Michelle Obama’s patient-dumping scheme
Back in August, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on Michelle Obama and David Axelrod’s involvement in a University of Chicago Medical Center program that steered patients who don’t have private insurance — primarily poor, black people — to other health care facilities.
David Catron at The American Thinker revisits the plan, its deceptive marketing to patients, and ponders the future:
Meanwhile, the program’s parents, Michelle Obama and David Axelrod, have moved to Washington. As the First Lady and the President’s closest advisor, they wield enormous power. Indeed, they may be the most powerful people in the Obama Administration, aside from the President himself. If these two characters were willing to betray their Chicago neighbors — the South Side’s most vulnerable citizens — with a disgraceful program like the Urban Health Initiative, what sort of mischief will they devise for the hapless denizens of flyover country?
Come to think of it, isn’t Obamacare being sold to us in pretty much the same way the Urban Health Initiative was sold to Chicago?
Coming to a hospital near you…
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- Yeah, ObamaCare Is So Much More Compassionate « Tai-Chi Policy
- Michelle Malkin » The Obamacare horror story you won’t hear
- Michelle Obama: “Patient Dumping” While at University of Chicago Medical Center « Frugal Café Blog Zone
- AntiObamaBlog.com » Obamacare: Deceit, Bias & Socialism
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“Obamacare”… now there’s an OXY-MORON, if ever I heard one.
I guess “Hillarycare” isn’t scary enough anymore. Obama = way scarier.
Well, that’s one way to describe them.
I read that article yesterday and was appalled. Add this http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123604286020215187.html op-ed in the WSJ this morning and you get a clear picture of the damage that the Libs are perpetrating on the poor of America.
Alright who rang RSS’s bell???
Anyway, given Mrs obamas history of turning away poor people when they are sick, this doesn’t look good.
How long will Americans put up with the hypocrisy of the Left? Killing the D.C. voucher program and now this? Even in the echo chamber of the MSM, someone’s got to be wondering WTF?
Living in a large city with plenty of poverty, I find it incredible that anyone would criticize an initiative to procure non-ER health care for the poor. Looks like the only people who are criticizing this are the poor “hospital officials” who all of a sudden have to worry about sick poor people.
OT
Obama offers unconditional surrender to Russia, Russia refuses.
Not quite unconditional, Obie asked the Russkies to try to restrain their client state Iran from building nukes and missiles that could deliver them.
Per Drudge, Medvedev and Putin said ‘no haggling’.
But they like that Obama is willing to leave Eastern Europe unprotected against Russian and Iranian nuclear blackmail.
So you think refusing to treat people and sending them elsewhere is an inovative way to treat the poor???
Is there any obama misdeed you will not try to cover up???
Imagine! Trying to compromise to avert nuclear catastrophe!! I much prefer eight years of principled objections (which happens to all the GOP will continue to offer the next eight years!)
Garrity (sp?) of NRO guest hosting on Hewitt yesterday theorized that Obama is rolling out so many outrageous plans so quickly so patriots can’t concentrate on any one and try to kill it.
Obama rolls out Porkulus, huge reductions in the mortgage interest deduction, charitable giving deductions, new taxes designed to bankrupt the American oil and gas industry and skyrocket heating and electric bills, ending the ‘concience provision’ that kept doctors and nurses from being forced to perform abortions or lose their jobs, tripling of the deficit, etc.
If he did these one at a time, the American people wouldn’t stand for it as they became aware of what he is doing. But by pushing so many at once, conservatives can’t concentrate their efforts to educate the public.
Don’t feed the troll! Where does it say the U of C refused to treat anyone?
Worked well for chamberland in 1938-39 didn’t it?
It was easy to see russia would refuse this. They know how weak obama is. They know he will fold like a cheap suit. Iran will get thier nuke and use it and idiots like RSS will blame bush again…
(Garrity sp?) from NRO on Hewitt’s show, discussing the reduction on charitable deductions, theorized Obama hated rich people more than he loves charity.
I think he is missing the boat. If he can cut off charities that feed the poor, educate inner city children, house battered women and help them develop new skills, crisis pregnancy centers that give young women in a bad situation an alternative to killing their babies, help hospitals for crippled children, etc., than it means a need will be un-met, and government can step in.
Sure, Obama hates rich people, but the bigger goal is weakening charities and making people more dependent on government.
Helps you to understand O better and his problem of not being able to speak without teleprompter. Does Michelle write on the teleprompter what Obama is to read? As they say “the Power Behind the Throne”.
The first line of the article.
You did read it right?
By “anyone” you mean the American College of Emergency Physicians? Are you certain that every case redirected was “non-ER” care?
I pray for the barry husseins every day…I pray that they will feel conviction…legal conviction! I can’t wait to see these two socialists dragged to jail.
I read that ‘chelle got a raise in that spendulous bill. What, being wife to dictator barry wasn’t enough, she had to get more money too?
Iran has no intention of halting its nuclear program under any circumstances. And someday, when Washington DC vaporizes under a mushroom cloud, the Architects of Appeasement will be among the casualties.
Read the whole article, patients that could easily have been treated at the UCMC were transported to smaller community hospitals, once it was learned that said patients did not have private health insurance, thereby ensuring that UCMC maintained their bottom line.
With the ONE in power, they may not need to use it here. It may be Israel or Europe.
That photo at the top gives me night terrors.
Stuff like this is going to do wonders for pitchfork sales…
Don’t worry. Pretty soon, Obamacare will determine that treating the poor, the elderly, the infirm and the disabled is just too expensive.
They won’t dump them on community hospitals; they’ll just dump them in mass graves.
I contacted Vogue.com to let them know that they should vet their cover girls. I have had to cancel almost all of my magazines since 9-11. Everyone should let them know they are sick of their o worship.
Is it just worshiping their skin color. It is disgusting.
“could have easily been treated” means waiting hours to pay more money for worse care at UCMC?
But critics say it’s just to improve UCMC’s bottom line… those critics being the “hospital professionals” whose own bottom line has been hurt.
Ultimately this is a he-said-she-said, but which side makes more sense? Do you go to the ER when you get the flu? Of course not. Yet you side with the “he said” that you want to believe because Michelle Obama is baaaaaaad.
fumble.
While I do not condone what Michelle and her hospital has done, I understand why it was done, and it’s really not all her fault. It is a condition of the greater influence of “health insurance” and “government involvement”.
Here’s the problem:
A doctor/hospital decides to take federal insurance (Medicare or Medicaid), and signs a mountian of paperwork that would make a mortgage bank envious. In that document is language that prohibits the clinic or hospital from providing care at rates lower than the medicare rates. That means teh provider MUST bill the patient and collect from the non-insurance patient the amount that Medicare “charges” at the time of care delivery.
Here’s the second dirty secret: Medicare and the other “health insurance” providers pay only a fraction of the Medicare rate. medicare pays on average 60% or less.
They cannot even provide reduced or pro bono work for patients that need care, as they will lose their Federal eligibiliy. Now, the government couches the argument carefully. The state that they are not telling the provider how to practice medicine, but if they want to maintain access to their patient population, well, you need to play ball…
The providers that I’ve worked with have received what can only be classified as threats from the “insurance companies” to continually take lower and lower payment on services rendered. One doctor I knew had to take 43% of Medicare from one “insurance company” or risk losing 60% of his patient load.
If you wonder why providers would go along with the Obama plan, it is because they are in such dire straits from the managed care insurance debacle. The insurance industry and the legal attack machine have destroyed the practice of medicine.
Here in VA, providers pay extra on their annual licensing dues to help cover the costs of litigation for the OB/GYN community, as great leaders like John Edwards have sued the profession almost out of practice.
The problems with the helath care industry have nothing to do with the the best health care system in the world. It’s all the hangers-on: the “insurance companies”, the blood sucking lawyers, the hospital administrators and boards wthat lack the intestinal fortitude to stand up and do what is right by the patients, and the involvement of the inept bureaucratic monster that is the Federal government.
But don’t take my word for it. Ask your local Medicare/Medicaid office why they are so good at cutting off docs that take care of uncovered patients, and fail so much at finding and removing the fraud endemic in their “insurance system”.
Yes, bad Michelle. But also, bad Federal government.
The Islamic Republic declared war on the US three decades ago when it invaded sovereign US territory, the US embassy.
Its version of the French Foreign Legion, Hezb’Allah, has bombed Marine barracks in Lebanon, Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia, has kidnapped numerous Americans, and tortured and killed some of them. Hezb’Allah has also made war on Israel, a country that is not a traditional enemy of Persia. Hezb’Allah bombed the US embassy in Beirut, and Hezb’Allah and Iranian intelligence bombed a Jewish cultural center in Argentina.
Asking the Russians nicely, who don’t seem to have our best interests at heart, to ask Iran nicely, not to finish a nuclear weapon and mate it to middle to intercontinental range ballistic missiles, does anyone really think that would work?
BTW, why should Russia care if Eastern Europe has protection from Russian or Iranian nuclear blackmail, unless, of course, they intend to use blackmail as a weapon against former Warsaw Pact nations they seek to dominate in a reconstituted once and future Soviet Union.
What’s next for these communist dolts . . . “Soylent Green”?
Keep on her heels Michelle. Expose the first ‘lady’ for the shallow demagogue she truly is. Thanks.
What? What is all this everyone is talking about?
I thought OBAMACARE meant I was going to get the same health care he and the 1st Lady gets.
I know there was that little thing about throwing old people under the bus, but, what the hell.
Since we don’t have Kings and Queens, He is the President.
So as a perk for President I would consider maybe he should get front of the line privileges.
Guese I should be more careful. Liberals just are wrapped too tight to understand “tongue in cheek”. I’ll be on CNN tonight.
Yowza! Gimme summa dat. Better than self-medicating with malt liquor and cigarettes I guess.
I doubt that the UCMS’s medical staff had their bottom lines hurt and still were willing to speak out against the practise.
They’ll be even fewer OB/GYNs practicing when Obama removes the concience exemption that allows doctors from opting out of performing abortions. First step was un-doing a Bush executive order. The next step will be FOCA, (intentionally) vaguely worded enough that a woman seeking an abortion can probably sue a doctor who refuses to perform an abortion as having violated her civil rights.
The future of Obama Care and physician concience…
Link
One other thing that I just recently realized: With government run health care, you can not sue the US government!
They health care industry is not the same thing as the health care system? So while Americans are sicker and get terrible health care while paying much, much more than comparable developed nations, it’s not the health care system (which is awesome), it’s the health industry that brings us down. And although a big problem is Medicare/Medicaid not being able to pay their bills, it’s a BAD thing for the Federal Government to fund those programs properly.
If people like Red State Skeptic actually READ the article, they would find:
So it’s not just doctors who are opposed to this. It’s what’s ultimately best for the patient that counts. Something Ms. Obama would rather set aside.
Get a grip.
How on Earth does that help you bash Michelle Obama? Sounds like the problem is UCMC so overwhelmed that they provide inferior care, which is exactly why MO encouraged patients to get help elsewhere.
Go and live in England for a couple of years and then get back to me on this statement. I’ve lived there. I know of what I speak.
Well RSS will defend the ONE reguardless. Soooo there is like point in pointing out the obvious to the blind.
What’s that saying? Ah yes, There are none so blind, as they who will not see.
Snap!
And for those who praise nationalized healthcare, need to read the UK papers and see how “successful” it really is.
Here is some reading material for the highly misinformed:
Reach for the pliers! Three million do their own dentistry because they can’t get an NHS appointment
How the NHS failed my mother: Ex-Tory leader’s wife Sandra Howard reveals her anger at how her mother was treated
NHS kidney cancer patients denied life-saving drug because it’s ‘too expensive’
Not my idea of healthcare.
Solution to health care:
1. Permit retail, for-profit, medical clinics to provide care for routine services.
2. End mandates on health insurers to consumers can tailor policies to their needs, and open up competition across state lines.
3. Offer medical vouchers to the financially distressed, redeemable at retail health clinics.
4. Offer subsidized catastrophic coverage for the financially distressed.
5. Cap and socialize malpractice damages: collect punitive awards and use them to fund health care programs for the indigent.
This would make health care more affordable while providing a safety net for the poor.
But since it diminishes, rather than grows, the power of the state over the subject, no one in Washington would even consider it.
THAT WOMAN has the meanest eyes. Didn’t someone say our eyes are the windows to our soul?
If so, she is not a nice person.
Ummm…I don’t think so. The problem was that Angela Adams didn’t have insurance to cover the reconstructive surgery, therefore her son wasn’t lucrative enough for that hospital. Nowhere in that article does it mention that the hospital was too busy and had to send the patient elsewhere.
Stop making up stories.
Obama is absolutely selling it the same way. Case in point: “President Barack Obama has been vague about details of his healthcare reform efforts, but he provided a hint on Monday of one direction he could take — community health centers.”
The marketing campaign has already begun.
As I suspected, the “Department of Motor Vehicles” approach to Health Care.
“Sir, you filled out the wrong form, so you and your sucking chest wound can go to the back of the line. And tuck in that lung … no one wants to see that! I’ll be on my break!”
Which is why Canadians routinely cross the border into the states to get access to health care otherwise denied them in Canada, right?
As flmom said, spend some time in England or Canada. Get really, really sick and tell us how glorious it is when some bean counter tells your doctor he can’t treat you, or that you have to go on a waitlist because the treatment you need is rationed and it’ll take a year or two to get around to you. Or wait until they give you some pain meds, their condolences, and say, “Too bad you have cancer. It’s too expensive to treat. Go home and die at the age of 50 ’cause we’re not helping you.”
Speaking of Mrs. BO and healthcare, every time I see Michelle Obama I think of Uncle Leo from Seinfeld with his eybrows drawn on and the doctors reacting to him fearfully and telling him to “calm down”… Mrs. BO has that same permanent scowl…Frightening…to doctors (and children).
rss; we have numerous examples of communist medicine practiced around the world. cuba has it. so why are cubans flocking to our shores instead of the other way around. why aren’t mexicans flocking to cuba? why aren’t somalis flocking to cuba? why here. why not canada where they get a much better health plan IF THEY WORK AND PAY TAXES. why not these tropical paradises with communist economies. venezuela, ecuador, cuba, are all compassionate communist states where the people at the bottom are taken care of soooo well. god you morons can justify communism despite it’s abject failure every single place it has been tried. so when was the last time you took your paycheck and walked down the street and gave it to people more needy than you. f’ing hypocrite. you must be a college professor. read all the wrong books and still have your mom change your diapers.
Only congress will have good healthcare. Similar to the way AIG was too big to fail (Congressional pensions on the line there).
RSS, we don’t need people devising backdoor plans to usher-in rationed healthcare even before Obama forces it on us – especially when those plans skirt the line on legality.
That would involve those horrible tools of the right wing: FACTS!
It’s much easier and convenient to make up your own based on your feelings.
Stop right there.
I’ll perhaps begin to sometimes consider possibly taking some of what you say seriously when you stop posting bu!!$hi* like that.
As has been said before, I don’t see Americans going to other countries for surgery, or to be seen by other countries’ medical specialists.
I see foreigners who have the means coming to the U.S. for their care.
Many of these foreigners likely do this because the clownish majority of voters in their country voted in socialized medicine.
There are likely many hypocritical foreigners who come here for their care because they are hypocritical elitists who forced socialized medicine onto their country, but wouldn’t be caught dead using that for themselves.
Perhaps a bit OT, perhaps not…. my wife came home yesterday with a directive from her employer( a PPO provider) that stated they were required to get my social security number from my wife. Why? because the stimulus bill passed that had the SCHIP provision in it?… it also had a requirement that any provider of medical insurance had to give SS#’s to the government of subscribers and their dependents over 55 so that when Medicare is eventually used… they will have a record of anyone having preexist conditions( you can say they won’t, but you are naive) so when one DOES use the required government programs, you can be refused because of your condition and your age….. I am angry, I’m going to deny them the information and screw this country as it is morphing.
Let me address these one at a time:
That is correct. The health care system is that which provides you, the patient, care. It is the doctors, the hospitals, the trained clinical staff, the researchers, and thise directly related to your care. The health care industry is all of the hangers-on: the “insurance companies”, the lawyers, the boards, and any of the non-care related activities that suckle at the teet of the patient, and drive up the costs. The industry is what is breaking the system.
This is a wonderful strawman! “The rest of the world gets such better care!” Really??? Then why is it that Canadians fund such a strong medical travel industry to the US? And as for the health of Americans, and them getting sicker and sicker:
1) We cannot directly compare statistics from a decade ago and today, because the methods and amount of information available today far exceeds that from a decade ago, due to the power of automated billing and the 5% penetration of electronic medical records. The results must be normalized. I do not know of any research yet published that is comparing normalized data sets across teh spectrum of care. I can point you to entire Journals of Medicine that indicate that we are seeing mroe catestropic disease due to our increased sedintary life style, and the simple fact that we are living longer and are exposing ourselves to higher risks due the to reduction of cultural taboos. But those wouldn;t be factors, would they? It has to be the doctors fault. Which brings me to my next point…
2) The overall health of the average American, and any improvement or decline seen, is more a factor of the lazy American, and not the system. Damn, that personal responsibility is rearing it’s ugly head again. Why won’t it just go away?
3) We treat patients, and spend more on patients, near or at the end-of-life, than any nation on the planet. Do you honestly think, for one second, that Patrick Swayze would be alive today if he were a Brit? Do you think that those socialized nations would have offered him expensive and unproven treatments, or would they do for him what they do for everyone else with Pancreatic cancer? Socailized nations, in the truest sense of triage medicine, do not waste resources on patients with low probabilities of survival, just like they do not waste resources on otherwise health individuals that suffer ACL tears (you can live without your ACL, you just can’t be active any more. But well treat that when obesity sets in), or disfiguring burns (you survived and your wound scarred, who cares about your loss of function or your psychological well-being).
Is that really the problem? All Federal Health Care is funded at @$2 trillion/year. The rest of the US Health Care GDP is @$6 trillion/year. If we take 307 million population, and account for 47 million not on the roles, that leaves 260 million persons who are insured. How many of those do you think get Federal (VA, DoD, Medicare/Medicaid, OHI) coverage? A shocking @40 million!
So, if the industry can pay it’s bills for 220 Americans (that’s roughly 6 times more than teh Federal responsibility) at only 3 times the cost, then I would think the problem is Medicare and Medicaid.
But, why would a liberal want to weigh the evidence and determine the solution. It would be silly to actually think about the problem, and consider the risks and costs. Why, when GOVERNMENT IS THE ONLY SOLUTION.
…Or maybe it’s just the final one
Follow the money.
Yes, and speaking from personal experience, my uncle who lived in New Brunswick had non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. He was in and out of the hospital in Canada many times during his treatment process. At one point, there was a threat of a doctor’s strike (yes, that’s what you get with nationalized healthcare — unionized medicine), so he checked himself into the hospital early, so he could get treatment if an emergency came up. He was going for blood transfusions every two weeks.
He did eventually pass away because his disease was terminal, but he often came to the US for additional treatment that was not available in Canada just to stay alive.
So, saying that nationalized healthcare is a good thing…think again.
#4 flmom: thanks for the link. Interesting to note that although probably all of the politicians choose private school for their kids, the hypocrisy is firmly anchored on the left, as they are the ones who pander to the unions and consistently try to kill vouchers and school choice.
Public education has all but been socialized.
Isn’t it safe to say that any program or “initiative” with the word “urban” in it is most likely detrimental to any “urban” people?
It’s kind of like Chris Rock’s take on any street named “Martin Luther King, Jr.”:
“If you find yourself on ‘Martin Luther King Boulevard’, run!”
Thanks, crashemt. Good points.
Choice is the operative word. The ability to choose in any sector of life begets competition which begets better quality of goods and services for the chooser. Level the playing field and taking away choice takes away the incentives to improve on one’s product or service. Simple and obvious, but not to the libs.
Archaeologists from the future will ponder the number and placement of all the “Martin Luther King” Avenues and conclude that he was some sort of tyrannical conqueror who laid waste to whole cities and neighborhoods, then forced them to name streets in his honor.
Isn’t this the woman that was so indispensable, that her $300K+ job was eliminated right after she left the hospital (that received benefits from then Senator Obama)?
Are we surrounded by Affirmative Action hires?
Very well explained. I might add though, don’t forget the legislative edicts mandating “every imaginable” condition be covered. The insurer winds up covering many things that are really elective. Further, it is illegal for a company to offer a real cafeteria plan – where an individual could get health insurance coverage for ailment x but not y.
Ummm…it has already been done. It was included in the trillion dollar spending plan they stuck us with a couple weeks ago. The plan consists of judging people’s ability to receive treatment on their age and chances of living long enough to benefit from having their lives saved. It tells companies to stop researching and developing new cures and medicines because it drives up the cost of healthcare. It tells the middle-aged and elderly to stop expecting to be treated for age-related illnesses and problems and to just accept them as a part of getting old, and that they will no longer allow physicians to treat people for such maladies.
Oh yeah…all that and more.
Again, I told you so just doesn’t cover it.
I wonder what would happen if MichelleO’s background in the medical field were traced? How many “Angel of Death” instances could be considered?
How is this benefiting her children?
I didnt vote for lil bHo nor his mama wife for president.
How many know what happened to the vitally important health-care position that was formerly held by Mrs. O?
I am really scared about this idea of universal healthcare for the patients I know. Already, today, one lady complained that Medicaid turned down a refill, for her son, because they thought one drug, which he had been taking for over a year, was “unnecessary at the dosage prescribed”. The drug is needed. All they managed to accomplish is turn one lady from supporting future Obamacare, immediately, against it. “No-one ever explained what universal healthcare would be”. Well, she knows now. Her son, a CP son, just had bilateral hip surgery…done within 30 days of intent. I explained in Canada, England, and elsewhere, she would wait, at least, 24 weeks. Yes, her son would suffer with pain. She can’t afford the trip to India, for surgery, like the some Brits can. Besides, Americans wouldn’t be able to go to Canada, like the Canadiens come to the U.S.. I see nothing but grief for many patients.
As a physician who actually treats patients and bills public health programs for the care provided, let me tell you that the medical clinic model will not work for one very simple reason. Hospitals are required by law to provide a certain level of care in their emergency departments regardless of ability to pay. Emergency treatment to medically stabilize a patient is required by both federal and state laws, and the canons of medical ethics would not permit any institution or provider from giving lifesaving care. Simply put, this puts ER care as the provider of choice for illegal immigrants and for others without significant insurance coverage because the provider has no choice in the matter.
The clinic model, whether an instant care clinic or other “doc in a box” type, attracts a similar crowd but payment is required. Even if you provide the care free, there is never enough funding for the 4:38 PM Friday July 3rd trainwrecks that come in through the door. You only need to work at a major urban or VA hospital to know who those patients are.
There is a disgusting perception among that either the clinic physician will instantly make you better or you will win the malpractice lawsuit lottery. Most of these patients have never taken care of themselves with proper exercise and avoidance of risky behaviors, yet they walk in with 210/120 BP, a heart rate of 157 and evidence of chest pain and wonder why you can’t give them some free medication to just immediately cure them. Medicine does not work that way, despite what the ambulance-chasing shysters or the idiots writing for medical dramas on TV tell you. Most of these patients will not take the medications they are given nor will they follow the advice of a healthcare practitioner. It is a losing battle, and none of the congressional or administration idiots understand that.
DanGrantTx, I learned early on, that some people see only dollar signs when they see you coming. It’s the way society has taught them. You are very right in the fact that many patients want “instant gratification” (our society again) for any ill or pain they have. Take a pill and be instantly cured. Illegals are notorious for flooding ERs. It’s free to them. They flock in for a treatment of a common cold. Meanwhile, the serious ill have been triaged to the waiting room, or a bed in the hallway. You have to treat everyone, but there isn’t the space, docs, nurses to get all treated at once, and triage can become a nightmare in itself.
Having people go to Clinics, vice taking up space and time in an emergency room, not to mention the expense, is a bad thing?
We all know the problems Hospitals are having with expenses having to deal with someone coming in because of a cough. People have been using Emergency Rooms as their personal Physicians. Wouldn’t it be better if that person went to a Clinic that might be less expensive?
People are getting medical care but they aren’t getting it in the EMERGENCY ROOM, they are getting it in Clinics.
Where’s the problem?
From the linked article -
” . . . which aims to find neighborhood doctors for low-income people who were flooding the emergency room for basic treatment . . .”
Stop the spinning, and someone please tell me how this is a bad thing?
Go ahead and read this. It is an article I wrote awhile ago pertaining to the realities of “Universal Healthcare” or “National Healthcare” or whatever name that the Liberals have given it based on the latest focus group they put together in order to find a new title to win over the greedy, the lazy and the uneducated.
Remember as you read it that it was written by someone who spent years on the streets dealing with the reality of Emergency Medicine, hospitals, billing, patients, homeless…sorry, “Residentially Challenged Urban Nomads”, etc. It is not written by some Kumbayaa know-nothing who has never had to deal with the medical field or the people who have no clue as to what the truth of the matter truly is.
It is not meant to be a shameless self-promotion.
Because it is not that simple. There are far larger issues at stake here than just what is being told. That is the simplistic view. The simplistic view makes it all look like Candyland where everything works smoothly, everyone is taken care of etc.
However, that is the view held by two types of people:
1. Those that have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to actual healthcare issues,
or
2. Those that DO know and are keeping the realities and truths of the matter hidden in order to push forward yet another Socialist agenda point.
How is it a bad thing?? The VA has “clinics.” You get an appointment there, which you can usually schedule anywhere from two to four months in advance. They have limited facillities, so anything of importance like an MRI has to be scheduled, three to nine months in advance, and usually far away from the clinic, and of course you must travel at your own expense. When you get to the hospital (in my case, four hours away,) if they “forgot” your record, you can’t be seen. Everyone that day is scheduled at eight a.m., though you may not be actually seen until five p.m. I live less than ten miles from three large hospitals and I can’t be seen in any of them through the VA. The VA likes to move its’ doctors around a lot…it’s normal for a doctor to spend one or two years at a clinic and move on, so you get a new doctor who doesn’t know squat about your continuing health needs. Need a prescription filled…no prob. Can’t go to any store or pharmacy in the area, no, the script is phoned or faxed in, but you will receive it anywhere from five days to two weeks depending on the urgency. No matter how critical your condition or need, there is no getting around the system unless you are prepared to pay out of pocket at a regular, private hospital. If your “doctor” screws up, you can’t sue him because he’s been exempted by federal law. You can’t report him to the state he practices in because he’s licensed in another state. You can’t report him to the state he’s licensed in because he’s not practicing there. You can’t report him to a local health board because he’s a federal employee. You CAN report him to the VA inspector general, who may or may not investigate, but who WILL NOT release any results of that investigation to you, the patient. THAT is universal healthcare, the type that obummer and all those liberals who profess to love people want to give to you and me, while keeping private health care for themselves, and you ask what is so bad about that? I wish people like you would do some research, any research, before you start weighing in on how great socialized medicine is. Go to your local VA clinic and ask some of the patients how satisfied they are, or better yet, just google VA Healthcare and see what comes up.
I agree, very few things are that simple. Yet, quoting from your own BLOG you apparently agree that Clinics are part of the answer.
“Our ED’s are over worked and filled to the brim now with people who should be going to a clinic or their private physicians.”
And that is the focus from my post #75.
Having people go to Clinics, vice taking up space and time in an emergency room, not to mention the expense, is a bad thing?
We can expand the discussion, as you did in your BLOG, but the unanswered question remains. Clinics to supplement Emergency Rooms. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?
Yes, Clinics are not the answer, but they are part of the solution.
Many teaching hospitals, which are those hospitals that we all want to be treated at if we have a ’serious’ problem, are receiving billions of dollars in ‘contributions’ from foreign governments – - like Dubai and other oil rich nations. Johns Hopkins has the Johns Hopkins Medicine International (JHI), the international arm of Johns Hopkins Medicine which places ‘health teams’ in Dubai and sets aside floors of their hospital in Baltimore when the ‘royals’ from Dubai chose to visit to be evaluated medically within the confines of a major teaching and research hospital in the USA. I’m sure Hopkins still also receives lots of money from the federal coffers (taxpayers).
So while our President begins to explain to the American public that we can’t have everything in health care treatment and we’ll have to except federal government decisions on what we can and can’t do, where we can and cannot be admitted, and who your physician is, the wealthy of the world will be taking advantage of the best healthcare hospitals and universities in the world – - right here in the good old USA.
Don’t bet that access to these hospitals will be open to all Americans under the “National Health Plan”….they won’t. You can bet, however, that they WILL be available to members of Congress and the other chosen few.
This action will not be ‘transparent’… it will be like all programs the democrats and Obama are forcing upon the American people … done in the dark of night and finished before anyone even knows what happened. That’s what Obama means by ‘transparency.”
DanGrantTx-
I remember with not so much fondness the pre-holiday VA dumps. It was never pretty when the family brought to our “urgent care” (VA didn’t have emergency rooms at that time, although they have changed that attitude) their gravely ill veteran parent for a weekend in the wards. Sickening.
To Hitcharide’s points-
If you are a veteran, and you are getting “appointments” at your VA for services that are outside a 30 day window, you need to call your Congressman. This all to common VA practice, where they will book you on “paper” until 28 or so days before your appointment, is a way to avoid a Congressional reporting mandate. Instead of making the problem obvious to Congress (because the higher-ups will lose their bonuses if they don;t meet the metrics), they “adjust” the records to show they meet the mandate. They are mandated to deliver care within 30 days. Of course, the only losers are the VA’s patient population, our vets. Who really cares about their care for duty related injury or illness, right?
The VA, like many of our bureaucracies, have found a way around the laws by manipulating the information gathering. Oh, by the way, if you do call your Congressman to report such an event, the local VA will simply say:
“I have no idea what Mr. (your-name-here) is talking about. He is not booked in our system. BUT, we do have an appointment open tomorrow that he can have.”
I agree fully with your statements. The VA and DoD have long had socialized medicine. Access to care is their greatest issue. And if it is an issue for such a small population as this, imagine the nightmare on the entire US legal and illegal population!
The docs at the VA provide the best care they can within the confines of the very limited resources they are able to access. They also have layer after layer after layer of useless bureaucracy that accomplishes nothing, costs a lot of money and does not directly benefit the patient at all. Unfortunately, the same thing can be said in many larger community hospitals. Most of this bureaucracy is, as you could have guessed, mandated by government officials who have not cared for a patient in ten or more years but are not shy about telling you how to treat the patient. Anyone else see the disconnect here?
The clinic solution seems so simple and elegant, but it will never work. You will have a colossal problem recruiting physicians, nurses and other health care professionals to go to crime-ridden urban areas. You will also have the problem of excessive bureaucracy and galloping unfunded mandates that are typical of government-run programs. Who wants to deal with that? I don’t.
My office is not too far from the border with a country that has a large socialized medicine system that many liberals in the US adore. Too bad they do not bother investigating that system more carefully, or they would see the gaping cracks and horrible outcomes associated with socialized medicine. Fully 30% of my patients come across the border to pay cash for their care. Another third of my patients have commercial insurance which pays lower than Medicare/Medicaid. Then you have the Medicare/Medicaid patients for the last third. It is the over-the-border cash patients who keep my practice running. They are unable to access care in their own countries because of idiotic rationing guidelines that deny care based solely on superficial considerations. Many of them have been dumped by their own doctors because their system is so overloaded that physicians are having lotteries to determine which patients they will no longer serve. Is THAT the model you want for the US?
Before you have another Howard Dean trying to socialize our system ever farther, ask yourself if you really want to wait four months just to take care of your broken hip.
As a user of the VA here in MPLS, I can categorically state that you do NOT want that system as the benchmark of national health care. It is bureaucratic, inept and over worked. Oh, and try to prove you have a service connected disability , with documentation, on the first try. Appeals are de riguer.
Do you even know what the purpose of a clinic is? Do you understand the difference between what a clinic is for vs. a private physician as well as an ED or hospital in general?
While you attempt to try and make it appear that I have agreed with you, I have done anything but. You also have completely ignored what I had said concerning emergency services etc., and what the entire process will do to the number of physicians and other allied health professionals.
You still are attempting to simplify the issue, which plays well for the uneducated and uninformed, but you will be hard pressed to find anyone who actually works in the medical field who is backing Universal Healthcare.
The best examples of this is the above example of the VA, and the next best would be Kaiser Permanente. Add to that the plan that Obama and the Dems have of repeatedly denying treatments based on age and potential for a positive outcome and you have nothing more than legalized government euthenasia on a massive scale.
But then. when people in the former Soviet union or other Socialized Medice having countries would need specialists and advanced care, they never did it themselves, did they? No. They did then as they do now…they send them here, where we have physicians and medicines that are far and above anywhere else. Why? Because the doctors, scientists and pharmaceutical companies are able to be compensated for their hard worl and extra efforts in becoming specialized and experts in their fields. Where will people then go once said incentives are no longer available and the brain surgeon is making the same amount of money as the guy who is removing warts?
Fair questions, but if I can get you back on point, address your own words quoted from your BLOG.
“Our ED’s are over worked and filled to the brim now with people who should be going to a clinic or their private physicians.”
I doubt that this is a surprise to anyone who pays attention.
This is the most corrupt administration of my lifetime. Transparent corruption.