Oh for a set of legs... by FREMDFIRMA

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Oh for a set of legs...

POSTED BY: FREMDFIRMA
UPDATED: Saturday, November 24, 2012 18:13
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VIEWED: 1790
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Thursday, November 1, 2012 4:15 PM

Just imagine being in this situation, which is admittedly worse than mine.

Joey Funderburk, South Carolina Man, Selling Donuts To Raise Money For New Prosthetic Legs
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/01/joey-funderburk-south-carolin
a_n_2059211.html

Quote:
After Joey Funderburk's health insurance company told him they wouldn't pay for his new legs, the 20-year-old from South Carolina decided to take matters into his own hands.

Selling Krispy Kreme donuts outside of large stores, Funderburk is hoping to raise enough money to afford new $120,000 prosthetic legs, WBTV reports. The pair he uses now are from when he was much smaller and are not strong enough to support his additional weight.

"I've got to sell thousands upon thousands of doughnuts, but sitting on the couch is not gonna get you a set of legs," he told WBTV.

Funderburk was born in a Romanian orphanage with a birth defect that caused him to lose most of his two legs. He spent six years as an orphan before Chrystal Funderburk brought him to the U.S. to have surgery in Charlotte and obtain his first pair of prosthetic legs.

Now, his insurance company is refusing to cover the cost a new pair of legs because there has been “no change” in Funderburk’s condition, according to CBS South Carolina, despite the fact that Funderburk’s doctor said he is putting himself in danger by using legs that are too small.

Even with insurance, the health care company would only cover $50,000, or less than half of the total cost, Fox News Charlotte reports.

And yeah, they ARE that expensive, especially since the american medical care industry has misused patent and copyright law to blockade such cost effective solutions as the Jaipur foot (which costs a mere $40.00 to make) and the involvement of "insurance" drives the price of ANY BLOODY THING through the roof.

Not to mention the current three way battle between patients, insurance companies and medicare over whether FUNCTIONAL LIMBS are a "medical necessity", which is ludicrous on the face of it, but there we are.
And as I mentioned elsewhere I've my own fight about that, eventually resulting in being forced to accept a lower grade prosthetic, which failed last night in epic fashion and at THIS point being unable and not having the resources to fight the entire epic legal battle all over again and another on top of it to force a change of provider, I did the only thing I possibly could with the whole messed up sitution.

Stripped that bastard for parts and rebuilt my old one, on the sidewalk, by HAND - cause that's all I can do, thank you fucking insurance and your fucking lawyers and your whole fucked up medical care system, so once again conventional medicine has failed me.
The score stands 5 to 0 in favor of Mad Science, as of today.

There's a PSA vid on this, of people including I think Oscar Pistorius (the guy with the two Ossur cheetah blades) handing back their prosthetics to show just how crippling this whole fight is - but I am out of time and cannot find it....

Anyhows, here is just the very TINIEST slice of bullshit one has to grind though, even just to start the process.
http://www.amputee-coalition.org/fact_sheets/assist_orgs.html
Multiply that by a hundred or so, and consider that the expense of the legalese and bullshit is ALMOST as much as the prosthetis, and those cost in the range of 50 grand, and you wonder why our medical care system is so fucked up, when they spend more money on fighting against providing care than they do on providing that care.

-Frem

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Thursday, November 1, 2012 4:22 PM

BYTEMITE

Quote:
Not to mention the current three way battle between patients, insurance companies and medicare over whether FUNCTIONAL LIMBS are a "medical necessity", which is ludicrous on the face of it, but there we are.

This reminds me of a crazy story I heard about from Oklahoma, where a quadriplegic couldn't even get on their disability plan.

The insurance is a different thing, but no less heinous. We have the WORST most expensive health care system in the developed world. It's really kind of amazing if it weren't so tragic.

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Thursday, November 1, 2012 4:56 PM

WISHIMAY

Quote:
Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:
Stripped that bastard for parts and rebuilt my old one, on the sidewalk, by HAND - cause that's all I can do, thank you fucking insurance and your fucking lawyers and your whole fucked up medical care system, so once again conventional medicine has failed me.
The score stands 5 to 0 in favor of Mad Science, as of today.

WAY TO GO! Knew you could....

Yanno, I think you'd be perfect to be on the news and ask for a group to fund a shop so you could do that for others and maybe get yer bills paid while ya do it? Everyone has to start somewhere... Reminds me of the movie Robots. See a need, fill a need...

I think I'd be good at that, my specialty is improvising things. Maybe in a couple years when I got time on my hands...

Hubbs just made a hella point... All that money spent on adverts for elections, you could have as many new legs as most girls have shoes...
Makes me hate polititians that much more

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Thursday, November 1, 2012 5:19 PM

CANTTAKESKY

Good gawd.

-----

Don’t waste your life not making amazing things with equally amazing people.

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Saturday, November 3, 2012 12:23 AM

FREMDFIRMA

You know, sometimes I can be pretty damn dense - it did not immediately occur to me that others would not make the immediate association of this that I did, given that it both compounds the horror and makes a political point I feel is kinda important.

Quote:
Romanian orphanage

See, in 1966 Romanian dictator in all but name Nicolae Ceausescu threw down something very remarkably close to the current GOP agenda, criminalising abortion, restricting birth control, severing the rights of women over their own bodies, legally stonewalling divorce - the same agenda we are now hearing from modern conservatives, and it left a legacy of bodies.
http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.org/dhm_archive/index.php?display_a
rticle=vn318cohort_of67ed
Those who died quick, they were the lucky ones.

Nobody wants to talk about the other legacy, the horror of "ceausescus children", abandoned and unwanted in a world which had no place for them, subject to orphanage conditions not much better than a puppy mill kennel.
http://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Ceausescu%27s_Kids
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/battling-to-save-the-los
t-children-of-ceausescu/45464.aspx

And Joey was of course one of the lucky ones, made it out alive, and sane....

Only to be then fucked over by our supposedly better-than medical care industry.
Only to be in a country seemingly hell bent on repeating a piece of history so goddamn awful no one wants to even REMEMBER it, much less speak of it.

Hell of a thing, this is.

-Frem

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Saturday, November 3, 2012 3:58 AM

JONGSSTRAW

Quote:
..something very remarkably close to the current GOP agenda...
the same agenda we are now hearing from modern conservatives, and it left a legacy of bodies.

So Romney and Republicans are now like Ceausescu. Why bother to sugar-coat it like that? C'mon, be bold. More like Idi Amin, Hitler, and Mao combined, right?

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Saturday, November 3, 2012 5:29 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Good that there are those who took the time to create artificial legs in the first place, huh?

" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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Saturday, November 3, 2012 5:35 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Frem, whose ass needs to be kicked? People have gotten extraordinary responses from widespread publicity.

UNITED BREAKS GUITARS

I have no talent with a camera... or singing, for that matter... and I'm sure you value your privacy, but maybe a letter-writing campaign towards a specific person might help?

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Saturday, November 3, 2012 9:45 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Jongsie, you miss the deliberate contrast - see, Ceausescu was a hardcore commie-socialist of the worst possible stripe, and yet despite modern so-called-conservatives decrying all that ever existed in that form, those are the policies they seem hell bent on enacting.

And frankly, Hitler would be a step *UP* for them, since the current model closest to their agenda is in fact Mussolini, especially in regards to economics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Italy_under_Fascism,_1922-1943

So not only following in the footsteps of tyrants, but those of failed and incompetent ones.
And above all things, I loathe incompetence.

Siggy, as for specific asses needing kicked, this is more of a wide-scale problem due to the convergence of "insurance" with the for-profit health care industry.
Hell, this very day in a couple hours I am assisting a benefit drive for a friend of a friend who's health "insurance" slammed her with a massive deductible in regards to cancer treatment, and they want it up front - no money, no treatment, and if she dies while trying to scrounge up the money what do they care, to THEM it's a cost-savings, the bastards.

Our current system has each and every flaw of both a privatised, and nationalised, system - with absolutely NONE of the benefits of either, the worst of both worlds, and is untenable for that reason.

It is not enough, I think, to salvo ones efforts at solving a single persons problems, although yeah verily it sure don't hurt - but more importantly is to storm rush those who in their terrified deliberate ignorance, deny the reality that we more or less HAVE to nationalise our health care system if we wish to keep it any kind of effective, something more than a luxury few can afford.

We have the resources, the ability, to make proper health care a human right, but I know better than to suggest moral virtue to the kind of people who spend $58,000.00USD in tax monies to avoid building a $12,650.00USD soup kitchen out of pure malice - so lemme suggest that it is also the most COST EFFECTIVE solution, an investment of sorts cause preventive care up front means less need for catastrophic care (which is dire expensive) much later.

Merely trimming a negligable amount from the giveaway to so called "insurance" companies would easily pay for the lot five times over, and you wouldn't even have an unemployment issue cause the expanding infrastructure would quite handily soak up all those displaced administrative folk and probably employ more besides - forgive me however if I have a bit of trouble shedding a bitter tear for unemployed CEOs and boardroom drones, being that they produce nothing and take disproportionately.

But then again, we're talking common sense to Randroids on this, which for the most part is doomed to fail, and so we must then remove them from the reins of power, mock them, shun them, and cast them out as the pariahs they surely deserve to be.

Not really a whole lot simpler than that.

-Frem

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Saturday, November 3, 2012 10:30 AM

JONGSSTRAW

Quote:
Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:

Jongsie, you miss the deliberate contrast - see, Ceausescu was a hardcore commie-socialist of the worst possible stripe...

Parts of my family tree have Romanian roots, so a history lesson is not needed.

Quote:
and yet despite modern so-called-conservatives decrying all that ever existed in that form...
And frankly, Hitler would be a step *UP* for them, since the current model closest to their agenda is in fact Mussolini, especially in regards to economics.

I see. You believe Conservatives are worse than Hitler, yet equal to Mussolini. Such insight is indeed both rare and bold.

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Saturday, November 3, 2012 9:53 PM

FREMDFIRMA

*snort*...
Thing is, ain't that they're worse by moral paucity, so much as they're worse by virtue of incompetence, a buncha fascist wannabes who aren't even any good at it!

ANY system of Government, accepted by the populace and administrated properly, can work just as well as any other, it's when those two key points are bungled that things start going to hell, the first because you don't have sufficient compliance to even assume legitimacy (this is what broke prohibition, although we seemingly learned NOTHING from that mess), the second because when personal agendas get involved and become more important than proper administration nothing can get done.

Oh, and it ain't just conservatives mind you, I got a special place in my ninth circle for that bastard Wilson, nor am I in any way blind to the dangers of a liberal establishment going bad either - despite that jackboot licker Ringo's name on it (when in fact Linda Evans did most of the writing), there's a book in Keith Laumers BOLO series - The Road to Damascus which does a pretty good job of detailing just how badly a liberal establisment can hit bottom, borrowing in part from various historic failed regimes in that respect.

Thing is, the choice has come down to semi-competent right-centrists pretending to be liberals and doing a piss poor job of it, and absolute far end rightwingnut wackjobs who lack the competence to DO the job even if you handed it to them on a silver platter with a detailed instruction manual.

I am NOT happy about being backed into THAT corner, not one friggin bit.
My partisanship has less to do with left-right balance than it does chaos-order, you have to understand, I woulda voted for Eisenhower despite certain disagreements with his policies, whereas I would NOT, in a million years, have voted for Wilson.

-Frem

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Monday, November 5, 2012 5:21 AM

BYTEMITE

Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:

Quote:
..something very remarkably close to the current GOP agenda...
the same agenda we are now hearing from modern conservatives, and it left a legacy of bodies.

So Romney and Republicans are now like Ceausescu. Why bother to sugar-coat it like that? C'mon, be bold. More like Idi Amin, Hitler, and Mao combined, right?

Don't be silly. It's not just Republicans, and we're worse than all of those. America in general invades other countries and has death sentences for it's own citizens, only we do it more than Hitler and Mao or any of the wannabe dictators and tyrants of the early 20th century could even dream. In that way, we're more like Britain, only Britain's 1000 years of dominance is fading as an oppressive imperialistic force, and we only have about 200 years under our belt.

It's touching watching the torch being passed from one generation to another. I might even shed a tear. Maybe a trail of them.

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Monday, November 5, 2012 8:22 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Frem

Just out of curiosity, how complicated is the manufacture of a good, usable, prosthetic leg? Compare to building something else. Is it more like - for example - a piece of furniture, an M-16, a commercial CAD/CAM laser or plasma cutter, a motorcycle, or a computer?

I know that some bits have to be custom to fit weight, height, stump size, etc., but $120,000 seems like an awful lot when you can get a new car for a tenth of that. Seems like with a rack of standardized parts you could mix and match lengths, springs, etc. pretty easily.

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Monday, November 5, 2012 9:46 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Actual physical materials cost is Negligable, Geeze.
I think THE most expensive component of any of em was the Titanium shaft used by the one Dankmeyer cranked out for me, and maybe the carbon fiber socket of my last two.

The some custom bits is usually the socket, and that's just molded plastic, they take a casting (or more recently a laser scan) and then use garden variety plastic molding to do it, which none of em do themselves, they contract it out - hell we could PROBABLY do it with a 3D printer, for crying out loud, and the rest of it is standard-issue parts, really.

I think the best comparison to the examples you mentioned would be an assault rifle, metal and plastic, close tolerances, machined parts - were you to add a plastic custom formed grip to the users specific hand, it's about exactly that difficult.

The real cost involved comes from a combination of involving "insurance" which is a complete scam any way you slice it, and abusive patent/copyright/proprietary tech issues, despite much of this tech being so conventional it's all but common sense.

Honestly, given a couple hours in an auto and body shop, I could probably MAKE a functional prosthetic, it just wouldn't be as pretty - and I am sure tempted to do just that, as of late given the outright incompetence of so-called experts.
One reason any design input I ever had was uncredited is that I have zero credential whatever, I just had a lot of time on my hands while recovering and waiting for the crummy replacement prosthetics which I kept breaking till they finally gave in and sent me to an engineering firm which at the time had nothing to do with prosthetics and no experience in making them - and even THEY cranked a useable one out easy enough, they just couldn't fit it worth a damn cause of sloppy casting and not using a proper gel sleeve.
http://www.ossur.com/?PageID=12705

You ever wondered why I have so little respect for privatization ?
Because the consequences of the real-world application of that experiment hits me pretty hard every time I turn around.

Same bullshit with the wheelchair, the LOWEST cost through the system was $795.00USD, with a hefty deductible - for the same goddamn wheelchair I bought out of pocket at Harbor Freight for around a hundred bucks, which is even less than the deductible I woulda paid, and don't even get me started on charging eighteen bucks for a fekkin roll of gauze, or nine bucks for a single ibuprofen 200mg.

Also worth bearing in mind I had to engage my very ruthless and completely amoral attorney (who uses me as a tax write-down) in order to get ANY care at ALL, on this, and that battle is STILL being fought, I have yet ANOTHER stack of forms and letters here regarding their latest breach of the consent agreement - basically any time I wish to get anything outside an office visit done, it starts a several-months-long legal fight... I'm not overfond of the Gov running things for that reason either, so combining the two worst elements and letting them run wild is the worst of both worlds.

-Frem

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Monday, November 5, 2012 10:09 AM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

Crap Frem, I'm sorry about all this stupidity.
If you could have things your way regarding health insurance/healthcare, what would you do/have?

That's kind of an interesting idea, opening up a prosthetic shop where they build them freelance.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Saturday, November 24, 2012 12:07 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:
You ever wondered why I have so little respect for privatization ?
Because the consequences of the real-world application of that experiment hits me pretty hard every time I turn around.

Same bullshit with the wheelchair, the LOWEST cost through the system was $795.00USD, with a hefty deductible - for the same goddamn wheelchair I bought out of pocket at Harbor Freight for around a hundred bucks, which is even less than the deductible I woulda paid, and don't even get me started on charging eighteen bucks for a fekkin roll of gauze, or nine bucks for a single ibuprofen 200mg.

Or Ambulance services, here's a perfect fekkin example.

Call Kurtis Investigates: 84-Year-Old Charged $3,000 for Ambulance Ride Next Door
http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2012/11/16/call-kurtis-investigates-84-
year-old-charge-3000-for-ambulance-ride-next-door/

Quote:
(Lodi) Tom Kosta estimates seventy five yards separates the hospital from the medical offices next door where he had his MRI. The 84 year old doesn’t understand why the short ambulance ride would cost so much.

“It’s a lot of money, it really is,” said Tom.

Already admitted to Lodi Memorial for dizziness, Tom needed an MRI and the closest machine was next door.

“$3000 to go from here to there?” Kurtis asked Tom.

“It’s ridiculous #1 and it wasn’t my idea #2,” said Tom.

After all, Tom says he told the nurses he could walk or go by wheelchair.

“They said absolutely not, I had to go by ambulance,” said Tom.

This is also a common problem, generally worse for crime victims who often don't get a say either - when I collapsed back in March/April and was suffering the effects of what seemed to be a mild stroke in combination with a neural/autoimmune misfire, do you think I drove to the clinic (which I don't even REMEMBER doing, mind you) cause I preferred to ?
Nope, cause the MINIMUM bill for an Ambo around here is nine hundred bucks!

Seriously, a lot of people die cause of this, but really the choice often winds up die quick, or die slow cause if the bills send you into the death spiral, what's the goddamn difference ?

And Rio, if I had a choice I would simply expand the existing Medicare infrastructre to cover EVERYONE, it's not a great solution, but there would be at least a minimum baseline, and from there those who wanted more could shell out for it - I don't mind my tax dollars helping cure or feed people, I DO mind those tax dollars killing people I got no quarrel with though.

-Frem

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Saturday, November 24, 2012 6:13 PM

CHRISISALL

Frem, I SO wish you ran this world...

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