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Old 03-01-2009, 06:16 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,386,609 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HereinDenver View Post
Both are very close to an epidemic.

They are not a huge problem from a cost perspecitve anywyas. The incidence of diabetes, htn, heart disease, cancer, joint disease are all on the rise. What percent of the health care cost do you think they represent?
There is a very specific definition for epidemic and I don't think either diseases fits the criteria. Both Colorado and my home state of Pennsylvania have a lot of defunct TB sanitariums b/c the "mountain air" was supposed to be curative.

I don't know the answer to your quesation, but I'd like to see some proof that they are "on the rise".
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Old 03-01-2009, 06:21 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana View Post
There is a very specific definition for epidemic and I don't think either diseases fits the criteria. Both Colorado and my home state of Pennsylvania have a lot of defunct TB sanitariums b/c the "mountain air" was supposed to be curative.

I don't know the answer to your quesation, but I'd like to see some proof that they are "on the rise".
There is a definite rise in TB and MRSA, esp. in inner city hospitals. Tremendous efforts are in place to keep it from becoming an epidemic. The reasons these are making a comeback or not has nothing to do with our life style or our general health as a population.
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Old 03-02-2009, 07:40 AM
 
8,587 posts, read 9,079,688 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HereinDenver View Post
Don't get me wrong. There's plenty wrong with the system. We're working on it. I just think that it is fundamentally wrong to just throw money at the problem. We as a country needs an attitude adjustment when it comes to health care. It's not unlike the economic crisis. If you read most of the threads, people blame everyone but themselves. Same with health care. We created the problem by not caring about our health, by not stressing exercise and education, by becoming the most inactive and obese society on earth. We make our selves sick. Then we blame others for not fixing us. Of course there are more to the problem than this, but we will never get anywhere unless we changes these facts.
You want to know what bothers me about your broad brush aproach of the American people? The US did not become the world's premier super power off the backs of a bunch of lazy, fat, ignorant hicks. No, it was off the backs of an intelligent, hardworking people. The hardest working bunch the world has ever seen, hands down. If you are working on the problem and convinced that Americans are fat and lazy and that is where the chronic deseases come from because you are in the field, I beg to differ. Explain to me how a hard working person like my wife, who was very healthy, fit, 120lb, 5' 7", in her early 40s, until she broke her arm in a fall where she developed a severe chronic desease called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy? Read up on the disease, since you "do this" and explain to me how her lifesyle could cause this. This desease effects mostly females and many very young girls at that who are in the best of health. And I would not go into a diatribe of how our health insurance company succeeded in ridding her from their rolls, leaving her unemployable to boot until a I stepped into this mess that she thought she could handle on her own. Most chonic deseases, abit some, are not caused because you don't jog every morning and skipped your Quaker Oats.

Last edited by jmking; 03-02-2009 at 08:24 AM..
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Old 03-02-2009, 08:00 AM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,386,609 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jmking View Post
You want to know what bothers me about your broad brush aproach of the American people? The US did not become the world's premier super power off the backs of a bunch of lazy, fat, ignorant hicks. No, it was off the backs of an inteligent, hardworking people. The hardest working bunch the world has ever seen, hands down. If you are working on the problem and convinced that Americans are fat and lazy and that is where the chronic deseases come from because you are in the field, I beg to differ. Explain to me how a hard working person like my wife, who was very healthy, fit, 120lb, 5' 7", in her early 40s, until she broke her arm in a fall where she developed a severe chronic desease called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy? Read up on the disease, since you "do this" and explain to me how her lifesyle could cause this. This desease effects mostly females and many very young girls at that who are in the best of health. And I would not go into a diatribe of how our health insurance company succeeded in ridding her from their rolls, leaving her unemployable to boot until a I stepped into this mess that she thought she could handle on her own. Most chonic deseases, abit some, are not caused because you don't jog every morning and skipped your Quaker Oats.
Thank you. You said it better than I could have. There is also my daughter, who had a mole "go bad" and become melanoma at age 14, one of the few cases of childhood melanoma in Colorado. It was on a place on her body that rarely saw the light of day, let alone sun. She was born with the mole. I've worked in health care for 35+ years, have seen many skinny little people with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, etc. Since you live in CO HereinDenver, you should know about the elevated incidence of Multiple Sclerosis here. No known cause yet. And even tuberculosis, which we got sidetracked on, used to be thought to be caused by "psychological reasons" until the TB bacteria was discovered.
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Old 03-02-2009, 08:15 AM
 
8,587 posts, read 9,079,688 times
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Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy or RSD or CRPS was also thought to be psychological. Not now. However, I witness many of my wife's doctors blow her off as needing a shrink. It took almost 4 years, her deteriorating health and a switch to a better health insurance policy at a very high cost to get her proper care. Until that happened she was clearly neglected by the doctors under contract of an HMO issued by the largest defense contractor in the US.
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Old 03-02-2009, 08:39 AM
 
8,587 posts, read 9,079,688 times
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Another point--My wife was diagnosed early with RSD, almost as a wisper in her medical records and was pushed on to the next doctor to deal with. Her pain was never controlled in the first 4 years. Because of this neglect her desease worsened. If it was vigorously controlled from the beginning the desease may have gone into remession as many do. Instead her desease progressed to level 3 and may never subside. Because of this neglect, by the hands of an HMO, we now pay such a high premium through my work it is possible that we may lose the roof over our heads. Sleeping in the street isn't healthful at all. She is now totally dissabled and will be taken care of by the taxpayer, one way or the other, through medicare because she is considered a liability to the health insurance industry.
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Old 03-02-2009, 09:22 AM
 
48,505 posts, read 96,610,333 times
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HMO are like the healthcare to come :i am afraid. The HMO are a model for things to come which basically limit treatment and take choice and treatment options out of the hands of doctors. Many times like HMO's a doctor that doesn't even examine the patients decides treatment and especailly the test allowed. Patient choice is very important in so many serious health problems.
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Old 03-02-2009, 09:25 AM
 
Location: Texas
989 posts, read 2,493,441 times
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If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it is free.
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Old 03-02-2009, 11:47 AM
 
8,587 posts, read 9,079,688 times
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I do fear UHC in this country could end up like an HMO. And if that would happen, sueing incompentent service ending in someone's demise would be out of the question because the Fed is ammune to lawsuits, or to a limited degree. I do not predend to know the answer but the present system is going to implode like fuel prices, mortage fiasco, peoples' utility bills. ATXIronHorse, our health care is already priced very hjigh. Millions are not members of large groups of paying customers driving their premium as high as mortgage payments including myself. And I'm not talking about a mortgage payment in a cornpatch in West Virginia but a mortgage payment in a very expensive County called Fairfax.
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Old 03-02-2009, 11:50 AM
 
Location: Santa Monica
4,714 posts, read 8,446,689 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ATXIronHorse View Post
If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it is free.

More know-nothingism and fearmongering.
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