Unfortunately, the best solution is for you to move to a more densely populated area. Not necessarily to a mega-expensive city—although we should make those more accessible too—but somewhere close enough that you don't need air travel to get treatment. And there should be social programs that can make this financially possible.
It would totally suck for you, I realize that. Unfortunately, our society simply cannot continue on as it has. We either change now, proactively, or we change after the climate catastrophe has forced our hand. Under the latter scenario, the change will be much worse.
(We should also make healthcare accessible in more places, but it sounds like your needs are highly specialized. There are some treatments we cannot realistically provide everywhere.)
There are many large cities in the Midwest. Flying to California/Massachusetts implies that the problem is a rare disease, not that it's a population density issue.
Yeah, and so that needs to be a consideration in where GP chooses to live. I realize I'm asking them to upend their entire life, but I don't know what else to do. The status quo simply isn't an option.
I don't get to choose where to live. Unless you want another homeless in the streets of SoCal who plagues Greyhound for their doctors appointments.
I was born in the 8th poorest community in the U.S., by parents who were born and lived their lives in the 8th poorest community in the U.S., and had to drop out of my full-ride scholarship college I somehow got from being at the top of my highschool (can't really remember how at this point, partial amnesia from untreated chronic pain) because of complications caused by lack of medical treatment. Couldn't afford it/the ability to get care as a minor without a guardian is near impossible.
If you think you can just choose where you want to live, no matter the desperate circumstances to do so, you must be gleefully unaware of the realities of life, which is something I wouldn't expect from a H.N. poster, for the most part at least...
Some people just had no real chance. It's unfortunate.
No, the ideal way for it to be solved is for the U.S. government as a collective to give a shit about science, which they don't, and I doubt will within my lifetime.
Care for one of my issues is only conducted as Stanford and Cedars-Sinai. There's a little more specifics/a split subgroup to it, and Stanford cares for the subgroup I'm in. The majority of the rest of healthcare in the U.S. claims that it does not exist, is impossible, and that symptoms are completely psychosomatic.
Care for my second large issue is an incredibly misunderstood surgery that is led world-wide at Massachusetts General Hospital. 10 years ago, the condition wasn't really accepted as being real across the majority medical community. 5 years later, things are a bit better but many doctors believe some hoo doo it's only X because Y and definitely not Z.
8 years later, vascular surgeons are still basically at war with each other on deciding the correct course of surgery... Despite 1 of 3 being successful in over 80% of cases and the other 2 of 3 leading to permanent disability and chronic pain in ~50% of cases. To be fair, there's about 5 truly good surgeons in the U.S. right now, but only MGH accepts out of state Medicaid, and coincidentally/luckily enough for me, that surgeon is widely regarded as the best.
Anyways, now I'm just rambling off topic in this thread. Yes, I agree that society cannot continue this way. I'm actually in the realm of wishing we said fuck medical ethics for as long as it takes to figure out how to cure most of disease/conditions that can be seen before birth. Would probably happen fairly quickly in the grand scheme of things if the medical community had the funding and ability. But, that's something that will also never happen. Science is the only way forward to have a civil society (which the U.S. claims to be, but is clearly not), but the bulk of the U.S. populace, especially those who vote, seem to be quite anti-science and willfully ignorant in a time where we have near all of thousands of years of knowledge condensed in the palm of our hands. And then there's the sociopathic portion of the government masquerading as "civil servants" who exploit that for money...
I'm honestly happily awaiting the downfall of what the U.S. believes itself to be. I expect it within my lifetime.
It would totally suck for you, I realize that. Unfortunately, our society simply cannot continue on as it has. We either change now, proactively, or we change after the climate catastrophe has forced our hand. Under the latter scenario, the change will be much worse.
(We should also make healthcare accessible in more places, but it sounds like your needs are highly specialized. There are some treatments we cannot realistically provide everywhere.)