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All Public School Districts do not have the same insurance. One district I worked for Self-Insured. Prescription Coverage was an extra $100/month with a $450 deductible and a 50% copay. Unless you take multiple meds on a daily basis, you will never meet that deductible. I opted out of that coverage. Call me "frugal" too. I was a TA making $15/hour.
The few times I needed to take an antibiotic, I went to Publix Supermarket which gave free antibiotics. Actually, when my husband needed antibiotics for pneumonia he went to Walmart and paid $4 for them. He said his Medicare copay would have been more expensive. If there is such a flu pandemic this year, maybe these retail stores need to do something similar with Tamiflu. Personally, I would never take it myself even if it was free.
None of the schools where I worked (NY, Fl) required teachers or students to get a flu shot every year.
All that is relative to this thread is Holland's insurance.
A flu pandemic has not been declared this year. One country cannot have a pandemic.
"A true influenza pandemic occurs when almost simultaneous transmission takes place worldwide. In the case of pandemic influenza A(H1N1), widespread transmission was documented in both hemispheres between April and September 2009. Transmission occurred early in the influenza season in the temperate southern hemisphere but out of season in the northern hemisphere. This out-of-season transmission is what characterizes an influenza pandemic, as distinct from a pandemic due to another type of virus."
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Originally Posted by AnywhereElse
No, just the better informed individuals. Flu vaccine is 10% effective this year. Most that die have other conditions, thus "flu-related" deaths, not "flu deaths".
Some of us know how to read and search other resources, some just don't.
I'd be very surprised if a teacher had not gotten the vaccine, UNLESS she had an underlying condition that would mean it would not be advisable.
We do not yet know the effectiveness of the vaccine in the US this year. The 10% figure is for only one of the three or four strains in the vaccine and was for Australia, not the US.
"Flu-related" deaths are flu deaths. The death would probably not have happened if the person had not had flu.
It's not what you pay in taxes, it's the benefits that come from the expenditure that make the difference.
False. Take a look at other countries' tax revenue as a percent of GDP (and remember that just about every other country has lower corporate tax rates than the US):
When I had pneumonia, that was my "related" problem - septic shock. I had one kidney totally offline, the other about 70% of the way, blood pressure was like 65 over 30 or something, and my body temp was dropping. In my case, I left viral pneumonia untreated because I figured I had a cold/flu and it would go away, so why act like a sissy and miss work. 11 days into it not going away, eating every vitamin, OTC remedy available, and living on orange juice and chicken soup, I found myself at my desk, eating a cup of chicken noodle while wearing my overcoat, scarf and gloves because I couldn't get warm. This seemed odd, so I looked up my symptoms on WebMD and figured damn, I might have pneumonia. Told my boss, went to urgent care around 1 PM and then got the whole story about how dumb I was. I wouldn't have lasted through the workday, so said the doctor in the ER that Urgent Care rushed me to when they got my ridiculous blood pressure numbers (had to cuff my thigh and needed 3 attempts just because it was so low).
A week in the hospital, 2 weeks convalescence, and 13 years later, lung scarring, mild asthma, hyper-sensitivity to any form of airborne pollution in even the most minute quantities, etc. All because I was a stubborn gooftard. Nothing in my story is an indictment of any kind on our health care industry. I was well treated, my out of pocket were absurdly low, I received top shelf care, my employer was awesome about my missed time, etc. I was just freaking stupid.
And in other cases, as you say, there are people who do everything right, pay for whatever treatment, do exactly as Doc says...and it doesn't matter and the illness kills them anyway. That again is no indictment against our health care industry. It's human biology, and we are not a race of immortals.
No, just the better informed individuals. Flu vaccine is 10% effective this year. Most that die have other conditions, thus "flu-related" deaths, not "flu deaths".
Some of us know how to read and search other resources, some just don't.
I'd be very surprised if a teacher had not gotten the vaccine, UNLESS she had an underlying condition that would mean it would not be advisable.
The numbers I heard just this morning for the US are 30% effective as far as the H3N2 but it's more effective against Influenza B, which is now increasing in prevalence, which is the common incidence pattern for that strain, it typically appears later into flu season.
So yes, some of us know how to read and get additional information, including updated information as conditions evolve.
Never said she deserved it, that's your straw man. I said it was no fault of our domestic health care system, but rather the fault of her own choices, one of which was stupid.
Tamiflu is only effective when taken very early in the course of a flu infection. The delay of a day might have made the difference. If that teacher had known that the flu is often deadly she might have purchased the medicine.
I listen to a podcast TWIV, This Week in Virology. The one online this week is an interview of an influenza scientist. During that interview I learned that the flu type going around at the moment is more deadly if you haven't had the current vaccine (not sure why), the manufacturing process for flu vaccine doesn't work for the type of flu virus (he gave the specific scientific name), and that influenza kills people. He said that many adults have had the flu in the past and are cavalier about its risks, they don't get the shot, they self medicate. Interestingly the CDC only requires the reporting of child deaths from influenza, not adults. Most of those who died in the flu pandemic of 1918 (called the Spanish Flu) were young adults.
Elsewhere I learned that many deaths from this flu are the result of the immune system 'going wild', essentially an over-active immune response. A woman in my building died from the flu last month. I haven't had the nerve to ask her bereaved son if she had the vaccine.
Never said she deserved it, that's your straw man. I said it was no fault of our domestic health care system, but rather the fault of her own choices, one of which was stupid.
I agree with this but was her decision really stupid. In her case it might have caused her death but what are the odds for a healthy young person to die from the flu.
According to local reporting, the husband didn't get the Tamiflu until a week later, not a day. At that point, it was way outside the time period where it might have been helpful.
Quote:
Heather Holland, a mother of two and second-grade teacher at Ikard Elementary School, reportedly held off on getting her prescription drugs because of a $116 copay. Holland’s husband, Frank, told the Weatherford Democrat that his wife thought the price was too high for her family.
Mr. Holland reportedly bought the medication a week later, however, the teacher’s condition quickly deteriorated. “Friday night, things escalated and she ended up in the ICU,” Holland said. “The doctors got the blood cultures back and they had to put her on dialysis early Saturday.”
And no, it's not a magic bullet but it does help to reduce the duration and severity of the flu. There's of course no way to know for certain either way, but there is at least a chance that it might have helped this unfortunate woman enough so that she wouldn't have died.
I agree with this but was her decision really stupid. In her case it might have caused her death but what are the odds for a healthy young person to die from the flu.
No idea. I was 37 when pneumonia almost killed me for my stupidity/stubbornness.
My point is that a combination of her choices and/or bad luck are why she died, not because generic Tamiflu is too expensive. The meme and the surrounding narrative suggest that were it only for nationalized healthcare and cheaper prescriptions, then this noble, sad victim of corporate greed and bureaucratic inertia would be alive today!! And that meme/narrative is bunk.
She chose $8 symptom reliever over $52 possible cure out of her own stubbornness. No guarantee that generic Tamiflu would have cured her, but it had a better chance of doing so than NyQuil did. She chose poorly.
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