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Comment by sorcerer-mar | Hacker News Reader

The guideline to stop screening at 70 has nothing to do with financial cost. It’s that detecting it at that point is useless because you’ll generally be dead of other causes by the time it catches you.

Compounding the issue, the rate of false positives rises as you get older which then 1) freaks people out and 2) encourages them to get more invasive tests done which are themselves increasingly hazardous (and less valuable) with each passing day.

There are a lot of good reasons not to speculate about others' health decisions on the Internet, and avoiding a spotlight on your own basic ignorance is one of 'em!

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Yes, because most men won't live to be 82, so on average it's not worth it. But presidents are not "most men." They're also attended by personal physicians who can keep them from freaking out when informed accurately of their health.

I would appreciate less condescension about my supposed ignorance, but I guess that's unrealistic.

Doctors don't adjust how long they're trying to keep you alive based on your job title.

Doctors also don't believe that rich people are somehow immune to the psychological trauma of "you might have cancer → nvm all good → you might have cancer → nvm all good → you might have cancer → nvm all good."

That might be true in a triage/ER context.

Doesn't track when we are talking about a slow, years long chronic illness and someone who over the last 4 years has had personalized healthcare to the tune of 8 figures.

As mentioned, it is not access to healthcare that determines PSA screening guidelines.

PSA is only one of several diagnostics that would have caught it at the level of care POTUS gets.

> Doctors don't adjust how long they're trying to keep you alive based on your job title.

Of course they do

Hmm, must’ve just slipped past me when reviewing the medical guidelines that inform almost all of a doctor’s decision-making.

Doctors are, unfortunately so far, people. And they're also gatekeepers to care.

It's naive to think they don't discriminate on all sorts of factors outside the guidelines, for instance when treating fellow doctors. Not that they'll admit to it. I know doctors who won't even admit to it to themselves. But they still do it: they'll just call it by a different name or make up an outside reason.

Uh huh… and how exactly does this demonstrate that Biden would’ve gotten PSA screening after 70 against the guidelines?

It would be cool if you would stop purposefully taking the stupidest possible interpretations of my posts.

Okay, then you tell me how having a personal physician means you certainly are getting PSA checked beyond 70 y/o.

Lay out the logic step by step.

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