Hospital system overwhelmed

[brewer]

Yes, but maybe you don't know what the average working capacity is normally: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1859...ince-2001/

That's a good graphic; I hadn't seen that.  But then it doesn't mean that data is super accurate.  For one thing its a national based graphic.  Who knows what the data looks like locally and that's what really matters.  We don't normally ship patients from Macon, GA to Pensacola, FL just because there's capacity available.  When local events happen, like floods, earthquakes, fires, traffic pileups, mass shootings, even flu...you name it, the local hospitals often get overwhelmed.  We've seen covid cause this in numerous regions because its happening everywhere.

Population increase is predictable and relatively static, unforeseen disease or disaster is not. The school comparison is not valid.

I didn't say it was a perfect comparison, just a comparison.  The point is we, as a community, see school overcrowding as a negative thing so we react by providing more capacity.  Why don't we do the same with the medical systems.  I think Nudger is making a good point, if the medical industry is profit driven then it will be designed to maximize profits and little else.  I think all the hospitals in my area are for profit and I know they are often extremely busy because I know people who have had to wait weeks for serious procedures due to lack of the available slots in the OR.  As I said, this could have more to do with limited medical personnel than beds.

Then that's a community/local issue that needs to be addressed at the local government level, not by hospitals in general.

When emergency conditions arise emergency contingencies are put into action. We are seeing it with covid. And yes it's not pleasant. But to say it could have been avoided if we had only ....................... I'm not buying it.

[arewethereyet]

I didn't realize till weekend before last that my son had not been vaccinated. My husband and I both made a couple comments to him about getting the shot and being fine even with our health issues. I think those comments and the fact that two people he has worked with for years are now in the hospital with COVID and the FDA approval helped to change his mind. He got his first shot yesterday.

He has been wearing masks and is pretty much a hermit anyway but he really needed to get on board with the damn vaccine.

[The Grand Nudger]

When emergency conditions arise emergency contingencies are put into action. We are seeing it with covid. And yes it's not pleasant. But to say it could have been avoided if we had only ....................... I'm not buying it.

Some percentage of it could have been avoided had we not had to rapidly scramble to build capacity and better distribute capacity?  Some part of it could have been avoided if we ghosted some fraction of that in that event?

You're not buying that?  Cmon, that's what we did, and covid overwhelmed that too.  So we...know...that going forward, we need at least marginally higher numbers. Imagine how many of our models failed to predict death cult vaccine hesitancy, lol. Guess we might want to model for that too, going forward. Planning for the healthcare of a nation isn't about uncertainty or ideology, but the practical realities of getting sick people into beds watched over by trained professionals at that very moment - all of which are emergencies..by definition and circumstance. Maybe for you and I, thinking of it like this could help. That extended contingency plan, is the cost of doing business. Everyone involved in our covid response should be fired, for starters..but also pilloried and sent to a fucking salt mine somewhere unable to secure gainful employment in any capacity where competence is required.

When this is all over, covid will have been the united states greatest enemy, and we have objectively failed in it's face. Think about this conversation we're having, and how ludicrous it is to couch it in terms of unpredictability and the costs of unpredictable and the futility of unpredictability. This isn't the first wave.......march of dimes would fail today.

[Spongebob]

Then that's a community/local issue that needs to be addressed at the local government level, not by hospitals in general.

When emergency conditions arise emergency contingencies are put into action. We are seeing it with covid. And yes it's not pleasant. But to say it could have been avoided if we had only ....................... I'm not buying it.

What do you mean it's a community issue?  If it's a for profit hospital, the community has no say in how it's run.  I suppose I'm in critic mode of our approach to health care nationwide.  It would be interesting to see if other countries have better preparedness than we do.

Yes, emergency contingencies are put into action, but it doesn't mean they are adequate.  I would say a nationwide pandemic is one of those things that is so unlikely that virtually no one would be willing to plan enough to be adequately prepared to deal with it.  But as I said, there are more localized events all the time and they are much more predictable.  You may not buy it until the day comes when someone you care about is sick and told its too bad but we're all full.

[The Grand Nudger]

-and isn't it that intentional and profitable backlog of everyday events which make some unexpected thing so dangerous? Ideally......on a normal day..... life-for-profit......there would be no empty beds and no free labor. That's the actual goal of life for profit.

A bad traffic accident ends up being a local crisis, and all of those local deviations are happening on the day of, say, a global pandemic.

[brewer]

Then that's a community/local issue that needs to be addressed at the local government level, not by hospitals in general.

When emergency conditions arise emergency contingencies are put into action. We are seeing it with covid. And yes it's not pleasant. But to say it could have been avoided if we had only ....................... I'm not buying it.

What do you mean it's a community issue?  If it's a for profit hospital, the community has no say in how it's run.  I suppose I'm in critic mode of our approach to health care nationwide.  It would be interesting to see if other countries have better preparedness than we do.

Yes, emergency contingencies are put into action, but it doesn't mean they are adequate.  I would say a nationwide pandemic is one of those things that is so unlikely that virtually no one would be willing to plan enough to be adequately prepared to deal with it.  But as I said, there are more localized events all the time and they are much more predictable.  You may not buy it until the day comes when someone you care about is sick and told its too bad but we're all full.

The community does have a say, they can go to the hospital and ask that they expand services and capacity. If the hospital management rejects the request they can start soliciting/enticing competing medical care.

I live in the real medical world, not medical utopia

[The Grand Nudger]

They can start soliciting/enticing competing medical care...from...where? Whom? Is that actually a product on offer?

I agree that this would be great...but...was there actually a (relatively) uncompetitive hospital, or some collection of competitave upstarts with capacity available...empty unassigned beds somewhere, to leverage when a pandemic hit, for example?

[Spongebob]

The community does have a say, they can go to the hospital and ask that they expand services and capacity. If the hospital management rejects the request they can start soliciting/enticing competing medical care.

Talk about living in a dream world....  Simplest answer to that is it doesn't work that way and you know it doesn't.

BTW, I didn't mention it before, but the biggest hospital in my area actually owns 5 hospitals and numerous clinics in the metro area, including some smaller towns.  There is very little competition.

My mother lives in a more rural area about 3 hours away and she is of course advanced in age.  She and my father often have to wait several weeks for appointments to see a specialist.  This is due to the fact that there just aren't enough of them around.  Some of them are based in a large city and have satellite offices in a radius of up to 100 miles.

[The Grand Nudger]

Its a cartel, and I don't particularly mind the cartel operating and charging premium prices for premium services. I think that's great and how things should be. We can have that, it it will make boatloads of money, but we can also have single payer for the seething mass of commoners. It's not as if rich medical tourists would want to come to a plague zone to be healed, after all.

[no one]

They're all faking. Covid is a democratic conspiracy to undo the almighty tRump.