Do It Yourself Pap Test....

[misstia]

I think this is in my top 10 favorite ads....a do it yourself pap test...whoever heard of this??? it's easier to face cervical cancer than a pap test at a dr.'s office?? !!

March 1973 Women's Day....

Comments

[garden_hoe21]

Wow. That sounds terribly inaccurate. How many laypeople know how to scrape a good sample of cells from the cervix? And package it correctly? And store it correctly? Even with instructions, this sounds like a powerfully bad idea.

[misstia]

and you send it thru the mail too! Like being in a hot mail truck/mail sorting facility/etc wouldn't affect it?

how accurate were the results? i can't imagine very...

[garden_hoe21]

Well, at least you don't have to take an hour out of your day to go to an actual doctor, right?

[air-and-angels.livejournal.com]

Or have to submit to an intimate female examination.
Where the doctor sees your Shameful Nethers!

[thudpucker.livejournal.com]

"Well, at least you don't have to take an hour out of your day to go to an actual doctor, right?"

Actually, it would be more like "Well, at least you don't have to choose: buy groceries for the week or pay for a doctor's visit and the cost of the lab test."

[garden_hoe21]

I keep forgetting how shitty it is in America for health care :( Sorry.

[thudpucker.livejournal.com]

Because having a government bureaucrat who's never worked a day in his life handle all of your health care decisions is so much better. That's why people are coming to the U.S. in droves from Canada for medical reasons; they can either wait eighteen months for necessary surgery, or they can go to a free market economy and have it done now.

[ceruleanshipper.livejournal.com]

Or, if you're an American without health insurance making $9 an hour, you can have no operation at all! Go free market!

[misstia]

don't forget the americans who belong to HMO's who will deny deny deny procedures until you're dead! I've read too many articles of people having to go to the press to try to get an HMO approve a life-saving operation, or even treatment for a child with cancer....too little too late....

and i just read about a woman in california who's insurance dropped her when she started chemo....she just got awarded $9 million in a lawsuit...her insurance HAD a policy of canceling sick people's health coverage...they've stopped doing that now....

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCallPlusBreastCancerNews/story?id=4338818

american health care is all about the money....money for insurers---who pretty mcuh dictate most of everyone's treatments; money for dr.'s; money for the pharmaceutical companies---who also dictate what pills are pushed for treatments, i think they're in cahoots with the insurers....

it's a mess!! all for profit, caring/curing is last on the list i think....

[thudpucker.livejournal.com]

Honestly, neither system works... but they're both broke for different reasons.

The English socialized medicine system doesn't work because there's no incentive to change or excel for anyone involved - plus there's a massively heavy layer of government bureaucracy smothering it from above.

The U.S. system, on the other hand, doesn't work because it's neither fish nor fowl. It's not really a free market system, since the medical industry is so heavily regulated by the federal and state governments - often at the instigation of medical providers who like the status quo. Yet it's not a socialized system, either.

I think what would help the system here would be first, to bitch slap the FDA and tell them that ten years and a half a billion dollars to get a drug approved - even one already in use in Europe - guarantees massive drug prices and no development for 'orphan' diseases.

Second, allow walk in clinics to see people for everything that's not life threatening. These are manned by nurses and physician's assistants, and they can (and generally, do) handle three quarters of what current uninsured people clog the emergency room for. And they're cheap.

And third, cap medical malpractice claims. Yes, there are bad doctors out there - and if the state boards would make their records transparent it would be possible to know one was bad before you went there - but when a doctor has to pay a quarter of a million dollars a year for malpractice insurance, there's something wrong.

Sorry. Went off on a tear, there. You're right, basically, and you're wrong. The system here doesn't work, but blaming it on the free market is overly simplistic and begs for a solution that would only be worse.

[garden_hoe21]

"Second, allow walk in clinics to see people for everything that's not life threatening."
A... pap smear, for example?

[thudpucker.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Inexpensive clinics with a centralized lab. Quick, clean accurate and cheap. Unlike the system currently used in both of our countries.

[garden_hoe21]

All I know is, I've never had to do my own pap smear. But, according to you, someone in the U.S. might be desperate enough to do it. That's based on your comment and your ideas.

[thudpucker.livejournal.com]

And that's pretty much what I meant. But the statement of, essentially, "Oh, yeah... I forgot how medieval things are there" sort of bothered me. Especially since it tends to be said by those in countries with socialized medicine - a system that also doesn't work.

[garden_hoe21]

"Oh, yeah... I forgot how medieval things are there" is what I took your comment to mean. After all, it was you who brought up the fact that some Americans can't even afford regular preventative healthcare. Living in Canada, I may have to wait a while for certain surgeries, but I don't have to risk doing a mail-order pap smear because of desperation.

Why did you bring it up, anyway? I expressed disbelief that someone would do her own pap smear. You brought up the fact that, in the states, some people are too poor to afford healthcare. I said "oh yeah, that's shitty healthcare," and then you got really upset. I really don't think I said anything that you didn't bring up?

But anyway, I have rules about bickering with strangers on the internet, so I'm gonna let this go, especially seeing as how we don't really even seem to have different perspectives on the issue.

[thudpucker.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I think we both inadvertently pressed each other's buttons on this issue. We can probably agree that health care - in both our countries - is inadequate, though we might disagree on how to best fix it. But I never wanted to come across as 'bickering', and I agree that we have the same basic perspective on the issue - that health care should be inexpensive and readily available.

Truce? :)

[garden_hoe21]

Okay!