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chat @hexbear.net tactical_trans_karen [she/her, comrade/them] @hexbear.net

Active medical sector collapse in the US?

I can't go into much detail, but I know a lot of people with medical problems who aren't being seen by doctors in the US. Time and again I see people who have what I know to be fairly routinely urgent medical concerns that do get told by the ER that they have to wait for a specialist... 6+ months out. I'm sorry, but an infection doesn't wait 6+ months for you to put them on some basic antibiotics that a PA or I think even some nurse practitioners can prescribe in certain jurisdictions.

I remember when I was in the military (circa 2008), I had a colleague who told me his mother died on the sidewalk outside an ER because they couldn't afford any insurance and the hospital refused to see her. I didn't believe it, I though that it couldn't possibly be a thing in the US. But I keep seeing parallel issues time and again, but now it's for basic things and not because of insurance, but providers and networks are so fucked up that people must be dying from these things.

I know someone who worked in billing and claims for medical insurance too. They share horror stories about double leg amputees being denied a wheelchair...

Hope I don't get an infected cut or something, even with my decent insurance who the hell knows at this point!

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  • After working at the adrenochrome factory I got a good look at how things are going in healthcare in the US. I wouldn't be shocked if some crisis befell everyone. For work I wouldn't feel comfortable having someone without a relevant degree doing, we were making less than some fast food workers. Not to denigrate them, but I would trust a respectful high schooler to be able to help with the responsibility of feeding people. That shit had corporate shifting everything around, we had clean rooms that would pop for fungus, and we were constantly on edge of running out of shit like ethanol and containers. We had turnover >50%. I know someone who had to file a complaint with the labor board to get their overtime paid out. Meanwhile someone was making money hand over fist about it. I was so upset with how society handled this service that any rational actor would believe a civilized society required and how they just mismanaged it for profit. The wonton disregard for the work that had to be done weighed my spirit down. I started going to lunch instead of meetings - I had trouble saying no to two attractive people instead of falling asleep during the meetings as my reputation had declared.

    During the quarantine in the US, they had nurses wearing trash bags as PPE. Burnout was spreading as much as the virus. I'm sure with insurance money flying everywhere like a shell game for shell corporations all sorts of bullshit comes before making people better. If a hospital has that managerial browbeating flavor where in addition to helping people for 12 hours, you had to learn a new payroll system that some slick tongue in a suit sold them, I can't imagine helping people is primary for the leadership. It all falls on people going the extra mile for people in spite of the incentives.

    It makes my stomach wretch because I did follow the incentives. I work for the CIA monitoring leftist forum activity now. It's decidedly less important than synthesizing adrenochrome. I'm much more like the payroll salesman. But now I have monetary hope for the future. When there's work to be done I do it and I don't pretend to be busy when there's not. I take on a reasonable load of responsibility and I'm appreciated and compensated for it (most of the time, some people are assholes for whom contracts and laws don't apply). I would go back and do a lot of jobs if the CIA went under, but I would be so distraught if I were in healthcare again.

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