For the record, I am an unpaid volunteer and fundraiser for Jamie Eldridge’s campaign.
Here’s another disturbing health care story:
Jennifer Holliday is too wealthy to qualify for indigent medical care in Angelina County, but poor enough to qualify for limited care at the University of Texas Medical Branch.
So Holliday, her arm mangled by a shotgun blast from a man who attacked her, must make the three-hour, 175-mile drive from her Lufkin home to Galveston for physical therapy twice a week.
Holliday is among a growing number of Texans without health insurance and Medicaid who are streaming to metropolitan areas and state-funded hospitals such as UTMB to get care that is not available at home.
The single mother of a 7-year-old son still has shotgun pellets in her arm and needs surgery to restore the use of it. She lost her job and her health insurance after the 2005 attack, and now lives on $900 a month.
She and others turn to UTMB because most Texas counties do not provide care to anyone earning more than 21 percent of the federal poverty level, according to a January report by Morningside Research and Consulting Inc. of Austin, a consultant to county indigent-care programs.
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Before becoming one of the uninsured, Holliday earned $40,000 per year as a paramedic for a Lufkin ambulance service.
Her life changed the morning of May 29, 2005, as she and her 18-year-old cousin, Anna Franklin, drove along Texas 69 in Angelina County. Eric Stephen Parnell, of Pollok, a man she had never met, pulled up next to Holliday and fired a shotgun into her Ford Explorer.
One blast struck her cousin in the head, killing her. Another nearly blew off Holliday’s arm. Parnell abducted and beat her. He received two consecutive life sentences. Holliday said she received rapid and efficient treatment under her employer’s insurance policy, and then under Medicaid after the ambulance service went bankrupt, canceling her insurance.
Then a quirk in the law left her without any insurance at all. Her qualification for $900 monthly Social Security disability payments, her only income, made her ineligible for federal medical assistance for two years.
Holliday says she was treated differently once she lost her insurance. “Even the way you get looked at and treated, it’s unbelievable,” she said.
Source: Caught in the limbo of a troubled health care system (Houston Chronicle)
And our “Massachusetts Mandate”, highly touted by Nikki Tsongas as a potential national solution? How’s that working out for the people?
I am living in Massachusetts which is now touted as having “universal healthcare”. As far as I’m concerned it is primarily a way to send more money (both government funds and citizen money) to insurance companies. My husband has been out of work for 3 years, going on 4 years. He is 62.
The [name deleted] where I work does not cover family members (well, you can pay full price to get on the plan – it would have cost me $700 per month to cover my husband). As an aside, some male staff members have coverage for their families, including the executive director who makes $200K per year. When I raised the question of the inequity I was told that the exceptions were the result of “salary and negotiations”. I didn’t fall into that fortunate category. So my salary which is barely paying our mortgage, taxes, heat, water, etc. now has to stretch to buy mandatory insurance for my husband (the cheapest plan offered for him is over $300 a month with a $2000 deductible so even if we had the insurance we would not be able to afford to use it; and the plans for older folks are more expensive).
Of course, my problem is that I make too much to fall into the assistance category (I think if we were a family making less than $40K we might qualify, and the gov’t has mandated that those plans cannot have a deductible). So we haven’t signed up for insurance. I don’t have an extra $300 per month. In fact in the last 5 years I have had 2 raises of 3% each. Doesn’t cover the other increases (our municipal taxes have pretty much doubled in that period, plus transportation, etc.)
So this year I will lose my state deductible. Starting in January 2008 they will be penalizing me to the tune of half of whatever the cheapest plan is (i.e., $150) per month. Can they get blood out of a stone? I guess I’ll find out. (I’m trying to figure out if we would be better off divorced? At least he might qualify for assistance.) The insurance companies are laughing all the way to the bank. What other ways can legislators find to pay back their good corporate friends? Still, a neighbor of mine and myself arranged to meet with our state rep a few months ago, and he said that we were the only constituents that he had heard from. What the f….?!!!
And this just adds to the stress of living with a 62-year-old husband who may get catastrophically sick tomorrow. The system is heartless, without conscience. And as an ex-patriate Canadian, I do not understand why people are not in the street protesting. (Of course, at this point there are so many things to protest, who can figure out where to start?)
I’ve lived here for 20 years and have never understood it. And when I mentioned to my state rep that over 30% of every U.S. healthcare dollar goes to overhead, compared with 17% in Canada, he pointed out to me that for Medicare it’s only 4%. That is just sad. I’ve never understood the concept of privatization either. Oh, wait a minute, if you have a completely corrupt and inept government, maybe it does make sense? But no, they just outsource everything to their equally corrupt and inept corporate backers.
Source: This will make you weep (Dailykos.com, Nyceve)
We have a choice before us in the special election in MA-05 – Nikki Tsongas, who embraces the status quo as a member of the board of Fallon Community Health Plan, and Jamie Eldridge, who wants to create a new political reality in DC. The other Democrats in the race are enough like Tsongas in their approach that they really don’t set themselves apart – watch this clip from the NECN debate on 8/9 and tell me why you wouldn’t vote for Jamie:
I created this video as a private citizen, and have not coordinated its release or its content with the campaign, or anyone else (the same goes for this blog post). I believe my limited use of the source material is legal under Section 107 of Title 17, US Code, in that I am using it for non-profit, educational purposes.
Now listen to what Mrs. Donoghue and Mrs. Tsongas say in that clip – both women bow to existing political reality, showing that a vote for either of them is a vote for the status quo, but Tsongas is particularly off base with her approach. First off, she mentions that the bill has 69 co-sponsors – is that supposed to be a bad thing? Worse, if she was trying to impress us with her knowledge of the current situation in Congress, she failed – the bill, as of 7/23/2007, has 76 co-sponsors, and Mr. Eldridge would make that 77 – better than 1/6 of the members of the house. She mentions that the bill has been out there “for so many years” – well, it was introduced in 2003, when the Republicans controlled Congress, and it went nowhere und
er their leadership. Control has only recently changed, and another committed co-sponsor can only help the legislation to advance.
To say that HR 676, Medicare for All, would take 15 years to implement is disingenuous at best. It will take just as long as political will dictates it will take, and not embarking on a path because it’s a long road is hardly an excuse for skipping the journey, is it? I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of politicians who don’t get anything done, and I see no reason to elect another one. Her support for a market solution or a national version of the “Massachusetts Mandate” make her unelectable, IMHO.
Lastly, she mentions the need to reduce the “cost of care” – spoken as only an insurance executive can speak! The cost of care is certainly a driver for the insurance industry’s bottom line, so you can see why she’d like to drive that downward – does that mean we pay hospitals, doctors and nurses less than they earn now? How else would someone drive the cost of care down?
But it’s Jamie’s turn to shine in the rest of the clip, and he shows why he deserves your vote. He correctly points out that Mrs. Tsongas appears headed to Washington to preserve the status quo, despite all of her claims to want to “change the tone”. He goes further, showcasing his past actions and his commitment to progressive principles, demostrating a clear difference between himself and the rest of the field.
Jamie Eldridge will be a real leader for the people of the Fifth District – he’ll go to Washington to create new political reality, and show people what “the art of the possible” can really achieve. We need his voice in Congress – on Sept. 4, please cast your vote for the future by voting for Jamie Eldridge.
michael-forbes-wilcox says
Anyone who saw “Sicko” (okay, so it was a little over the top…) got the point that we are the only country in the industrialized world that doesn’t “get it” that public health is a basic human right, and it is the responsibility of the national government to provide it.
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Niki Tsongas holds out the Massachusetts model as the pace-setter for the nation, not some abstract unobtainable system away off in the future. Problem is, she’s just plain wrong about that. IF the Massachusetts model “works” here (and that’s a big IF) that doesn’t mean it’s likely it’ll work in other states. In fact, the odds are against it. We live in a very affluent state that already has a lot of guarantees that other states lack.
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Read Charley’s excellent analysis of all the problems facing us now, even given our huge advantages.
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And then read Ezra Klein’s explanation of why a state-by-state approach isn’t gonna do it. And, by extension, the Massachusetts model is not the template we need.
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I’m supporting Jamie Eldridge because I think he does have the vision and leadership we need in Washington to change the way things are done.
sabutai says
Sorry, MFW, but something you said touched a bit of a nerve. What exactly is the theoretical/legal framing that defines health care as a right? Because it’s good to have? (NB: I don’t believe health care nor education qualify as rights.)
johnt001 says
sabutai says
The preamble has nothing to do with rights. The Vice-President doesn’t have a “right” to take over should the president die…that’s a law, which is different.
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Regardless, rights are universal, so using an American document to claim that health care is a right doesn’t work. One could try to use the preamble as a basis by which to claim that governments are legally bound to provide health care (in the same way that presidents are legally bound to retire after two terms), but I’d hate to go down that road…
raj says
…the exhortative (which is what the preamble is–i.e., what might be nice) and the–how shall I put it–executive? which is what Article I section 8 is. It is primarily Article 1, section 8 that lays out the powers of the federal government.
michael-forbes-wilcox says
Of course, we could get off into a long discourse, but let me frame it in terms of my basic belief in a Rawlsian system of justice.
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If you don’t believe education is a right, we’re probably not going to travel down the same path very far.
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It’s tied into (what I think of as a very American value) of equality of opportunity. To oversimplify what John Rawles posited: he said that a society is just if you have the power to make the rules, but don’t get to choose where you will end up in the society. So, what you would want is a society where everyone is treated fairly and has an opportunity to achieve whatever it is they feel called to do.
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In this context, whey should a person’s lot in life determine whether they get a chance for a decent education and for adequate health care? I think that’s called an aristocracy.
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Beyond the basic concept (of mine) of fairness, there is the practical problem that uneducated and sick people are a drag on society. I don’t want to live in a world that is populated by ignorant and sickly people — they are the ones I depend on to plow my roads, produce my food, police my streets, keep power on the grid, and all the other societal functions that make my world a nice place to live.
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It bothers me a lot that this country pays more for (so-called) health care than just about any other industrialized country (as a % of GDP) and yet gets results that are embarrassing if not downright distressing. We can do better than that. America has become the wealthiest nation on earth by taking our natural blessings and showing the world how to manage them efficiently. Our brainpower is second to none, and we should be able to figure this one out. If we don’t, we’re going to slip further down the list of economic powers. The warning signs are there. Have you looked at the panic in the financial markets lately? Do you know that the value of the dollar has fallen nearly 10% over the past year against the currencies of the Pacific Rim nations? We are managing our country in the most shameful way, and providing universal health care would be a great step toward repairing that.
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Oops, I started to get wound up — sorry about that, but I guess you can see I have lots of opinions around these issues. More anon. Thanks for asking.
raj says
That is silly. The maintaining of the body in a barely functioning condition? (eg Terri Schiavo.) At what level of health care? And how much are the rest of us supposed to pay for it? I’m sorry, but a “right” that one person has implies an “obligation” that another person has, something that self-described “progressives” want to ignore.
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The education of your children? Whether or not my payment for your childrens’ education will not come back to benefit me? This latter is the SS privatization issue discussed below. I don’t know whether you are profoundly ignorant, so I’ll just let it rest that you haven’t really thought out the issue.
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The intergenerational “right” vs. “obligation” is the social contract. Self-described “progressives” want to ignore that.
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Self-described “conservatives” in the USofA do, too.
mr-lynne says
… but let me put it this way. If it can be said that, given someone who is urgently wounded, a failure to act to aid could be considered wrong, either morally or legally, then it can be inferred that to be treated with aid when in distress is at least (or should be at least) a moral right, and therefore possibly The root has to do with what the mechanisms are that define rights. If you take an approach that indicates that rights are derived from notions of autonomy (the right to be left alone, the right to think what one wants to, the right to decide on ones own associations) then the notion of a right to health care or education would seem alien. I would say, however, that it is certainly reasonable to assert this notion.
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I would also add that it seems that there can be (or we as a people have conceived as such) other rights that derive from society’s ethical obligations toward the individual. In contrast to rights of autonomy, which are or seem much more fundamental, these rights derived from ethical societal obligations are much more an expression of societal preference. But as such a society is free to express such preference, especially in a democracy. So the question is, what kind of society do you want. I think it is a mistake to forgo such a question for fear that collective decisions in the form of laws that may grant these secondary kinds of rights may infringe on individual autonomy (in the form of taxes for example) because to do so would be to deney that communities be considered when defining rights at all. While it is certainly undesirable to exempt autonomy from considerations when defining collective community preferences, it is also certainly undesirable to deny the desirability of defining community preferences at all.
raj says
If it can be said that, given someone who is urgently wounded, a failure to act to aid could be considered wrong, either morally or legally…
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…is that, in the USofA, trying to help, in such a manner that exacerbates an injury is oftentimes considered an actionable offence, i.e. a tort, that can expose the prospective helper to a financial problem. And that is one reason why people don’t stop to give aid. Call 911? Sure. Stop to try to give palliative aid? Not even in the radar screen.
johnt001 says
I do – I’ve been trained to give CPR, a process which frequently saves people’s lives at the expense of broken ribs. Can I be sued for breaking someone’s rib while saving their life? No – I’m protected by “Good Samaritan” laws, as is anyone else who tries to help in any life-threatening situation.
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Read more about it:
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http://en.wikipedia….
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If you suddenly stopped breathing in my presence, Raj, I’d do my best to save you, and so would anyone else who knows CPR – palliative aid is certainly on my radar screen.
raj says
…you have been trained to provide first aid. I suspect that most people have not been trained to provide first aid.
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Good Samaritan laws purport to require people–even those who have not been trained–to stop and help. The problem is, as I noted, that the Good Samaritans who voluntarily stop and try to help, are opening themselves up to potential liability if the help that they provide ends up potentially doing damage.
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And that includes you, a trained helper.
johnt001 says
…is your own:
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You made a blanket statement that a stranger offering first aid is “not even in the radar screen” – I pointed out that you are wrong, that for myself, and millions of people like me who have first aid and/or CPR training, it most certainly is “in the radar screen”.
raj says
…for giving palliative aid that you might have been trained to provide, but that some lawyare can make a case that it merely made matters worse, get back to me.
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Let’s understand something. I’m a lawyer. I don’t do tort cases, but I understand how tort cases work. A plaintiff’s lawyer files suit against anyone and anything that had anything to do with the accident or who might have touched the bodies of the various victims. And they sort the merits of the individuals’ respective responsibility for whatever injury occured out later.
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In the meantime, however, for the defendants it is a nightmare, because they are fighting among themselves to minimize if not avoid liability. That fighting costs money–you know, attorneys’ fees.
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If you want to expose yourself to that, feel free. But you should make sure that your umbrella insurance policy covers you and that you are fully paid up.
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Otherwise, just call 911 on your cell phone.
stomv says
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That’s poppycock. Good Samaritan laws don’t require anything — they simply absolve blame if a GS attempts to provide help doing rational, reasonable things in an emergency.
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It’s not about requiring people to help — it’s about making sure those who make honest efforts to help aren’t held responsible for unintentionally making things worse.
raj says
I guess it depends on the jurisdiction involved, but here is a rather succinct description from Wiki:
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In some jurisdictions, help is required. In virtually all jurisdictions, persons giving help are absolved from prosecution (presumably criminal prosecution by the state) if they give help. But that is not the issue.
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The issue is, whether a clever tort lawyer in the US will file a tort claim against someone who wanted to be a GS, merely because he or she wanted to be a GS. That is the primary issue. In the US, a lawyer can file suit against anyone and everyone who might have been involved or had any contact with the victim, and the defendants will have no recourse other than to pay their own lawyers’ bills. Result: call 911 on your cell phone if you see an auto accident. Or just drive on by and assume someone else will.
mr-lynne says
… I am not addressing the particulars of whether one is able to give aid. It can be assumed that if one can’t (for whatever reason… lack of training, lack of proximity, etc) give aid then there doesn’t seem to be a moral obligation to do so and any community standard that demanded such behavior would of course be ill advised.
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You have successfully argued against a point I wasn’t really making.
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What I’m talking about here is the question “Can it really be a right that one deserves the aid of others?” I say that while it certainly is arguable that it isn’t a “fundamental” right, it certainly can be a right enacted by community standards. In other words, the notion that it “shouldn’t” be a right flies in the face of the notion that a community could define any rights at all.
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Can such rights be defined smartly or stupidly? Of course, and requiring aid from someone not trained is certainly an apt example of how to do it stupidly, this one point alone does not really address or take away my larger point.
alanf says
should be driven down, not the cost of care. My employer has chosen Cigna, which is at the bottom of the list in customer satisfaction, for good reason. They seem to toss a coin every time they address a claim — even if they’ve addressed a claim for the same provider and the same procedure before. Let’s see, will we bill the provider this time? Or the clinic? Should we include the right code? Or should we just guess at it? Or leave it out entirely?
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This is already far from a free market. If it were, I wouldn’t be stuck with Cigna. So I don’t understand why “socialized medicine” is meant to strike such chills into our hearts. It’s just a different kind of lack of choice that we’re stuck with now.
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Jamie Eldridge wants single-payer health care, and I say more power to him.
johnt001 says
…is obscene, as was pointed out by the woman from Massachusetts quoted above. The industry average is 30% of outlays being spent on administrative costs, versus 3-4% for Medicare and the VA. Tsongas fumbled badly when she was asked this very question in a health care forum earlier this year, see my diary about that here:
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http://www.bluemassg…
mr-weebles says
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I have Cigna and love them.
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Are they really ranked that low in customer satisfaction? I’ve never had a problem whatsoever.
johnk says
CBS Marketwatch has an article about JD Power survey.
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thinkingliberally says
Let me just say that I support Jamie, and I’m a volunteer for him, for a variety of reasons. But I have some concerns.
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I agree that “accepting” political reality is a mistake. This is why the Democrats gave us FISA, and votes on the war, the Patriot Act, and the list is endless. It’s time to elect a Democrat with a spine. That’s why i support Jamie. Not only do I not think Niki has a spine, I don’t actually believe she has any opinions that don’t go through the meat grinder of her consultants first. There’s no question that we need to expect more from our Democratic politicians.
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But the other side of that argument is that there also NEEDS to be some dose of reality that goes with our idealism. I desperately want single payer, but I also recognize that Jamie can go to Congress, fight tooth and nail, and become one of our top political leaders in America fighting for this issue, and if we’re lucky, he could actually accomplish it in 10 or 15 or 20 years. In case anyone forgot, the last time even a BAD version of universal health care was raised in Washington, it backfired so badly, it’s been the (other) third rail of national politics for nearly 15 years. Here’s a memo: We could elect 100 Jamie Eldridges across America in 2008, and STILL not get close to putting single payer into effect for 20 years.
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So while Jamie is fighting for what many of us progressives recognize is the best system, what’s he and the rest of the progressive movement going to do about those very same people that John mentions in his original post? Are we going to sacrifice Deomonte Driver, and Jennifer Holliday, and the anonymous person complaining about our law here, let them suffer, while we wait 15 or 20 years to get where we want to be?
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The “armchair liberals” seem willing to sacrifice those people this law might HELP, because it is standing in the way of where they think we need to go, and anything that interrupts our march towards single payer needs to be torn down, no matter what.
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I appreciate that Jamie has to run his campaign on progressive values, and stick to those at all costs because that’s who he’s running as. And part of why I am supporting him is I don’t think he’s really an armchair liberal: I do actually believe that he’s more practical than the politician he’s running as (he did vote for this law), and we as thinking members of the public need to put that in context.
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I don’t think anyone thinks the current law in Massachusetts, as it stands now, is perfect. It has flaws, it needs work, it’s been active for 2 months now, and still has strong support from progressive advocacy groups, HMOs, the legislature, and The Governor. The law is not in place to feed the beast of HMOs. In fact, as we learned last week, over 150,000 people have signed up for next plans in the last year, the vast majority on heavily subsidized plans. The nonsubsidized plans available have come down in price by as much as 30-40%. Two weeks ago, someone told me how excited they were to be able to cancel their old $325/month plan, in exchange for a $240/month plan that was exactly the same.
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And the anonymous woman in the post has a compelling story, except she forgot one salient detail: She can apply for a waiver for her family that exempts her from the fines. I might be too hard on her. Sadly, she may not know about this waiver option, and that’s information that needs to get out in a much larger way.
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Let’s also recognize that those of us on here willing to criticize Niki for her support of the Massachusetts law are the same people who voted for Deval Patrick for Governor, when he said the same types of things.
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And oh, by the way, that’s the same Governor that Jamie very proudly (and justifiably) touts his work for.
johnk says
Don’t know how anyone could say it better. Thanks for posting the video.
mcrd says
No matter how many times it is pointed out, is that there is a dearth, a staggering lack of COMPETENT health care providers. That is the issue. It has been an issue for thirty years, Fifty years ago doctors made house calls. Why? because people only sought a physician when they were actually sick. The system is broken because we have way too many people seeking medical advice for perceived physiological issues when in fact they are a manifestation of psychiatric/psychological issues.
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All you have to do is make every RN in USA a healthcare provider with script authority. Course they’ll kill a lot of people before things get smoothed out.
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There needs to be an entire re education of the American population as to who needs medical care, who needs to see a GP, who needs to see a specialist, and who just needs to be seen by a PA or RNP.
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At the moment you folks are wanting to make a bad situation much worse.The fact that we will be required to have an interpreter in every doctors office, hospital, fire station and police station only exacerbates the issue.
I guess we are mandated to be all things to all people.
syphax says
Do you have any data that backs up your “psychiatric/psychological issues” theory?
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Or, put another way, what the hell are you talking about?
kate says
I did a quick internet search to see why there are fewer house calls. It appears that the decline in the number of house call is very related to access to transportation. Addtionally, as the country developed an infrastructure of hospitals and clinics, there was a great advantage to being seen in a setting where medical equipment was available.
raj says
It appears that the decline in the number of house call is very related to access to transportation.
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All our Hausartz (general practitioner) here in our little hamlet just west of Munich needs to do to make a house call is walk down the street.
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I doubt very seriously that doctors in the USofA don’t have cars available to them.
mr-lynne says
… days in the USA it is probably more of a liability issue. I have to wonder what the difference is in insurance costs to the physician when staying in the office versus practicing on the road.
raj says
I’m sure that these days in the USA it is probably more of a liability issue
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…but I doubt it. I suspect that it has become more of a compensation issue. The office of our Hausarzt is a ten minute walk down the street. Compensation isn’t even an issue.
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I’ve beaten on the health care financing issue here in Germany, but I’ll make it more pointed. Given the way that universities are compensated, when physicians graduate here, they have virtually no debt. The government provides the students with stipends during their university training. Unlike in the US, where physicians–even general practitioners–owe as much as a small home mortgage when they finally get to practice.
mr-lynne says
… my speculation was just that and I figured it is one factor among many, and maybe not a major one at that. Insurance premiums for doctors gets bandied about a lot lately because it is a very easy to identify item on the balance sheet,… so it is what immediately came to mind.
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Point taken on Germany’s education funding. I really hate the attitude in the USA that we have the best X in the world. It is as if some people here find it impossible to believe that anyone else could be has happy with where they live as we are here. One of these days I will take a vacation in Germany and we should have a Weiss Ale together.
raj says
…I would not be having Weiss Bier. That is made from wheat, not hops. Weiss Bier is basically from up north (die Preussen).
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(Note to Kbusch: I know what the Rechtschreibung ist, but it might be confusing to some people here).
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The American’s rah!rahing! that we’re number one has always struck me as a bit humorous. That isn’t to say, however, that technological advancements from the USofA have not been important.
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But there have been technolgical advancements from other countries, too. The two people who a few years ago earned the Nobel Prize for their discovery of high-temperature superconductors were Swiss, working for a subsidiary of IBM. After the prize was announced, they were asked, what did they do after having discovered high-temp superconductors. They said that they sat down and had a beer together. No joke.
stomv says
The sick now have transportation.
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Why have a doctor come see you with a bag of medical tools when you can go to a clinic or hospital and have access to entire rooms of medical tools?
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Furthermore, since the price of medical care is so high, why pay the doctor at doctor’s rates to drive, when you could go there?
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Housecalls are down because they’re inefficient. The doctor can’t bring all his medical devices to you, and his hourly rate is high, so paying him to drive to you is overly expensive.
raj says
The sick now have transportation
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…when I had my kidney stone incident in 1981 (or ’82) and was writhing on the floor of our house (then in Tewksbury) in pain, I would not have had the wherewithall to drive the 10 miles to Lahey Clinic to get it diagnosed and treated. I was fortunate enough to have a partner who could whisk me there.
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Some people are not so fortunate.
bostonshepherd says
(1) How does anyone lose Medicaid coverage?
(2) Wasn’t a toothache more a priority than rotten teeth?
(3) How does a mother let her kid get 6 rotten teeth in the first place?
(4) Say … isn’t Medicaid a government run health plan?
johnt001 says
…and many of your questions will be answered. And please don’t give us that dodge about the government not being able to run anything effectively – that’s a GOP self-fulfilling prophecy right there.
bostonshepherd says
of government running something cost effectively.
johnt001 says
…all manage to provide medical care to millions of Americans while keeping administrative costs to 3-4% of total outlays – compare that to private insurance, where typical administrative costs run 30-40% of outlays. Those government programs must be doing something right, and it’s certainly more cost-effective than the private sector.
mr-lynne says
stomv says
raj says
sabutai says
raj says
NASA in the 1960s. Professionally run operation.
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National Science Foundation. Same.
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The National Institutes of Health. Same
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The Center for Disease Control. Pretty much the same
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The FDC doesn’t do a bad job, based on the resourses that are available to them. (To prevent any flame wars, let me point out that all drugs that are licensed are basically in “beta test.”)
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FEMA used to be a professionally run operation, when Jamie Witt was in charge, but under GWBush, no.
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Want more?