly enough data to make any kind of solid diagnosis based on just one sentence from a report.
Chloe Clark77 said:Thanks for getting back to me. I ran some tests over at the Mayo Clinic in Minneapolis. They didn't break down the IgG and IgM levels individually in the results—they just gave me a total count. Does that mean I'm going to have to go back for more testing? Is there any danger to a future baby (I'm trying to get pregnant)? Can you even determine roughly when I was exposed to the virus? And can those antibodies be destroyed?
Look, I’m not an infectious disease specialist, and let's be honest—not every medical facility requires the exact same set of labs to reach the same conclusion. It’s tough for me to give you a definitive "yes" or "no" on whether you need more testing based on what you've told me. In my opinion? Probably not. But it’s a completely different story when you're actually treating a patient and have their entire medical history right in front of you—which, thank God, gives you the luxury of time to review everything properly.☕
Based on what you've described, it sounds like you had it, but you don't have it anymore—kind of like how you recover from the flu. Those antibodies are actually protecting you; they're a good thing! You definitely don't want to "destroy" them. They exist to attack the virus and are produced specifically because the virus was present. With certain infections, they stay in your blood for life as a permanent defense, while with others, they might only stick around for a specific period. If you happened to have an active or chronic infection, or if you were just a carrier for Hepatitis B, that could pose a serious risk toward the end of a pregnancy—though I can't say for certain regarding the specifics of pregnancy—and there could be a risk of transmission to the baby during childbirth. Generally speaking, though, a Hepatitis B infection tends to be much more dangerous for children in the long run than it is for adults.
Jacob Fox6 said:I can't help but feel like we're slowly losing our grip on being a social welfare state... everyone just wants to pivot toward private companies because they're faster and more efficient, and honestly, that’s just such a classic American principle... what blows my mind is how the US keeps trying to model its healthcare after the American system, which is widely known for being totally unsupportive of the people, and the biggest irony here—we're chasing an example that is actually trying to fix itself, like how America is working to reform its system and build up social medicine while we're basically throwing ours away...
We have some truly brilliant specialists in our medical field... doctors who haven't even graced a TV screen or a radio show once, yet they perform their jobs perfectly well. Of course, this whole mess in healthcare is incredibly demotivating for them, and all patients seem to know how to do is shout about their rights. Sure, there are mediocre people among both patients and doctors, but that’s where the State needs to step in by ensuring decent working conditions for doctors and proper care for patients. People don't even know anymore which insurance they have or what's actually "covered," so a green light has basically been given to private providers. On one hand, it's not all bad since competition can end up being better for the patient in the long run, but looking at the reality of it, it's also pretty bad, and that's the exact reason why patients are fleeing to private clinics in the first place...
It seems like every system has its expiration date and that change happens in cycles. In any system that lasts a long time, too many parasites start to settle in—they dig their roots in so deep that the system stops functioning for its actual purpose. They simply become an end unto themselves, and eventually, the whole thing collapses from within.
Back in the 1990s, we started moving away from socialism, and now we are heading straight toward capitalism. Social rights were handed out like there was no tomorrow, and increasingly, people are taking advantage of them without any justification—fake veterans, fake disability claimants, people retiring early for no reason, fake emergency patients, fake social cases... free healthcare, free education for everyone regardless of how little sense it makes when someone spends ten years in university (there are probably plenty more that don't come to mind right now). I constantly hear people shouting about "our rights"... but honestly, look at the reality. How many of you are renters, students, or pupils? Or on the flip side, how many of you are the ones renting out apartments or condos and paying taxes on that income? If a landlord actually paid his fair share of taxes, he'd have less profit, and by that same capitalist logic, he'd just raise the rent to compensate. In the end, instead of $667 paying, say, $800 monthly rent, you'd be stuck with even higher costs. It's funny, isn't it? We always fight tooth and nail for the rights that benefit us, yet at the same time, we all seem perfectly happy with those other "rights" remaining totally unregulated.
Brandon Newman95 said:Look, I’m telling you, I should have stayed hospitalized for those two weeks. I don't care who anyone thinks is "more urgent" than me. I have just as much right to a bed as anyone else. And please, spare me the lecture about how certain people—like addicts or alcoholics—are taking up space. We all know damn well there are "available" beds if they want them to be. There are plenty of doctors around, too, unless we're talking about psychiatrists—and yeah, maybe we're trailing behind the rest of the world on that one. If I had stayed those two weeks, I would’ve totally justified the cost. First off, to my employer, then to my primary care doctor and the specialists. Sorry, Mr. Know-it-all, but as someone whose employer (or I personally) pays into Medicare and social security—and let me tell you, it's not a small amount—I have a right to be admitted. They only find time for everyone when it suits their schedule and their whims. I’ll just go get my tests done privately, and then the hospital can try to ignore the results or claim something else entirely. Besides, we all know how the game is played: someone works privately and has a little "arrangement" with a specific hospital, and suddenly they're being fast-tracked to the front of the line. It's an open secret. And don't even get me started on the ER. They definitely bill overtime. They run CT scans during the afternoon and night shifts, so don't even try to convince me otherwise. I was stuck in the internal medicine ER because of blood clots in my legs, and sure enough, late in the evening—after 7 PM—they were running a CT scan. Not for me, obviously, but for some other patient. The media loves to sensationalize everything, but that's a different story. Instead, they'd rather just cut costs on actual people. Half of my tests were paid for out of my own pocket. It feels like it's in everyone's interest to just have fewer people getting help. I bet there are fewer empty beds than the journalists claim; they should spend more time looking at the actual state of the US healthcare system instead of chasing headlines. I'm the one paying for the beds, the water, the electricity, and all the other overhead in this system. Last year alone, I spent well over... $1000 I mean, I don't even know how much more of this we can take. We're talking about private stuff, all kinds of things, and even when it went through the DB—it was being handled within six weeks. Seriously? Couldn't that have been knocked out in two weeks? It would've been way simpler and honestly just better.
1. Emergency patients and non-emergency patients do not have equal rights—and that goes for you just as much as anyone else. 2. There aren't enough doctors, and I know that firsthand—because if labor laws were actually respected, a huge chunk of the time the ER wouldn't even be running because there'd be nobody left to work. Everyone would have already maxed out their legally mandated hours for the week, month, or year. 3. You have a right to be hospitalized, sure, but it isn't up to you to decide when or where that happens. 4. CT scans run 24/7, 365 days a year, when there's a suspicion of an emergency. For routine screenings (meaning everyone not classified as an emergency case), they only run during regular business hours. I'm not trying to "convince" you of anything—I'm just stating how things are set up. 5. Yes, it could have been resolved faster and better, but if they actually fulfilled every single right that patients demand, you’d still be waiting for years—even with private providers—because you simply cannot grasp how many patients are constantly claiming they have a right to this and that...
Chloe Clark77 said:Can someone make sense of these results for me?
HBsAg (Hepatitis B surface antigen) - neg. anti HBs (antibodies against HBsAg) - pos. 10 IU/L anti HBc total (IgG + IgM) - pos. Comment: These HBV marker results suggest either past exposure to the Hepatitis B virus or recovery from the infection.
Basically, it means you’ve already dealt with Hepatitis B—which is exactly what that comment is getting at. "Exposure" just means you came into contact with the virus; it doesn't necessarily mean you actually got sick, but your body still went ahead and built up those antibodies anyway. As for "recovery," that implies you actually had the hepatitis and your body managed to fight it off on its own. The real kicker here is whether the anti HBc IgM is positive or not, but looking at this total count they gave you, there's no way to tell the difference.
So, looking at this article, the reporter mentions the daily cost for a hospital bed back on $467. Now, look—I have absolutely no clue what the actual market rate for a bed is, but if we assume the journalist is more or less on the mark, then those two weeks of yours would run you about 14 x 1400 = 19 $200.
Look, our US healthcare system actually has a decent amount of cash flowing through it, but the way that money is being thrown around raises a whole host of other massive issues.
You guys keep insisting that you should have just stayed in the hospital for two weeks to get every single test done at once... Sure, that’s one way to handle it, but let’s be real—that doesn't rationalize spending; if anything, it usually drives costs through the roof, regardless of what you think you're achieving.
There is one thing you clearly don't grasp: imagine a Doctor is running a CT scanner that serves both outpatient visits and inpatient needs. If they can manage, say, 10 scans during their shift, and then you decide to get hospitalized so you can run "everything" at once—including that CT—two things happen. Either someone else loses their spot in line and gets pushed down the schedule because of you, or—which happens way more often—the Doctor just squeezes you in as number 11. That kills the quality of care because they have to rush through every single scan to stay on track, or thirdly, the Doctor ends up staying late working unpaid overtime just to finish the job.
Now, if we wanted that CT machine to run afternoon and night shifts specifically for EMERGENCY patients, we would need to hire two more Doctors. We'd have to pay for their training, their salaries, benefits, and everything else that comes with it. Honestly, that is the only actual way to shorten waiting lists if we aren't looking to strip away patient rights (whether those rights are justified or not). Secondly—and this would be much more efficient and logical—the solution is to actually practice MEDICINE. Which brings us back to protocols and shutting down requests for tests that aren't medically indicated (at least not on the taxpayer's dime; if patients want to spend their own private cash on unnecessary testing, fine, let them).
And look, patient privacy? That’s a whole different beast. The US can feel like one giant small town sometimes, where everyone knows everyone else's business—it's nearly impossible to keep anything under wraps.
Once we actually function as a modern, organized society—once the national mindset shifts away from all that old-school baggage, the obsession with communist era ghosts, partisans, various wars, veterans' politics, the church, and all those other things constantly dragging the country backward—then maybe, just maybe, we'll get actual privacy. But honestly? I don't expect that for at least another 15 or 20 years.
I really think we need to tackle the massive, systemic issues first. Instead of politicians constantly bickering over trivial nonsense just to dodge the real problems (look at how they're handling the current situation with Josipovic), they should be focusing on fixing the economy and the legal framework. Once those are sorted, then we can finally address the healthcare system.
Just because someone calls 911 from home doesn't mean the situation is actually critical. Honestly, more often than not, it just means the person lacks a ride to the doctor and decides to use an ambulance as a glorified taxi service. The issue here is that paramedics aren't there to ferry you to your GP—they take you to the hospital, period. And that’s how you end up with a grandmother being rushed to the ER via ambulance just because she had a couple of bouts of diarrhea yesterday; she might feel fine today, but hey, better safe than sorry, right? These are just a few examples from my own experience, not to mention the countless others out there. So, you try to be smart about it.
At the end of the day, diarrhea isn't a primary emergency. In any country that actually respects its healthcare system, you don't get rushed to the hospital for a stomach bug unless there are serious secondary symptoms involved (which I won't even bother listing right now). Even when a trip to the hospital is necessary, the patient should be heading to Infectious Disease, not just being dumped anywhere. But because of the attitude some EMS staff have—where their only goal is simply "getting the patient to the hospital" and letting the hospital staff figure out where they belong—it creates a massive headache for everyone involved.
So, the crux of the matter is TRIAGE. The problem is that our emergency responders frequently fail to perform proper triage, which brings us right back to the question of who is actually working these shifts, and we're stuck in the same endless loop.
You have to fix the problem at the root, not just deal with the fallout at the end. Supposedly, the process of creating specialized roles in emergency medicine is underway. They say the first wave of dedicated ER specialists should be ready in about four years—but whether that actually changes anything remains to be seen. We also have FAMILY MEDICINE SPECIALISTS, and look at how this entire system goes out of its way to discourage them from actually practicing.
Look, you’ve got plenty of examples here, but honestly, the way the problem is being framed is just fundamentally wrong.
Diarrhea—which, let’s be real, we’ve all dealt with at some point—is usually totally harmless. Most of the time, it’s just an infection. People love to throw around vague nonsense about "a burst clot" or whatever that actually means, but half the time it's nothing.
So, here's the logic: if a patient is dealing with diarrhea and their primary care doctor can't get it under control, they should see an infectious disease specialist first—assuming there isn't obvious blood in the stool indicating something much more serious.
From what I can gather, this grandmother went straight to the ER... because of diarrhea? Seriously? Out of 10,000 cases of diarrhea, sure, maybe one is going to be life-threatening... but that doesn't mean you need an infectious disease expert, an internist, and a surgeon to look at every single one of those 10,000 cases.
Look, if you’re going to post like this, you really ought to bring some actual medical arguments to the table—which, unfortunately, are nowhere to be found in your previous message. If I understood that link you shared correctly, we were talking about NHL (Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, right?) If you want anyone in the medical profession to take your arguments seriously, you need to include the discharge diagnosis from the hospital summary and the stage of the disease at the time of diagnosis—at least that much. Your post is absolutely loaded with emotion, but let's be honest: those feelings stem from that sense of helplessness, sadness, and pure rage that hits when someone close to you gets seriously ill. It's understandable, but in all likelihood, those emotions don't actually help solve the problem.
Regarding the transfusion—blood is typically given when hemoglobin (not hematocrit) drops below 8, though some might wait until it hits 7. There are plenty of exceptions where they won't give it even if it's lower, or they'll give it regardless of the specific number.
Medical staff have to maintain a certain level of distance—patients often mistake this for coldness or a lack of care, but it's necessary for them to do their jobs. That's just how it works. You don't have to like it, and you certainly don't have to understand it, but it’s a prerequisite for functioning normally; otherwise, most of them would end up in psychiatry within a week.
Personally, I’d like to know specifically which part you’re angry about, and what exactly you think should have been done differently to prevent the situation from ending up the way it did.
Go see a therapist, a psychiatrist, or whoever you need to—if you honestly think that’s going to make you feel any better. Your fear is completely irrational—it’s just like being terrified of flying or any other random phobia. Some people manage to get over it, others don't, and then there are those whose worst nightmares actually come true, which is why you're sitting here spiraling...
If we're looking at this objectively, you're 25. Your chances of having cancer are incredibly slim—I mean, it’s not impossible, sure, but it is highly unlikely.
Look at it this way: you aren't scared (or maybe you are) of pneumonia because that’s curable, right? You're scared of cancer because of that "incurable" label. Even if you did end up facing a diagnosis, every case has its own timeline depending on the type. Let's say, hypothetically, something happened 15 years down the road—you'd still be medically considered young. You could live with it for several more years, and who knows what kind of medical breakthroughs will exist by then? Who knows what they'll be able to cure? Bottom line: if you actually do get sick, maybe by then it won't even be a death sentence anymore. So, seriously, stop worrying about things that haven't happened yet.
stormyjackal46 said:Can someone please help me out here? What could these numbers possibly mean: AST 152 ALT 273
Just three weeks before these results came in, she had bloodwork done at the hospital and everything was within the normal range. This is about my mom. She’s complaining about gallbladder pain that radiates straight through to her back—otherwise, she doesn't have any other symptoms. About a year ago, her doctor told her she has fatty liver disease. She isn't overweight, and her face looks a bit yellowish, but honestly, she's always looked that way.😕😕 Help!
Look, if she’s dealing with pain under the right ribs that shoots into her back—especially if she’s running a fever or showing signs of jaundice (yellowing skin or yellowed whites of the eyes)—she needs to see a doctor immediately. This sounds like it could be choledocholithiasis leading to cholangitis. Actually, regardless of those specific symptoms, she really ought to check in with her primary physician anyway—I mean, where did these lab results even come from? Someone had to order them, right? It might turn out to be nothing major, but we're lacking a lot of context here...
Brandon Newman95 said:But what happens when their equipment is constantly breaking down? Look, my GP was literally the only person who actually looked at both the patient AND the specialist results. It was like, go to the clinic, wait for this test, then that one, then this other thing... then thyroid hormones, which took a month and a half, then another six weeks for something else. Then they tell you, "If you don't feel better, come back." Same old story. Eventually, you just give up and go to a private doctor because you have no idea what's happening anymore. I mean, imagine if you had a minor stroke that didn't get caught in time because they wouldn't just do a urine test and instead insisted on bloodwork? You end up paying privately just to find out, "Oh wow, miracle! There's bacteria in your urine," like it's some big revelation. Wouldn't it have been way simpler if this was all sorted in two weeks and I was actually hospitalized?
Sure, from an individual perspective, it would be way easier to just get admitted and knock out a whole battery of tests in a single day. But in the real world? That’s just not feasible. Everything is limited—we're talking limited staff, limited beds, the whole nine yards. The system operates on a triage basis where you wait your turn relative to everyone else. If everyone decided to revolt and demand immediate specialized care, the entire medical system would collapse overnight.
You can't run a functional society based on "what if" scenarios... because if we did, everyone would be sitting in a hospital bed. Everyone has the potential to suffer a stroke or something else, right? In a hospital setting, you treat things like urosepsis (that serious infection starting from the urinary tract), but bacteria in the urine? That isn't something treated in a hospital, and sometimes it isn't even treated in an outpatient clinic. You’re describing exactly the situation I’m talking about: patients want to be the ones deciding what happens, when it happens, and how it happens—but that’s just not how it works. Otherwise, why would anyone bother with seven to thirteen years of medical school?
ruggedscout91 said:Medical procedures just drift toward the patient by pure inertia—there’s zero actual assessment of whether these things are even useful, let alone considering how they can be harmful (mostly because we don't have a decent hospice center here anyway). So, you have a patient who understands they aren't going to be cured, and they might want to refuse these humiliating, outdated, and globally obsolete treatments... but they can't get any other kind of support to simply face the end with dignity.
Meanwhile, when it comes to those "smart drugs" and actual effective therapeutic procedures, they seem strictly reserved for politicians, various crooks, and mobsters—while the rest of us? We just get the "final solution," which I already mentioned above.
Cancer patients present a very specific dilemma. It’s incredibly hard to wrap your head around the fact that most oncology patients (with the exception of certain types of leukemia or operable carcinomas) don't really have much of a prognosis, whether they undergo treatment or not. In many cases, we're talking about gaining a few months—sometimes even less—compared to if they hadn't been treated at all. Now, medications that are proven to actually work—meaning they control a specific oncological issue and turn it into a manageable chronic condition—are still available to our patients. Take Glivec, for example.
I honestly don't know how much you think it's justifiable to fund expensive experimental treatments using taxpayer money when the benefit to the individual is so incredibly uncertain.
And regarding this idea that the rich and famous have exclusive access to "smart drugs"—why didn't Patrick Swayze take one? He shouldn't have had any trouble finding funding. Look, I'm not saying there isn't some truth to what you wrote, but framing the whole situation this way feels way too subjective to me.
1. Primary care absolutely has to start working properly—but someone (looking at you, Department of Health) needs to actually set the stage for that to happen first. 2. We need to implement actual protocols and algorithms for how things get handled—mainly so we can stop these massive oversight errors and cut down on all those useless, redundant tests. 3. Terminal oncology patients and those dealing with long-term chronic illnesses should be moved out of the hospital systems entirely and placed into hospices—which, let’s be honest, we need to actually build before we can move anyone there. 4. We should scale back the sheer number of hospitals across the US and instead beef up our outpatient clinics. We need specialized centers for specific needs—take orthopedics, for example. Right now, having one major center in a place like Chicago alongside scattered outpatient orthopedic clinics is much smarter. It’s way cheaper for Medicare to pay for a patient's medical transport to a major hub in Chicago for a hip replacement than it is to maintain ten underfunded, "cold" orthopedic departments spread across the country. Think about it: wouldn't you rather choose to go to a top-tier surgical center in Chicago at the government's expense, where you're treated by an orthopedic surgeon who does nothing but hip replacements all day? Or would you rather stick to some local doctor in your hometown who hasn't performed a single surgery in months and is probably a bit rusty?
Everything I just laid out is just my own personal take on the matter.
Brandon Newman95 said:You're pretty much off base here—my last two paychecks weren't quite what they should've been, but I'm paying more than $500 for Social Security, a bit less for my retirement fund, and it seems like my employer picks up the tab for the mandatory Medicare portion too, maybe around 17.2% for all contributions (I might be slightly off on that number). I also pay for supplemental health insurance which comes to $43 a month, so just multiply that by twelve, plus I've paid a mountain of extra stuff out of pocket that was supposed to be processed within like 2 or 3 weeks. And yeah, health insurance *is* deducted from my pay. My boss pays it, but he deducts it from me too. As for how much longer I plan on living... judging by the state of our healthcare system, probably not that long. 😉
Look, if you’re working for some massive state-run corporation, that extra bit they talk about is basically just a phantom contribution—it’s money you’ll never actually see in your hand. I don't even know the exact technical jargon they use for it—is it an "additional contribution to your salary" or "deducted from your pay"? Whatever the official wording is, it doesn't matter. Believe me when I tell you: once they actually start pulling those deductions for your healthcare straight out of your paycheck, you’re going to notice. It’s going to hit your bottom line, and trust me, it won't be subtle. As for the private sector? Honestly, I haven't the slightest clue how they're operating these days. It’s all such a black box—I just don't know. I honestly don't get why you keep bringing up the pension fund carve-outs—it’s like a broken record at this point. Look, that's just the money you get if you actually manage to live long enough to see retirement. If you don't make it? Well, then there's someone else left to collect it. It has absolutely nothing to do with the healthcare system. Why are we even linking the two?