I Wish Her Well
Hillary Clinton made the same mistake I did – not getting the pneumonia shot as soon as she turned 65 and started receiving Medicare. The shot is good for 5 years, is available at most major pharmacies, and is paid for 100%.
The three times I have been hospitalized were for pneumonia, and this time I was hospitalized as a precaution because of other symptoms only tangentially related to the pneumonia. They initially thought I might have ebola.
She was dehydrated due to the fever, and the weakness was the result of the dehydration. A course of prednisone & antibiotics with Gatorade available and she should be fine. If you go out and meet the public and you are going to catch something.
For those who think this indicates something more, the first two times I had pneumonia were in 1965 & 1967. Prior to this hospitalization, I hadn’t seen a doctor for 30 years.
9 comments
Yes. It’s not fun at all! And pneumonia can still kill if not treated ASAP or there are other complications.
I wish Hillary well also. And a speedy recovery.
The Clintons’ neoliberal advocacy of “managed” healthcare has done serious damage to medical treatment practice in the US. I think of it as “assembly line” medicine, where no one has any overall responsibility for or communication with patients. They are currently pushing to further extend this model in psychiatric care. It’s being sold as an improvement of course.
Beyond that, Hillary, with her gold-plated healthcare access, is and always has been opposed to universal healthcare in the US (I won’t argue theory or good intentions, it’s certainly true in practice). Here’s just one example of what that means:
http://stupidevilbastard.com/2005/01/the_problem_of_45_million_uninsured_americans_hits_home_hard/
This is not an isolated incident, nor something that the ACA has resolved. I do not wish Hillary well, nor any recovery. Rather I’d love to see her enjoy the same level of affordable care that I and many others have for the last thirty years — effectively none.
PJ, I was without health insurance for most of my life because of living in the US. Having lived in Germany and Britain, I knew there were better systems. The reason I mentioned Medicare is because that is when people regain health insurance and can finally afford to see a doctor.
Her doctor should have insisted that she get the pneumonia and flu vaccinations before wondering around meeting people. I won’t vote for her, but I don’t wish her knocked out of the race and another stolen election.
By the way, if Hillary had already been diagnosed with pneumonia (as her campaign flacks claim) then what the hell was she doing wandering around in public endangering the health of everyone around her?
That is an entirely different issue and one on which I have very strong feelings. When people showed up obviously ill for a shift I sent them home so the rest of the shift didn’t catch it. Parents of small children were especially virulent carriers of disease. Getting arrested was bad enough, but getting arrested and catching a stomach virus was definitely the pits. I would certainly hope that she was nowhere near her grandchild. Keep your disease to yourself.
Hillary Clinton made the same mistake I did – not getting the pneumonia shot as soon as she turned 65 and started receiving Medicare.
I’ve had all my shots 😈 that said, neither the flu shot nor the pneumonia shot are 100% guarantee(there are a bunch of flu viruses and pathos other than pneumococci can cause pneumonia) so it’s entirely possible to get sick anyway.
did she really and truly not get the shots? that strikes me as unlikely.
She would have been ‘officially encouraged’ to get every vaccination in the book when Secretary of State because of traveling world wide. but the pneumonia shot has to be renewed every 5 years. Flu shots are annual. They don’t absolutely guarantee that you won’t get sick, but you will be in better shape to fight off anything that comes your way.
The dehydration and the coughing fit that she displayed last week, are a full on case.
I get flu shots at the pharmacy and the much less frequent pneumonia shot at my PCP. I know I’m not in PJ’s good graces these days (more about that below), but I should be at least trustworthy enough to reassure that Medicare did indeed cover flu shots 100% for the past three years, i.e., since I became eligible.
I would love to join you all in supporting a genuinely progressive presidential candidate, but Texas is right on the tipping point between Trump and Hillary, and I will do anything (legal) to prevent Trump from ending up in the White House, even if that requires me to vote for Hillary. I’m not worried; my soul has worse stains on it than that…
We support whom we support for our own reasons which are good enough for us. That’s why we have secret ballots. I am reasonably certain that in my county my vote is accurately counted. I’m not all certain about the overall vote in the state, nor in any of the current polls in the state.
I don’t think the Presidential election in the US is democratic or fair. It wasn’t designed to be and doesn’t reflect improvements in transportation or communication. We would play hell changing things because people believe that the ‘Founding Fathers’ are the font of all wisdom, despite not being able to spell worth a damn.