Main reason I ask is because Chillindude, a prominent member of the competitive Melee community had a stroke recently and as he’s relatively healthy and works out often, he doesn’t have health insurance, and even though he’s sponsored by Team Liquid, one of the largest e-sports teams out there, because he is classified as an independent contractor, he doesn’t have health insurance through them.
The way he got the stroke was through an infection in his knee that he got misdiagnosed twice, and the hospital was going to throw him out even because he’s been stabilized, but doesn’t have coverage, which to me is actual BS but I’m honestly curious as to why this would be the case, considering strokes need so much recovery done for them.
Situations like this is part of why I couldn’t write my own thing for the ideal society post I made the other day, because I have no clue how healthcare should be handled. I do know however that portions of why healthcare is so expensive is due to the companies that make the equipment being anti-“Right to Repair” and the actual repair costs of the equipment being outrageous (Louis Rossmann made that a video months ago and I can’t find it), but still, this whole situation is really outrageous to me, that the hospital was going to throw him out after he stabilized due to a lack of proper coverage, and that stroke recovery as a whole is as expensive as it is in the US. I’d love to hear from our European people if it’s really any better there or am I being lied to, but still, idk what the solution really is.
Edit: I’m in the US, so this is pretty important for me to know.
It's messed up because everything is aimed at the doctor, and then demands he be competent in everything, while the science is moving away from that. The guy who wrote about the term disruptive innovation wrote about schools and medicine at the same time. In both he said the role of the central figure, the doctor or teacher, would be taken away. He pointed how this was already happening. You need to be checked up by a doctor? How much of it was technicians and nurses? Were you talking to a doctor or a physicians assistant?
He wrote the books in 2008ish, and instead of adapting and changing, the industries went hard against it. We have propped up doctors and teachers so much they can't imagine a world without themselves. They will fight tooth and nail to keep that position, and they honestly think they are helping.
Because of this, both have stagnated both in society and in technology. When all the scanning devices could easily hook up to my phone, why do I need a special appointment? Because the doctor doesn't know how to do that.
It's not new either. Michael Crichton wrote about it in the 1960's, and how technology was changing medicine. He even showed how telemedicine was already happening. Doctors didn't like it, so they made sure it stagnated for literal decades.
I've been nicknaming it Ego Jobs. You recognize it by how they pump it up on the news or meetings. You will also notice how technology acceptance seems to be slow around them.
Journalists, teachers, doctors, and even architects can be described this way.
I feel for you, I had a relative with a rare physical ailment and the doctors had no clue. It took a lot of wikipedia and only research to find out what it could be, and then find a doctor who would approve the tests to see if it was this or that. The entire time Egos got int he way of finding out. Even the people who helped yelled at the relative for thinking it was such and such. I was in the office of one, and he nearly had a sudden facial fracture.