I want to kill someone ... in the AMA ...

Okay - I am not a big fan of sports, but I do like high school sports - mostly because the kids still remember there isn't an "I" in "team"
5 days ago a kid made a game-saving play then died. Discovered in his autopsy that he had an enlarged heart. Something that could have been discovered with a simple test - an echocardiogram. But the AMA thinks that the test is too expensive to run all kids that want to participate in sports to have. Something like only 20 in however many have the condition.
I guess there really is a price on human life, and especially young human life.

There is no reason in hell that this could cost enough to warrant denial of said service across the board for young athletes. If they thought about it it would give them a heads up and in the long run save them millions in payouts.

I hate to hear of any kid, especially one who is active and participating in life like this paying with their lives when it doesn't have to be.

Yet another failure of socialized medicine.



When will the socialists learn?

If you require those tests, you will end sports in poor schools.

Is that worth it? No.

Are you advocating rationing health care?

Well that's an easy fix. We'll just give 'em away for free!

Only in America.

But who's going to pay for it? Surely you're not suggesting the schools pay for it?

These are the human consequences of "I'M NOT PAYING FOR ANYONE ELSE'S HEALTHCARE!1!!"

How do you figure? I'm saying the costs are bogus and should be covered somewhere even if by charitable means.

But no, let's just let them drop dead. It's bullshit.
Jessie Jackson and friends would have a field day if it was poor folks dying and he ran with this ball.

Here's a simple solution: if your kid wants to play sport and you WANT TO PAY FOR THE TEST, GO PAY FOR IT AND HAVE IT DONE.

Don't lay it on the schools. There's risk in everything- you're more likely to die from too hard a football hit to the head than you are from a heart condition at age 16-18. Sorry people, the world ain't 100% safe, it never will be, and the more you try to make it so the more miserable and fucked up it's going to be for everyone.

Want kids to be 100% safe from this stuff? Get rid of school sports. There ya go!

Ya know what? Tragic as it was, the kid died doing something he loved. It's a rare enough thing, and no one is forcing any of these kids to play school sports. If the athlete or his/her parents have a concern, they can deal with it privately with their own healthcare professionals. Why make a fucking mandate of it?!

What's wrong with having it be a requirement? Back when I was a kid, if you wanted to play sports, your parents had to cover the costs of a physical, not the school.

Multiply the number of high school athletes by $500-1,000 and ask yourself who's going to pay for that.

Because first you have to contend with attitudes like this:

Yeah, let 'em eat cake. Your world looks more and more like Kim Jong-Il's every day.

It's poor athletes of any color, because middle-class kids' parents are willing and able to shell out the $500-1,000 (I doubt there's an insurer in the U.S. willing to cover the costs for a kid unless there's an already-known underlying condition, in which case the kid's not playing sports) along with the costs of uniforms, etc.

So what's the solution in the wealthiest nation on Earth? Expect hospitals and labs to do these tests for free? Expect insurers to cover them? More bake sales?

Statistically, you're probably more likely to die in a school shooting. Let the parents pay for the EKG.

Ya know, I remember a time when health insurance didn't pay for prescriptions or for visits to the doctor's office. And as soon as insurance did start covering those things, the docs raised their fees.

Imagine that!

I never said the tests should be free, only available at a rate that isn't spiked through burocratic bullshit and greed.

I'm saying it should be a requirement and the procedure done at a reduced rate of say a couple hundred bucks a piece.

If it takes a bake sale, auction of some sorts or some community activity in assembly of the funds then so be it.

Like Tuckerfan, when I was in it was the parent's burden to bear and usually we had rates that reflected the purpose and there were means within the community to get things done if the kid wanted to play bad enough.

Still think it should be the parents, they just need a break.

Then you also remember when health insurance cost a fraction of what it does now and it was paid for by the majority of employers.

You also remember that a doctor's office visit cost about $15, and most prescription meds cost only a few bucks. And if you didn't have the cash on hand at the moment, you could pay in installments.

I've heard about this type of thing happening in some of our local schools. What a tragedy to have the ability to run a simple test and save a life, but not do it because the AMA doesn't recommend it.

Was it also the AMA who last year I think it was wanted to change regs on when woman should get mammograms?

There's a perfect capitalist solution: Pass the costs on to the consumer in the form of higher ticket prices.

Slow down there, Communist. Why shouldn't doctors be able to charge whatever price the market will support for their services?

"Greed" is another way of saying "you're making too much profit," and we all know there's no such thing as too much profit.

I know. I had a sports physical every year I was in high school. This test doesn't need to be a requirement. It's like requiring everyone applying for a driver's license to be tested for cataracts and glaucoma in addition to simple vision. It's overkill. Statistically it's NOT AN ISSUE.

I had a doctor who would put one hand on my abdomen and knock his hand with the other to make a thumping sound. He said that since different organs have different densities and therefore make different sounds (e.g. a lung-thump sounds more hollow than a heart), you can discern their size and location this way.

I wonder how accurate that is? It's certainly less expensive.

Interesting choice of word - "overkill." I'm sure Wes Leonard's parents would appreciate your characterizing their son as a statistic.

How many students play sports in a typical year? Millions probably. How many have congenital health problems that cause them to die on the field in that same time? A small few.

But...

How many children die from drug overdoses in the same year?
How many from car accidents?
How many from violence?
How many from suicide?

Assuming you even could come up with the money to test every single public school athlete for every possibly fatal health condition, you would, at best, save one or two lives a year. At best. If everything worked 100%.

You'd be far better off spending the money to do something--anything--about those other things I mentioned. Even a slight improvement in any of those others would be a savings of many more lives. In fact, a much smaller amount of money could probably accomplish much more on those issues.

Let me just say a few things about cost...

It's easy to wave the "human lives can't be measured in dollars" flag around in an argument. It's something else again to put your own money on the line. How much of your income would you give to potentially save a single life? If your local high school could perform EKGs on every athlete at an annual cost of, say, $35,000, would YOU pay it if no one else would? If not, aren't YOU putting a price on human life?

School districts don't have the money for that kind of thing (especially now) and many parents couldn't afford it. If it were required of the schools, it would probably end sports in many schools. If it were required of parents, it would cause many students to be economically ineligible to play.

It doesn't matter if you spend all the money in the world. Every single one of us is going to die. Sometimes that can be forestalled, but we have to be reasonable: some efforts to save lives simply aren't worth their costs or their consequences.

If you're still not persuaded, let me ask you this: why stop at high school athletes? Why not every student? Every person? People in other countries who can't afford it? Yes, it would be expensive, but you don't want to put a cost on a human life, do you?

Here come the rainbows and unicorn farts! Price controls, anyone?! We've all seen how well THAT works! Welcome to the new sign on the door: "ECG's are not performed here!"

My solution is the libertarian solution: if you want the test done because you're worried about it, fine. Go get it and pay for it your damn self. We don't need another motherfucking nanny state rule telling us what we need and what we fucking don't need.

Jesus tap dancing Christ,

So....does Canada pay for kids to have this test if they are into sports?

In the greater scheme of things, G, particularly to government bureaucracies and insurance company beancounters, we're ALL a statistic going somewhere to happen. Sorry if it offends your liberal sensibilities. The answer to one kid's tragic death is not a spate of more regulations and fucking mandatory requirements. It's a typical liberal kneejerk and I am unamazed to see it here.

The death panels would never allow it.

Sadly there is no way to protect kids from everything. This is very far down the list on things that kill kids. Even money spending libs should spend it on the dozens of things that kill kids far more often.

Quoted for the MFW!! Michael Moore would LOVE some of the responses in this thread!!

They can, I never said otherwise. What I said, plainly was they should do this for the athletes at a reduced rate. Should one actually do this who knows how much future work it would bring in and the community clout would be cheap. It's win-win.

In it's place, sure. This isn't it.

Eh.

If you require it, either the schools have to pay (which they can't afford) or the parents due (which would potentially rule out poor kids from ever playing sorts - and in these parts the big majority of kids are on free or reduced lunches, how do you justify that if they can pay for a through enough physical to catch everything?

My solution: publish a list of RECOMMENDED tests and be sure the parents are aware of "this potential condition can be identified by this available tests which costs X"

then it's up to the parent
a. pay for the test
b. don't let the kid play
c. let the kid play and take your chances.

Frankly, all sorts of people take all sorts of chances with their health, or their families health, for lack of money - that's the way of the world.

This happens to be a high profile incident, but what if the same young man had died while, for instance, jogging? The risk is the same, and no one would say "your kid should get screened before you let him jog!"

Basically - it's a matter of "shit happens"

hard as it is for the family to accept.