you have to make sure they're good scissors, the kind with pointy sharp blades. Let's go through the kitchen and then around the dining room table!

I don't want to get off topic, but the town really did appear to be "Rural". Its not uncommon for three or four generations to live in one side of something like this. http://www.s1homes.com/property_images/A...

You're a fool, I take it you don't have an elderly mother or father or anyone close to you. If you did would you still have these same thoughts regarding the elderly? If so, you are a sorry pathetic excuse for human life. Let me explain what my previous comment meant since you don't seem to have the mental capability to discern my comment. I was simply stating that our government intentionally knew what the ramifications of this bill would mean to all U.S. citizens. This bill will also impact the younger and middle age citizens as well since our whole health care system is in a state of flux and altered in a way that the health care we will be receiving is nowhere near what Americans are used to. There is empirical data to back up my statement.

Thank you for your insights, Exitstageright.

Jan, running with scissors now

Jtruran, whyever would you think that the political class has any interest in caring for old, sick people? Remember Dr. Emanuel said we should all die by 75. It would be tremendous cost savings to not care for the elderly. It's an easy equation when you consider an old person to be an economic unit rather than an individual.
"We're gonna drop Wisconsin".

Especially if you give free treatment to illegal aliens

Can someone, ANYONE, tell me just what the far left sees when they look at that lyin' sack of garbage? I think they'd cheer their own firing squad if he ordered it.

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!

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 ?
~~~~~~~

In 2008 I was assigned to work as a Director of Facilities at a hospital in Michigan. I was asked to file the Tier II report for this facility. I was unaware of what was required when filing this report since I had not been asked to file this report previously. I contacted Homeland Security to ask for guidance to complete the form and during my conversation with a representative from H/E I was told that there was a major bill in the Senate that was being strongly considered for passage. The passage of this bill would effectively close 95% of all small and medium hospitals across America. This bill was Obamacare. It makes no sense to me why our politicians would want or agree to close hospitals now with the U. S. population of baby boomers entering into the latter days of their lives where they are going to need acute care more now than ever. The baby boomer generation was the largest if not one of the largest numbers of births in this nations history. We need medical facilities more than ever, not less. My God is there any common sense left within the political structure of this country!!!

I was just in a hospital for four days. It was newly purchased and renovated. At the end of my 4 day stay, the Director had a chat with me touting all the improvements they made. I asked him what major problems he had to overcome and he confessed that their biggest problem was doctors who, because of ACA wanted to close their practice and just stay on staff at the hospital. He said that would leave the patient, in many cases, unable to see the treating physician for follow-up visits. I never thought of that aspect of Obamacare.

That is a chilling thought.

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

Gruber was wonderful. I have used the phrase 'stupid little people' a number of times since his opinions made news. It can make a liberal wince.

Jan

So, Exitstageright: I would like to hear your take on the article. Is this spot on? Exaggerated? You bring a unique experiential background in hospital management to this list and I would like to hear more of your opinions.

Jan

"To have a tax exempt status hospitals had to provide "free care" for the poor - to serve the community."

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.

Well, if we look back under Presidebt Opinocchio's infamous bus, we can find that Gruber dude admitting more than once camera that the whole Obamacare scam is based on lies told to "stupid voters".

i wouldn't bet against that.

Small, rural town of 75 THOUSAND?

Wow. I live only a short drive away from population centers of only 2-3 thousand. That's what I call a "rural town".

Intentional? I doubt it was thought out that 'well'.

Medical care has always been metered. Typically by the market historically, now it is less efficient than it was, IMHO.

My wife is a travel nurse (we live in Wyoming) and working the ER in a California hospital, she estimates that about 80% of the 200+ admissions during her 12-hour shift were bullshit. A rash on an arm, hangover headaches, stomach aches, drug seekers for "pain," and so on.

In the end, Obamacare was designed to effect Cloward and Piven's goal of overwhelming the system to bring it down. And it is.

The closing of rural hospitals is of no consequence to President Zero. They didn't vote for him.

the end game for the present managers of the us government is to further do away with ALL businesses. the medical field which is as it should be, be a business is easiest to attack as has been happening since lbj (he died to late). these civil servants have this warped idea that those who are successful will keep them afloat indefinitely. the civil servants can not conceive of those who would be successful not acting to be successful in the existing climate. it took 200 years for the successful to raise humanity through a good deal of the world out of abject poverty, and it will have taken less than 200 years to bring poverty back. all of the rural hospitals that are closing were taking care of people in poverty, mostly black i suspect since most of them are in the south.
so hospital closings are just the tip of the iceberg.

That's the future unless we change it.
Voting for the lesser of 2 evils is the problem not the answer.

Good point. Thanks for adding that part of the explanation, Ben.

I was not aware of the tax exempt status situation.
this is entirely logical, though -- and a serious source
for costs rising through the roof! -- j

Yes to all of the above. In defense of insurance, it created a money pool which acted as a catalyst for medical research. A vicious cycyle, no doubt, but we do have amazing imaging devices. I blame the tax exempt status hospitals enjoyed for so many years as one of the root causes of the medical cost spiral. To have a tax exempt status hospitals had to provide "free care" for the poor - to serve the community. Once the poor figured it out their demands on the ER's etc has gotten out of control. Had hospitals been truley private enterprise this would not have happened. Government intervention is the problem, not the solution.