- Hot
- New
- Categories...
- Producer's Lounge
- Producer's Vault
- The Gulch: Live! (New)
- Ask the Gulch!
- Going Galt
- Books
- Business
- Classifieds
- Culture
- Economics
- Education
- Entertainment
- Government
- History
- Humor
- Legislation
- Movies
- News
- Philosophy
- Pics
- Politics
- Science
- Technology
- Video
- The Gulch: Best of
- The Gulch: Bugs
- The Gulch: Feature Requests
- The Gulch: Featured Producers
- The Gulch: General
- The Gulch: Introductions
- The Gulch: Local
- The Gulch: Promotions
- Marketplace
- Members
- Store
- More...
this is entirely logical, though -- and a serious source
for costs rising through the roof! -- j
Give the US a single-payer system, and we'll have price controls too, and medical R&D will pretty much stop taking place. Or it will all be nationalized, and innovations that might cost the government some money (such as a cancer cure) will never see the light of day.
I think preventing this outcome is worth a few people dying from not enough care. Not that they wouldn't anyway, even under single-payer.
In summary, the answer is NOT government. The answer is to go back to individual costs, care and so on.
I was a hospital Personnel Director of a large facility some years back, and most of my family have been in health care in "community" hospitals as RN's, dietitians, pharmacists, et all.
The other "cute" part of tax exempt status is that a large portion of your property taxes goes to the hospital district. So in effect, again, the producers, aka property owners, are forced to supplement the indigents. As if that wealth transfer was not enough, now we have the obamanation known as "The affordable healthcare act".
It just keeps getting worse. Small wonder a lot of us are gulching.
Jan
I left hospital management some time ago because I saw the industry emulating the same bloat in inefficiency as its leash holder, aka, govt entities. It's the same in any industry that has been shackled by fed guidelines. But, I still have close ties to family members who have recently left the community hospital industry and are now working with health care divisions not as encumbered by the hospitals this article talks about. But, and I can speak only about areas of empirical operations as reported by family members, namely, Texas, Iowa, and Washington State, that yes, this article is spot on. Rural hospitals, and I now live in a rural area with a health care facility located in a town of 1000 folks, if they are surviving, only survive because they see their role as only "clearing houses" for patients they cannot hope to serve because of federal requirements. They merely make diagnosis and refer those patients to large city installations if it is beyond a stitch or a yeast infection script. My wife is a Dr. of Pharmacy, and I cannot tell you how frustrated she is with Obamacare. She see's on a daily basis Dr's exiting or taking early retirement because of it. It's why she left clinical operations of a community hospital and works part time as a nursing home consultant.
I/we/she see's exactly what we believe Obama care was intended to do, to pave the way for single payer national healthcare, or at least heavily regulated to the point of merely being federal fronts to control the masses.
I wonder if the Gulch can use a dietitian, a Pharmacist skilled in herbal remedies and alternative medicine, an RN, a MT, and a solar energy specialist (me) ? :-)
Now for a light moment, some of which will not be understood by the younger members of the Gulch, but I feel it is pretty apropos to the topic, govt intervention of our life's.
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE 1930s, '40s, '50s, '60s and '70s!!
First, we survived
Being born to mothers who may have smoked and/or drank
While they were pregnant.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese
dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Then, after that trauma, we were put to sleep
on our tummies in baby cribs covered
with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets, and, when we rode our bikes, we had baseball
caps, not helmets, on our heads.
As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes..
Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose
and not from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter, and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And we weren't overweight.
WHY?
Because we were always outside playing...that's why!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day.
--And, we were OKAY.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out
of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find
out we forgot the brakes.. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem..
We did not have Play Stations, Nintendos and X-boxes.
There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable,
no video movies or DVDs, no surround-sound or CDs,
no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and
no chat rooms.
WE HAD FRIENDS
And we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and
teeth, and there were no lawsuits from those accidents.
We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping-pong paddles, or just a bare hand, and no one would call child services to report abuse.
We ate worms, and mud pies made from dirt, and
the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, 22 rifles for our 12th, rode horses,made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and -although we were told it would happen- we did not put out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.
Little League had tryouts and not everyone
made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with
disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers,
problem solvers, and inventors ever.
The past 50 to 85 years have seen an explosion of innovation and new ideas..
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
If YOU are one of those born between 1925-1970... CONGRATULATIONS! You are Awesome!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.
While you are at it, forward it to your kids, so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it ?
~~~~~~~
Jan, running with scissors now
Jan, enabler
Thank you also for sharing your insights and experiences with regard to obamacare an the closing of small hospitals. My town ha approx 25,000 people in it. Large small town. But our hospital is contracting, having already closed the maternity ward and next on the chopping block is the ER. It's a travesty! And I am so disheartened for those in the medical profession. Unless one can survive by hanging up a shingle and being a sole practitioner, cutting out insurance, this bloated excuse for wealth redistribution is going to kill off Md's and any desire to go into any medical profession.
:-(
beyond bad, way into torture! -- j
Lol
my tiny friend list. . Thank You! -- j
I would have to be re-admitted to the hospital? -- j
(on medicare) has 2. . at one point, I reminded him
that he has no objective proof that he needed the
surgery -- he just believed the doctors. . they needed
him for the income. -- j
Before I got my bypass, I got a 2nd opinion, had the Dr. show me the angiogram, and had him explain the various options such as a stent vs. a bypass etc. I was not about to have them crack my chest, put me on a heart & lung machine if I didn't absolutely need it. I hadn't had a heart attack, but prevented it from happening.
years, and it was only when he turned 65 that he
decided to visit a doctor. . he was advised that he
had thyroid cancer and had his thyroid removed....
then, the endocrinologist advised him that he needed
to go to see a heart doctor because of the results
of an MRI ... enlarged artery. . 2 doctors (surgeon plus
heart Dr) later, he was "getting his life in order" for
"open heart surgery" -- aneurism repair. . and valve
repair or replacement. . and possible bypass
surgery. . scared the poop out of him.
almost a year of foot-dragging later, they did the
aneurism repair, valve repair (not replacement)
and found that no bypasses were needed.
still, he's never seen a scope picture, xray, or a
piece of flawed blood vessel. . just trusted the
doctors.
I saw the flawed vein removed when I had vein
stripping, and xrays of my implanted metal stuff
from a broken leg and a broken arm. . and a wire
cage placed in my "inferior" vena cava to catch
clots. . evidence.
I just wonder about all of this surgery. -- j
trying to lose weight (unsuccessfully) and trying to
find a place to go . . . he's been living with us for
about 4 years -- and we have the room -- but his
life is dwindling away. . he's my favorite millionaire,
"land poor," trying to sell a chunk worth about $2M.
he takes in so few calories that he's given
himself narcolepsy, kinda, and this past tuesday
may have blanked out in our subaru baja, causing
a wreck which flipped the car up onto its left side.
the rescue folks had to cut out the windshield to
get him out. . he is fine, having only scratched
his left arm. . and so lucky that it's inexpressable.
health, at his age 69.75, is a challenge -- and each person
is the one to integrate all of the professional
advice. . my challenge is emphysema, and the
life map I've drawn up tells me to Do It Now!!! -- j
combination of frustrations. . and he assures me
that he was fully awake when he jerked the steering
wheel to the right to dodge an animal in the road,
causing the accident.
as NMA says, below, he may have slowed his
metabolism so much that he just burns very
few calories per day.
it's frustrating for all of us -- him, his son, me and
my wife. -- j
In the end, Obamacare was designed to effect Cloward and Piven's goal of overwhelming the system to bring it down. And it is.
It's crazy. And we are expected to foot that bill.
The small hospital in my town used to be affiliated with Columbia Presbyterian. It changed hands and is now part of the Western CT Health Network. Since then, the maternity ward has been shut down, and now the latest is the er is being phased out to only have two beds. BUT, it has a stellar cancer treatment center, and is getting a new cardiac wing. The thing is, around here, which is mostly rural, there are all sorts of reasons people use the emergency room. Farm accidents, builders and other trades use it. I did last September when I got stitches.... (Long stupid story. Typical spazz me...)
Point is, it's shrinking in the areas that get a lot of use. People are losing their jobs. And I mean surgeons, er nurses, the gamut of those who provide care in the specialties that are becoming phased out. It concerns me, because the other two hospitals are not exactly close...
Voting for the lesser of 2 evils is the problem not the answer.
On the subject of clinical laboratories (which is my personal area of experience): There is a small cadre of instruments available which are sufficiently idiot proof that they are either licensed to be run at home (like glucose meters) or by unlicensed personnel in a medical office. Some of them have a low sample size and can use whole blood (can be run off a finger stick, thus avoiding phlebotomy and centrifugation). I have recently been musing about what it would be like for someone (not me, just a hypothetical someone) to start a totally illegal laboratory that allowed people to run lab tests on themselves for low cost (~$20) as frequently as they wanted to. A single knowledgeable person could do the QC and PM on the instruments. I wonder if this would be financially viable. (One of the keys to good health care is getting rid of the middlemen and the restrictions...and lab work provides about 60% of the hard data on a medical chart.)
Jan
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142412...
What I was thinking about was more like a DYI space where the instruments were all in the FDA waived category. One tech would maintain the instruments and run QC (which rarely gets done on home instruments, but should be). You would do your own testing and you would pay for reagents + a fraction of (techtime + QC/calibrators + rent + profit). I wonder if you could 'hire' the tech to perform microscopy. Probably not.
I suspect the whole arrangement would be found to be illegal, even if all of the parts (except perhaps the microscopy) are separately legal.
I am rooting for Elizabeth Holmes (though her innovations may be disastrous to my business).
Jan
before the essential date arrives . . . I retired just
before I turned 60, and it felt like a shrug. -- j
Jan
Wow. I live only a short drive away from population centers of only 2-3 thousand. That's what I call a "rural town".
.
have long wait times and poor service. -- j
.
"We're gonna drop Wisconsin".
Jan
so hospital closings are just the tip of the iceberg.
Remember when a producer in Atlas said something like we can't survive under these new regulations. And the moocher said, "oh, you'll find a way!"
I will never forget that line.
I'm slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun, but that doesn't stop me from being critical of things that pols do which exceed their mandate, even if I think it might be a good idea; and I don't care what side of the aisle they're on!
On the bright side, note how few politicians asked him to appear at their events during last year's elections for Congress. The rats are leaving the sinking ship.
do you define objectivist? . freedom lover to the
right of libertarian! -- j
t-shirts foretold something::: fascism is "in" among
the elites and those who aspire to that. . it's like a
resurgence of the Sixties, with flowers and tokes
replaced by needles and tokes. . and EBT cards. -- j
Aside from all the great comments on insurance and hospital management, doctors have been controlling their monopoly on healthcare for ever. The AMA, not government, controls enrollment, and silly terms of study and forced apprenticeship to make it to their lofty realm of being able to prescribe penicillin. There are some pretty smart doctors, but there are even more that simply are practically incapable of critical evaluation. They simply match diagnosis and treatment with experience, not biology and physiology.
It became so obvious and bad that we now have the Nurse Practitioner or Physician's Assistant. These more simply and efficiently trained people take care of a majority of medical issues, leaving the expensive stuff to the expensive doctors.
As freedomforall said, a free market in healthcare would lower costs faster than anything managed. If the government has to intervene, the money should go to the patient, not the service provide, and the patient should chose to spend the stipend how they see fit.
my milk store just closed a branch a mile away and
built a larger one 4 miles away. . pissed us off. -- j
p.s. might I send you a charged-up battery,
in case the power goes out?
Yes I'm working on building my own solar and wind power system so yea you can send me a couple forklift battering. Lol
lithium-ion batteries which are strong enough to
jump-start a car. . fun with electricity! -- j
exercises they taught me to do. . need to hook it
to the treadmill ! -- j
Medical care has always been metered. Typically by the market historically, now it is less efficient than it was, IMHO.
Piven connection, I believe -- they do want us to
die off and leave it to them. -- j
been passed down through the generations, how
can the "libtards" stomach this process of raping
inheritances? . makes me go ballistic! -- j
If there's ever another bill written with the "you've got to vote for it before you know what's in it" tag, all the politicos that vote for it should be taken out and hung from the street lights while the church wives club serve a cold chicken dinner with tater salad and baked beans. That is exactly what is going on with the "agreement" with Iran. Personally I'm happy that the Senators sent that letter to the high poobah in Iran. They should have "cc'd" Barry with a copy. It's time that his nibs starts getting his toes stepped on every time he does anything (except resign).
just called for the baked-over and once-failed Hillary
plan plus all of the MIT Goober's "stupid public" tricks
which had been stacked up for years, and said,
"Let's pass this!"
and so it came to pass, I bet. . a mashed-together conglomerate
coagulation of pieces ill-designed and poorly-fit to reality. -- j