Off Topic Rant, that my wife will slap me for posting!!

[pickles]

Hi

 

I am incensed … and I know that this is going to be a controversial subject … I would never normally post something like this because of the political divide in the US. So generally, I would keep my posts to cars and cooking. But I just have to vent.

 

I am lucky to have a wife who is the main ‘breadwinner’ which allows me to pursue ‘hobbies’ … one of these is volunteer work … I am a volunteer firefighter, also a volunteer EMT. So, I get regular boosters/vaccines for all sorts of things. So skipped down to my local CVS to get a Flu & Covid booster … only to be told I was not old enough and no pre-conditions that warrant the shot for Covid.

 

Ah Ha … I reached into my wallet and pulled out my National EMT card, “Unfortunately sir you are still ineligible”

 

In what sane world can this happen? At the start of pandemic I took training to administer the vaccine, so I can give it but can’t receive it !?

 

Probably nearly 25% of my calls begin with “Difficulty Breathing” I wonder how many people like me are going to be “Oh perhaps I’ll give this one a miss!”

 

OK rant over and apologies if this post offends … back to cars! And yes my Caterham still will not start. 😊

 

Pickles

[mrmustang]

1 hour ago, pickles said:

Hi

 

I am incensed … and I know that this is going to be a controversial subject … I would never normally post something like this because of the political divide in the US. So generally, I would keep my posts to cars and cooking. But I just have to vent.

 

I am lucky to have a wife who is the main ‘breadwinner’ which allows me to pursue ‘hobbies’ … one of these is volunteer work … I am a volunteer firefighter, also a volunteer EMT. So, I get regular boosters/vaccines for all sorts of things. So skipped down to my local CVS to get a Flu & Covid booster … only to be told I was not old enough and no pre-conditions that warrant the shot for Covid.

 

Ah Ha … I reached into my wallet and pulled out my National EMT card, “Unfortunately sir you are still ineligible”

 

In what sane world can this happen? At the start of pandemic I took training to administer the vaccine, so I can give it but can’t receive it !?

 

Probably nearly 25% of my calls begin with “Difficulty Breathing” I wonder how many people like me are going to be “Oh perhaps I’ll give this one a miss!”

 

OK rant over and apologies if this post offends … back to cars! And yes my Caterham still will not start. 😊

 

Pickles

Find another CVS, or perhaps a Walgreens, as the person you spoke with is not trained properly.

 

 

[MV8]

I believe Pickles is correct (about what they can do now) and within forum rules to vent about what is, in my opinion, a forced return to following long-standing, regulatory policies.

Edited September 7 by MV8

[speedwagon]

totaly agree, it is time to stand up and speak.

[pickles]

On 9/6/2025 at 3:41 PM, mrmustang said:

Find another CVS, or perhaps a Walgreens, as the person you spoke with is not trained properly.

 

 

Unfortunately, they were correct ... I do not qualify without a valid prescription from a doctor!

[mrmustang]

2 hours ago, pickles said:

Unfortunately, they were correct ... I do not qualify without a valid prescription from a doctor!

Sad, but I guess at least you can always call you GP as a solution.

[pickles]

25 minutes ago, mrmustang said:

Sad, but I guess at least you can always call you GP as a solution.

Yep, sadly got to wait 5 weeks for the appointment ... as my wife just told me ... give it up you have already given up enough! Come volunteer at the Cat shelter ... far more rewarding!

[toldfield]

Heck, you should be able to get one of the docs at the ER to give you a prescription on your next visit with a patient...

[SENC]

10 hours ago, pickles said:

Yep, sadly got to wait 5 weeks for the appointment ... as my wife just told me ... give it up you have already given up enough! Come volunteer at the Cat shelter ... far more rewarding!

I believe I'd get a new GP.  Hard to imagine a GP not ordering a vax after a phone or electronic chart request (assuming you're an established and regular/annual visiting patient).

[Vovchandr]

As a foreigner, it never ceases to amaze me how stupidly complicated, cumbersome and overpriced American healthcare system is when there are clearly better alternatives in existence. 

 

"but we dont have to wait for specialists" argument used to make sense until I now have to wait 3 to 6 months for every specialist appointment I go to anyway. 

 

Waiting 3 to 6 hours in ER is just okay for people?? This is acceptable?? And we pay for this with our own money? Isn't capitalism supposed to sort this sort of thing out. If nobody is happy with service providers new and better services will fill that gap and steal all the customers? Where's this new and better service? 

 

I'm sorry but being bankrupted by medical bill shouldn't be an acceptable norm in a first world country/leader. 

Edited September 8 by Vovchandr

[mrmustang]

14 hours ago, pickles said:

Yep, sadly got to wait 5 weeks for the appointment ... as my wife just told me ... give it up you have already given up enough! Come volunteer at the Cat shelter ... far more rewarding!

 

Edit, just called a good friend who is an EMT in NJ, as of the fall of 2025, all EMT's are considered a Priority Group and eligible for the current Covid Booster vaccine. It does not matter who your insurance carrier is, and 5 weeks is unheard of for medical professionals to receive the latest booster. You need to bounce this up a food chain or two, starting with whomever you are working for as an EMT. If not a satisfactory response, contact your regional health/medical director. If it's happening to you, it may be happening with others, and that iceberg needs addressing

 

Bill

Edited September 8 by mrmustang

[SENC]

22 hours ago, Vovchandr said:

Isn't capitalism supposed to sort this sort of thing out.

Now that's pure comedy gold right there!  Our healthcare system hasn't had but the barest connection back to capitalism for 40+ years now.

 

Having said that, I agree completely with your sentiment about healthcare costs, they are absurd.  But we're so far down the road (50% is now gov't funded), I'm not sure a return to a capitalistic healthcare system is possible.

[Vovchandr]

19 minutes ago, SENC said:

Now that's pure comedy gold right there!  Our healthcare system hasn't had but the barest connection back to capitalism for 40+ years now.

 

Not quite sure I'd agree with that remark but I'd love to hear your reasoning. 

 

Most hospitals, clinics, and insurance companies are privately owned. Drug prices are set mostly by market forces. Medicare, Medicaid and VA are only true full force government involvement. 

 

The fact that Urgent Cares are in random offices and Dentists are in random houses still throws me for a loop 25+ years later since I came here. As far as Im concerned, as I grew up it was always : medical needs = big hospital and thats it. Random little homes and strip malls providing healthcare is the strangest thing on the planet and is most certainly capitalistic. 

Edited September 9 by Vovchandr

[IamScotticus]

I saw strong healthy people get severely ill or die from covid.  I saw one spouse get sick and the orher not.

Do what you can to reduce your exposure and harden your immune system.  Stay healthy and don't smoke.  Do what you can to be strong enough to fight off infection.  Everything after that is luck, fate, etc.  

The next virus to come around will require a different formula of immunity.  

If over 50 or high risk, the best thing to do is leave the population. 

Edited September 9 by IamScotticus

[speedwagon]

Health care is definitely capitalistic, except for VA, medicare and medicaid which are government, which is also controlled by the capitalistic.  But mrmustang is right for necessary service providers. For the rest a quick trip across the nearest border (and away from this third world country) should yield the right to the vaccine.    john a former patriot

[SENC]

23 minutes ago, Vovchandr said:

Not quite sure I'd agree with that remark but I'd love to hear your reasoning

My career was in healthcare administration, largely medical practices and hospitals, so I know that sector best.

 

Prices are largely set by the government.  Hospital and physician charges have been largely irrelevant to what they get paid since the 80s. Yes, somewhere around 30% is "commercial", but much of that is based on a percentage of the government fee schedule.  What's more, the government (since Obamacare) has prescribed what services must be included in most commercial health plans.  I'm not pointing political fingers - the current President appears dead set on applying price controls in the pharmaceutical side of things, too (there is certainly a LOT wrong in how drug pricing works, much due to how hospitals are reimbursed for drugs - again, mostly government set).  On top of regulated pricing, regulations determine what services are included or excluded in bundles, and determines what services can even be considered.  The administrative burden of these and other regulatory requirements is HUGE.

 

In short, very little of healthcare today is between patients (consumers) and their providers (hospitals, physicians, drug companies, etc.) - much/most is driven by third party and governmental reimbursement regulation.

 

Much of the underlying cost of healthcare is driven by regulatory and reimbursement costs, and by defensive medicine.  Unfortunately, I think the estimates often bandied about that 30-35% of healthcare costs today are driven by such non-value-added costs are accurate, and maybe low.

 

A free market system where consumers make decisions based on cost/benefit would have, in my opinion, yielded a more efficient and effective system (for most) - but the incredible perplexity of our reimbursement and regulatory system has spurred the high fixed cost system we have today.  Unfortunately, again, in my opinion, going back to pure free market wouldn't solve those issues for many years, and would cause a lot of pain in the process.

 

Sadly, our system is quite broken.  I'm not sure I see a great path for lower costs per capita short of blowing it up and starting over.

[Vovchandr]

31 minutes ago, SENC said:

My career was in healthcare administration, largely medical practices and hospitals, so I know that sector best.

 

Prices are largely set by the government.  Hospital and physician charges have been largely irrelevant to what they get paid since the 80s. Yes, somewhere around 30% is "commercial", but much of that is based on a percentage of the government fee schedule.  What's more, the government (since Obamacare) has prescribed what services must be included in most commercial health plans.  I'm not pointing political fingers - the current President appears dead set on applying price controls in the pharmaceutical side of things, too (there is certainly a LOT wrong in how drug pricing works, much due to how hospitals are reimbursed for drugs - again, mostly government set).  On top of regulated pricing, regulations determine what services are included or excluded in bundles, and determines what services can even be considered.  The administrative burden of these and other regulatory requirements is HUGE.

 

In short, very little of healthcare today is between patients (consumers) and their providers (hospitals, physicians, drug companies, etc.) - much/most is driven by third party and governmental reimbursement regulation.

 

Much of the underlying cost of healthcare is driven by regulatory and reimbursement costs, and by defensive medicine.  Unfortunately, I think the estimates often bandied about that 30-35% of healthcare costs today are driven by such non-value-added costs are accurate, and maybe low.

 

A free market system where consumers make decisions based on cost/benefit would have, in my opinion, yielded a more efficient and effective system (for most) - but the incredible perplexity of our reimbursement and regulatory system has spurred the high fixed cost system we have today.  Unfortunately, again, in my opinion, going back to pure free market wouldn't solve those issues for many years, and would cause a lot of pain in the process.

 

Sadly, our system is quite broken.  I'm not sure I see a great path for lower costs per capita short of blowing it up and starting over.

 

Thank you for first hand experienced feedback.

 

So there's regulatory control and cost on back of the house side of things which is expected to some degree.

 

I will stand by my point that at the very least the front end seems capitalistic in having random store fronts selling medical services that are privately owned. Coming as somebody from a "communist" country where back in the day you'd never see that. Ironically they now have private capitalistic alternatives to government medicine coming up as well where you can pay to see doctors you want if you dont want to deal with big hospital or wait times.

 

Not quite sure what their "store front" looks like for the specialists but it is unlikely to be in a strip mall next to Dunkin Donuts and a dollar store as an Urgent Care. 

[SENC]

17 minutes ago, Vovchandr said:

 

Thank you for first hand experienced feedback.

 

So there's regulatory control and cost on back of the house side of things which is expected to some degree.

 

I will stand by my point that at the very least the front end seems capitalistic in having random store fronts selling medical services that are privately owned. Coming as somebody from a "communist" country where back in the day you'd never see that. Ironically they now have private capitalistic alternatives to government medicine coming up as well where you can pay to see doctors you want if you dont want to deal with big hospital or wait times.

 

Not quite sure what their "store front" looks like for the specialists but it is unlikely to be in a strip mall next to Dunkin Donuts and a dollar store as an Urgent Care. 

No doubt there are capitalistic ventures that attempt to fill gaps our current system creates.  Urgent Cares are an effort to put "cheaper" healthcare as close to where people live, shop, and work in hopes of reducing unnecessary and more expensive ER visits.  Unfortunately, because they generally require payment at the time of service, they are underutilized by those with governmental coverage.

 

There are, increasingly, physicians who are practicing outside of the system - providing care for payment at the time of service or even doing monthly/annual membership type fees.  These are often much lower cost... but used primarily by those who can afford out of pocket expenses.  And they, obviously, don't provide much in the way of acute, emergent/urgent care.

 

Outpatient diagnostics are another example where there are capitalistic options.  In states that do not have regulatory restrictions on expensive diagnostic equipment (such as MRI and CT), there are often small businesses that have set up to provide such services - at much lower cost than provided by hospitals and physicians.

 

On the whole, these represent a small percentage of our overall healthcare system and expenditures - and though I appreciate and support the general idea and model they represent, in our mixed (and heavily centrally-managed) system, they actually tend to exacerbate the overall problem as they "cherry-pick" the healthiest and most capable of paying patients, leaving the sickest and most expensive to traditional providers (who have much smaller margins).

[pickles]

Hi

 

Well, I certainly stirred a debate  The good news from what I understand is that our state governor has signed an executive order to allow the Covid shot.

 

Normality returns

 

Pickles

[pickles]

7 minutes ago, pickles said:

Hi

 

Well, I certainly stirred a debate  The good news from what I understand is that our state governor has signed an executive order to allow the Covid shot.

 

Normality returns

 

Pickles

Just Booked via CVS for Monday a series of boosters ... As I always say when I go there, I am your pincushion ... have at it! 

 

Edited September 11 by pickles