Steve Jobs Had a Liver Transplant Two Months Ago 436
evw writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago (subscription required, alternative coverage is available based on the WSJ's report). He is on track to return to work at the end of June. 'William Hawkins, a doctor specializing in pancreatic and gastrointestinal surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., said that the type of slow-growing pancreatic tumor Mr. Jobs had will commonly metastasize in another organ during a patient's lifetime, and that the organ is usually the liver. ... Having the procedure done in Tennessee makes sense because its list of patients waiting for transplants is shorter than in many other states.' There are no residency requirements for transplants."
2 Months is very fast (Score:5, Informative)
I wish him well... my Dad was able to go to Oshkosh (AirVenture) with me 1 year after his surgery. A trip I will never forget.
Bill
Re:can Americans tell me.. (Score:4, Informative)
No, most hospitals are required by state law to treat folks without insurance for emergency care. So, by the point you are actually dying you'll get treatment. And, by that point it's only palliative.
But, hey, at least the US doesn't have socialist health care! Those socialist fire fighters do such a terrible job putting out our houses when they're on fire, and don't get me started on those socialist training camps called public (US sense) schools.
Re:can Americans tell me.. (Score:3, Informative)
What is impressive is that he did not go to India. Many of the wealthy like to go to India to buy them. LITERALLY. There are operations there that run out and steal the organs from a number of live ppl, or will take them from ppl dying of aids and other diseases (but claim otherwise). In spite of this, westerners run out there, pay the 20K and get the operations. That is because India has their money tied to the dollar, so from our POV, it is cheap.
Re:can Americans tell me.. (Score:2, Informative)
That is why the Orwellian named NICE, National Institute for Clinical Effectiveness, in Britain recently ruled that it would not pay for treatment for macular degeneration for seniors until the patient went blind in one eye. Seniors have been denied treatments for cancer on the same grounds. [spectator.org]
Socialized medicine means healthcare rationing just as it does in every country that has it.
Re:2 Months is very fast (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Proof / Evidence (Score:5, Informative)
Speaking as a doctor (Score:5, Informative)
Organ transplants are, with a few exceptions, usually contraindicated in cancer patients - especially when the cause of the failure of the organ is metastasis. But I guess if you're Steve Jobs, money truly CAN buy anything. The rest of us mortals however would be allowed to die quicker.
The Timing of Steve Jobsâ(TM)s Liver Transpla (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How much (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA, Tennessee has a shorter wait time than most states: 48 days, instead of 306 nationally. That would be my guess as to why Tennessee.
Re:2 Months is very fast (Score:5, Informative)
Well to save you from guessing, I'll tell you how it is in the UK. The vast majority of people use the National Health Service all the time (what you call "socialized" medicine). Some people go outside the system (private) if they can afford it and they want a nice private room rather than a ward, or to get minor procedures done at a time to suit them, rather then wait. Or if they want unnecessary work such as plastic surgery done. But if you have something SERIOUS wrong, like you've had a heart attack, or you need a liver transplant. Then the NHS is the place to be. They have the specialists and the equipment needed to give you the best care, not the private hospitals.
Re:Medical privileges (Score:1, Informative)
Next you'll be demanding equal access to sex or no sex for anyone
Re:It is astounding .... (Score:1, Informative)
Health care isn't a right. A right is something you have when you're born. When you're born, you already have all the basic freedoms listed in the US Bill of Rights. Rights are something other people can try to take away, not something other people give to you.
For instance, the 2nd amendment: Right to bear arms. That doesn't mean the government issues you a gun, that just means the government can't take away a gun that you have.
So if you want an amendment saying that the government can't take away your health care or deny you coverage, that's fine, that's a right. But saying that it's a right to be given health care doesn't make sense.
I'm not saying whether socialized medicine is good or bad, I'm just saying that health care isn't a right.
In Steve Jobs' case, he's willing (and has the ability) to spend more money to buy the best medical care possible. It's as if he took his car to the best mechanic possible, or had his house remodeled by the best contractor possible. Health care is a service just like any other, and the more you pay for it, the better service you get. Now, because health care can be life-or-death, I see why people would want to make sure that people who can't afford good service get it anyway.
Captcha text: Referee
Re:2 Months is very fast (Score:2, Informative)
The true measure of a society is not how they treat the most valued, but how they treat the most despised.
Wrong. The true measure of a society is how they treat the most helpless, not the most despised. The two groups are not the same, and the subtle substitution of words like "despised", "minority", "underprivileged", etc. is a cornerstone of socialistic thought. In other words, you redefine the people who need help as the people who didn't help themselves, rather than the people who couldn't. At its core, socialism is a removal of individual consequences for individual actions.
Re:Lets see what you have common in there. (Score:3, Informative)
there are lots of problems with EVERYthing that mankind has today. EVERY single thing.
what matters is using the LEAST problematic ones. like democracy. it has a LOT of problems, but it is the best we CURRENTLY have. until we discover something better, we will use it, and keep patching its issues.
same goes for socialized healthcare and sweden.
Re:2 Months is very fast (Score:3, Informative)
The generations before my parents, my grandparents and up managed to be healthy and afford their doctors on the wages of working men and women. What's changed?
Do you live in an alternate universe? Our grandparents and ancestors further back lived lives with more horror and misery than you can imagine. Calvin Coolidge's son died from an infection in a blister on his hand he got from playing tennis on the White House tennis courts. Even the president's son died from a fucking blister. And people *couldn't* afford doctors. They had to save up and pool money to get treatment -- that's the whole reason why health insurance was started.
Just read any history book about some 100 years ago. If you lived to be fifty you were lucky -- you lived to be an old person. If you got to be that old, you were probably house-ridden from arthritis -- no arthritis drugs back then. People were dropping from the flu, typhoid, whooping cough, scarlet fever. If you really want to see ghastly, read up on Diphtheria [wikipedia.org]. Bacterial growth causes a membrane to form over a persons throat, and they suffocate to death in the course of a few hours. Parents literally cradled their children for hours while they turned blue and died.
Hardly any body was healthy back in the day. 50% of babies died in the first year of infancy. 50% of the survivors died before they were 25. If you made it to 25, you stood a good chance of making it to fifty, or "old age".
Re:2 Months is very fast (Score:3, Informative)
WFT???
A chiro visit in Australia costs exactly the smae whether insured or not.
Seriously, if this happens in the US your healthcare is even more fucked up than I thought!
Re:2 Months is very fast (Score:3, Informative)