Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for July 01, 2023

American specialty

In the USA, almost NOBODY pays for their own health care. Some are insured and the insurance pays for (some of) it. And some indigently visit the emergency room and we ALL pay for it.

As bad as this looks it is the verity of truthiness!

Only in Wiley’s world do patients get placed on the operating room table with all their street clothes on.

My complaint is drug prices, drug companies will pay another company to use their patent at the end of the original patent to keep prices high. Supremes (the self-policing ones) said this should be judged on a case by case basis.

If you want a second opinion, you should sedate his accountant.

He forgot to use forceps to carefully remove the man’s wallet while he’s unconscious!!!

One thing for sure, nothing improves your care in an emergency room more than when they find out how good your insurance is.

Sounds about right. One of the many, MANY, reasons I am grateful I don’t live in the US

Pleeze let it be a lawyer on the table.

While it’s true, our health care system here in the U.S. is in need of a serious upgrade. For example, it continues to support the three tiered approach based on one’s income. Remedy, find out what works in our countries, integrate into ours, toss what isn’t working and build in an upgrade process. Secondly, When you factor in our (American) food choices, overall it appears to be a revolving door with our healthcare system, and quite self-sustaining. At 60, I chose to get control of a different path. I began to be mindful of what I put into my body. And, because motion is lotion, I began to warm-up and do a little workout each morning. Good results so far.

«His educational career began interestingly enough in agricultural school, where he majored in animal husbandry, until they caught him at it one day.

Whereupon he switched to the field of medicine in which field he also won renown as the inventor of gargling. […] He soon became a specialist, specializing in diseases of the rich. He was therefore able to retire at an early age.»

What’s in your wallet…?

Want to make folks from the rest of the world realize just what a 3rd world shitehole America is? Tell them what you paid for your last surgery or even “better,” your last medical emergency. And then tell them that more and more doctors visits are being timed to last for as little as 10 minutes per patient.

Be warned – their look of horror will be genuine

I see an error here. That is a business school class. Those people in the gallery are not future gas passers, but budding MBAs and hospital CFOs. The docs are now all employed by hospitals and equity groups.

I recently spent about 6 hours in the local E.R. after a severe loss of equilibrium. I feared a stroke, but it turned out to be an inner ear infection affecting my balance. A few simple tests, and a lot of waiting before being given some prescriptions for some antibiotics and meds to help my balance until the problem was cleared up, and the Bill ended up being $13,950!!

I had an appendectomy last July. The anesthesiologist billed $1,500, Medicare allowed $125. or about 1/2 of what a plumber would charge for a 30 minute visit. The whole claim-CT scan, surgery, overnight hospital-$65K; Medicare allowed $8,000

The reason doctors want to keep you alive is because they get no money from dead people.

The blatant greed of insurance cos is astounding….and others…☹️

80k a year to pass gas… Hmmmmm…

Classified documents are nothing compared to what happens when POTUS has surgery.

I presume those are the new IRS agents looking through the window…

Well, complain all you want. When you accidently sit on something and it gets stuck up there you’ll be glad a Doctor was ready to help.

That’s why I have Strange Things Stuck in Awkward Places insurance. Worth every penny.

This procedure is called a walletectomy and is a required course in med school

They learn to do total cashectomies.

Nurse anesthetists do the majority of OR work. The anesthesiologist (physician) supervises. Ever state has a limit on how many they can supervise at once. If that changes (higher number), then patients will have more at risk than their money.

It might be a good idea to tip the anesthesiologist. They pass the gas that makes painless last.

An anesthesiologist is my doctor at the pain clinic, and he’s quite personable. Of course I look forward to my visits with him.

The insurance companies are the biggest thieves. They take your money regardless of whether you are sick or in good health. Making money off the pain and suffering of others is really abhorrent and disgustingly cruel and evil.

I pray this doesn’t come to Canada.

Where’s the colonoscopy probe?

must be HMO

Patient resource “hacking”.

Weird Al did it in “Like a surgeon”.

“My doctor gave me six months to live. I couldn’t pay my bill so he gave me another six months.”

“My doctor grabbed me by the wallet and said, “Cough!”"

[Compliments of Henny Youngman, R.I.P.]

No doubt anesthesiologists and doctors prefer propofol. You could be screaming bloody murder, then forget everything. They don’t call it milk of amnesia for nothing.

My mom was a nurse. She was in the Navy in WWII. Her best friend was a nurse anesthetist. In the late ’50s she was forced out of her job by anesthesiologists.

“Exactly! You can get f$&ed by taking an ambulance, you can get f$&ed by going to the wrong hospital, or you can get f$&ed by going to the right hospital but getting the wrong surgeon. The American healthcare system gives you so many choices as to how you want to get f$&ed, it truly is the Kama Sutra of healthcare.”

— John Oliver

The American Healthcare system is a business. My niece is a doctor in a foreign country, I asked her “What are you doing there making peanuts for a living?” But she intends to work in the Netherlands, still no money to be made lol but she is dedicated to her craft and loves to help the poor. In fact, she works in a government run hospital.

This one really anesthesized me, zzzzonk…

Several years ago had surgery to repair my hernia. Anesthesiologist used nitrous oxide. Woke up with a migraine headache and tinnitus. Headache went away, not so the tinnitus.

Is Miller implying that anesthesia people are greedy and trying to rip patients off? Physician and Nurse anesthesiologists, or the employed facility, get paid what ever the patient’s insurance plan pays. Usually, if the patient doesn’t have insurance, and cannot afford to pay anything, the anesthesia is free and just written off.

Every time I’ve had an operation that requires me to be knocked out, the anesthesiologist always comes into my room ahead of time to tell me what to expect, and I’m always really really really really nice to them!

After reading through most of today’s comments, I am so happy that I live in Mexico City and can afford to pay out-of-pocket for the excellent medical and dental care I receive.

It’s not his finances that they should be concerned about. It’s his insurance carrier that matters. Of course the better financial situation, I guess means a better insurance carrier.

Unbelievable that US voters haven’t elected a party that is willing to fix this stuff. But then almost ALL the politicians are owned by for-profit corporations through “campaign contributions” (which is any other country would be called “bribes”) to keep the money flowing to them as it is today.

How cynical.

Shouldn’t he be using forceps to remove that wallet?