Summary

Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) claimed that “70 percent” of health outcomes depend on individual choices, blaming Americans for poor health while Republicans plan to cut healthcare protections.

Marshall, a former OBGYN and leader of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Caucus, emphasizes nutrition and preventative care but ignores systemic issues like poverty and racism.

Proposals from the Trump administration and GOP Congress may weaken Affordable Care Act (ACA) protections, reduce access to care, and increase uninsured rates.

Marshall has also supported physician-owned hospitals, benefiting financially from the industry.

  • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    The prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials famously defined “evil” as the absence of empathy. His point still stands.

  • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    One of the biggest things that “radicalized” me was my son’s heart disease. Right out of the gate he’s got a chronic illness that neither he nor my wife and I could’ve avoided (no genetic issues or family history of heart disease) and under the old system he would’ve struggled his entire life to get medical coverage because every insurer would try to say his heart was to blame or he’s used up his lifetime maximum (what a dumb fucking policy that was). Plenty of people like him do absolutely nothing wrong and suddenly they’re facing a lifelong health issue, but that doesn’t mean he and others like him are a drag on society.

    Fuck healthcare and health insurance profits! They’re probably the top industries where cost-saving decisions mean someone is going to die.

    • Apytele@sh.itjust.works
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      4 hours ago

      And often wouldn’t be a drag on society and would grow up and walk and talk and poop on their own and do everything else an able bodied person does if they just had stuff like early surgical interventions and their $0.03 a day medication that’s existed since 1983.

  • Asafum@feddit.nl
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    5 hours ago

    “you’re going to be tired of all the winning!”

    -Trump

    …yes… I’m very very very very fucking tired of Republicans “winning.”

  • Tiefling IRL@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    9 hours ago

    One big difference I’ve seen between the US and other countries that illustrates this problem is in labeling.

    In the US, things like “sugar free” and “low sodium” are seen as features (and half the time they’re deceptive anyways). In other countries, labels go the opposite direction, and unhealthy food has to have warnings that it’s high in fat/sugar/etc.

    • aviationeast@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      And could have been prevented by their own actions like choosing to not declinepeople’s insurance claims.

  • zephorah@lemm.ee
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    11 hours ago

    People need to understand that there is nothing universal about doctors. Many are great people who genuinely want to help people. Like anywhere else in life that involves people, there is a slice of doctors who are assholes. Within that slice, you find the the doctors who don’t like what they do and find something else lucrative like CEO or Senator. Marshall is one of those guys. These doctors and former doctors won’t hesitate to use their former title to try to look better though.

    Yes, what he says, can be true. Patients will often and wantonly ignore advice to diet and exercise to lose weight. Diabetics will ignore the rules of being diabetic and end up in a coma in ICU. And hold my beer injuries absolutely do happen. But again, it’s a slice, not 70%. Many people do what their doctor advises. Many people will put in the work. Some of them, failing at diet, will get a gastric sleeve or gastric bypass, that works too. And many diabetics manage their disease, including type 2 diabetics who work hard to lose weight to send their toe 2 diabetes into remission. And so on.

    Marshal sounds like a real jerk.

    • nyamlae@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      And also, the idea of “choice” is bullshit anyway. People who don’t comply with their doctor’s recommendations generally have reasons for doing so, such as depression, insecurity, and horrible side-effects to medication. Good healthcare finds and addresses those reasons instead of just blaming people for being affected by them.

    • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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      12 hours ago

      Saves a bunch of money for you. That money should be in their pockets, you see? So, to discourage you from saving it, they will add another cost to your medical care.

      Long live the shareholders.

    • zephorah@lemm.ee
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      11 hours ago

      You will also need to fix PTO and work practices that deny paid time off since most clinics only operate during bankers/work hours.

      Speaking of PTO, most employers don’t offer sick banks any more. You either use your time from your 2-3 week vacation bank as a sick bank or you don’t get paid time off. You can either get sick or have a vacation, not both. Even hospitals engage this system with their employees, not offering a time bank for anything medical. Worse, they’ll force you off on days with too many staff and auto pull from that bank, depleting it.

      So it’s not as simple as just ramping up preventative care. You will still have people trying to use the Emergency Room on the weekends and thus not really getting help for basic problems instead of seeing their doctors.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    To some extent, it is about choices, to a degree, but nearly everything the qons do supports people convincing everyone to make those poor choices. The qons went insane over things like - restricting the size of gigantic sodas, planting a vegetable garden at the White House, Michelle Obama encouraging exercise in children, and the qons call things like encouraging good health “social engineering”.

    And that’s not even getting into the complete mess our SAD is - and it is largely a creation of things I’m sure most qons support - a system that creates massive amounts of beef and dairy via subsidies, food deserts in large parts of the country, and wanting zero restraint on business when it comes to regulation in making and marketing this dangerous food, means someone, somewhere, is consuming the stuff that leads to so much bad health, or living in the cancerous zones that are created as an “externality”.

    Meanwhile, if the qons hear a whiff of someone making plans to educate children about the health implications of SAD - most especially curtailing, in any way, the ridiculous over-consumption of meat, dairy and eggs, why, they get the vapors. They view this as “indoctrination”.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      SINGLE-FAMILY CAR-DEPENDANT ZONING

      The biggest contributing factor to our obesity is how our built environment itself facilitates a sedentary lifestyle.

      It’s also a major contributing factor to:

      • poor mental health (because of both commuting road rage and lack of “third places” to socialize)
      • the housing crisis
      • wealth inequality
      • climate change
      • plastic pollution (a lot of which comes from tire dust)
      • crime (as a knock-on effect of inequality and poor mental health, plus the legacy of leaded gasoline)
  • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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    11 hours ago

    Marshall has also supported physician-owned hospitals

    Weird thing to include as if this is bad. Would you prefer venture capital to own the hospitals?

      • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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        7 hours ago

        This says physician owned, not physician managed. To me that sounds more like a co-op.

        To be fair, there is some potential conflict of interest with self-referrals; the American Hospital Association has some criticisms, but I’m also wondering if this is a bit of their own propaganda. The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons says “physician-owned hospitals (POHs) are known for providing some of the highest quality care in the country at the lowest cost”, and the American Medical Association also supports POHs.

  • randon31415@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Even if that is true, that means that if Elon Musk or Trump gets cancer from something, 30% of the time it is from something that the government has said is safe and no amount of money or healthcare could have avoided it.