US Healthcare

[Larry L.]

There are things far more dangerous in your daily life than ebola, sheepleman.

Odd. There isn't a darned thing I come in contact with on a daily basis that is anywhere near dangerous enough to require me to wear a hazmat suit when in its presence, Insultman. That includes power lines and chemicals.

One can avoid coming into contact with the normal hazards of everyday life because they're known and recognizable. 'Faaaaaaaaar different situation with Ebola.

 

[Robert May Eng.]

I have absolutely lost track of the sheer numbers of people suggesting that Ebola sufferers should be airlifted to Northern Iraq. Seriously..

What a world we live in...

Howzabout Ebola infected sheep, now there`s a thought . that would fixerate a few problems.

Bob

 

[Al Wohlstrom]

This should be of interest to both sides.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOk0vOup4yA]Barton: OCare Website Hidden Source Code Says Users "Have No Reasonable Expectation of Privacy" - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Keith]

Well, she certainly looked uncomfortable! Tell me Al, what is this in relation to? The Healthcare Bill?

If it is, we kind of have the same issues here with cross agency information. It makes sense to allow sharing of your critical health details with 'interested' health agencies as it can speed up treatment and avoid diagnostic hiccups. We have to opt in to to one set of rules (permitting sharing) and ensure we opt out of another, which permits data mining by third parties. Not everyone will get it right so there will be a vast amount of personal medical information flying around in the hands of God-knows-who.

Fortunately, the choices come via our GP's most of whom are thankfully completely against the idea of third party access to patients' sensitive data, but regretfully, there are those healthcare professionals who look to make a large buck out of the transparency of private records. Either way, it's a minefield, and worth every second of debate to get it right before it all kicks off.

I have my doubts it won't be a leaky bucket though, both here and over there.... :worried:

 

[Al Wohlstrom]

Well, she certainly looked uncomfortable! Tell me Al, what is this in relation to? The Healthcare Bill?

If it is, we kind of have the same issues here with cross agency information. It makes sense to allow sharing of your critical health details with 'interested' health agencies as it can speed up treatment and avoid diagnostic hiccups. We have to opt in to to one set of rules (permitting sharing) and ensure we opt out of another, which permits data mining by third parties. Not everyone will get it right so there will be a vast amount of personal medical information flying around in the hands of God-knows-who.

Fortunately, the choices come via our GP's most of whom are thankfully completely against the idea of third party access to patients' sensitive data, but regretfully, there are those healthcare professionals who look to make a large buck out of the transparency of private records. Either way, it's a minefield, and worth every second of debate to get it right before it all kicks off.

I have my doubts it won't be a leaky bucket though, both here and over there.... :worried:

Yes, it's in the application/signup for Obama care. I almost felt sorry for her.

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

Yes, it's in the application/signup for Obama care. I almost felt sorry for her.

Well I don't, that is the sought of sneaky "fine print" thing that Government and major corporations use all the time to manipulate us. Good on the bloke for highlighting it.

 

[Terry Oxandale]

Dallas was another example of the US' "best health care money can buy".

 

[Jim Rosenthal]

As usual, there's enough blame to cover anyone who was within about ten miles of the Dallas Ebola cases.

Ebola is VERY dangerous. For an infectious disease to be that dangerous, it has to be 1) easy to transmit, which Ebola is and 2) have a high rate of death, which Ebola does. Ebola is both very contagious- like, for example, measles- and highly lethal, like, say, smallpox or rabies. Well, not as bad as rabies. In all of reported history, ONE person has survived rabies, as far as I know. Only one. Read on.

It's true that (for example) many more people will die of influenza this year than will die (in the USA) of Ebola. BUT- very few people are exposed to Ebola. If you had the same number of people exposed to Ebola who would be exposed to influenza viruses, the number of deaths would be HUGE in comparison. There is no vaccine against Ebola (yet) and seventy percent of people who get it die. AND- here's the crucial thing- just about everyone exposed to Ebola gets it, unless they are already immune from previous exposure. It is extremely contagious, is my understanding, and patients who are very sick with Ebola excrete billions of viruses in their body fluids. The virus is trying to get to the next host.

Terry, you are a bit unfair to Texas Presbyterian, I think. They did screw up- the biggest screwup was sending Duncan home, because if they had admitted him, he might be alive today. As far as the two nurses getting Ebola, Texas Pres. was doing the best they knew how with a lot of conflicting information. NOW there is a huge amount of information on how to dress to take care of Ebola patients. Even a few weeks ago there was not. To put it another way, it's unusual that more people didn't get sick with Ebola. I don't know if my own ER would have done any better than Texas Pres., although I hope so. We see a lot of tropical diseases where I worked, so we might have been more on the ball. But I'm not sure.

As political as threads on this forum get, the Ebola epidemic and the small number of cases here are not really a political issue at all. The comments made here are not much use in terms of actual fact with regard to the epidemic, but they do say a lot about the people making them and their political persuasions.