January 08, 2003
As a Consumer
With the thoughtful comments, both on the blog and to my e-mail, about the government funding to teaching hospitals, I thought, hell......I didn't express myself well enough on this issue.
Think of this as a consumer issue, folks.
If you equate what hospitals do to the automobile industry:
That new car you want to purchase? Well, let's see. We can make you a brand new car!
We'll use a rusted out chassis from the mid-80's (that's what we have on hand). You'll be getting a quality motor with all the technology we can afford (circa 1973). Style? Well, that's not exactly the most important thing now, is it? The color will be institutional gray.....or mauve. No extra bells and whistles on the budget we have. You'll have manual window cranks. Air conditioning will be from the hamsters below the dash who have been trained to blow cool air upon your legs. And, since we're short staffed here in the car factory, we'll get this beauty to you as soon as we have enough people to actually work on it.
The immediacy of health care is much more important than building consumer confidence in other areas - like cars, plastics, steel, our own state, etc. Yet, the government finds a way to justify spending money on all those things every year. I already feel good about my damn car. I don't need an ad campaign to tell me that! We pay our farmers, and those from other countries, NOT to grow crops. We spend billions on the space program. We spend billions on grants to people to tell us how much a cow farts.
Compared to all the things the government DOES spend money on - to what it COULD spend money on.....well, I pick providing quality health care over those other things. Hands down.
It's not as though hospitals are getting tons of money and a few CEOs are pocketing it. Not in the majority of cases. Being a not-for-profit organization limits how the money is spent. My hospital has been around since 1954 and is the only hospital solely for children within a two hour drive. We serve a HUGE area. We get children from all over the country because of some of the specialists that we have here. There never seem to be enough beds. Last night, my unit was at 95% its capacity and we were all trying to figure out who could be discharged or moved to make room for the bursting Emergency cases we had stacking up.
Not a single person in our hospital makes a king's ransom. But, none of us got into this field to make money. Well, not a ton of money, anyway. The truth is, to be a hospital doctor, or a nurse, or even just the person who restocks a room with gloves, you have to want to do this because of something besides money. None of us will get rich doing what we're doing.
My only concern, as I head out to work tonight, is to provide quality care to my patients and to help them get well. I want them to feel as though they have received excellent care and exceptional treatment. I want their families to know that I care what happens to them.
Go ahead and rail against my "silly notions" here in the comments. Or, better yet, do it on your own site. This is something that I believe in. Something that means something to me. I had a heads up on this and thought I'd share. I think it's appropriate. And remember, it's not like I'm asking you to join PETA or anything.
Posted by DaGoddess at January 8, 2003 05:45 PMI'll join PETA, as long as it's that faction that believes in People Eating Tasty Animals. I like steak, chicken and meat loaf (the last of which you make very well, by the way).
And I appreciate dedicated health-care PROFESSIONALS, because that's what the good ones are. That's not EVERYBODY who works in a hospital, because I met some true, shitass incompetents during my two stays last year. But I know you Joan, and you are built for that kind of work. You would bring me my meds on time, give a painless shot, be gentle when you stuck a suppository up my ass and not bitch and turn me in to the authorities if you caught me smoking in the bathroom.
Go forth an HEAL PEOPLE, woman!
Posted by: Acidman at January 8, 2003 06:06 PMno railing here, my friend.
i'm with you 100%.
but you knew that already, didn't you?
Well Joanie, we spoke briefly about this (on IM) and I too have addressed similar issues at my site. Indeed, the vast majority of us in healthcare are in it to HELP PEOPLE. Yes, we have to live as well but money is not all. Governments spend heavily on what they feel is important. Ask me if anything could be more important that the health of a nations citizens?? I think you forgot to mention that a sizeable piece of the US budget goes into defence as well. Anyway, folks like us will only keep on doing what we do because as you implied, we do CARE!!!
Posted by: Dr. D. at January 8, 2003 06:53 PMI'm with you totally. My big issue is with the insurance companies. Every year the costs increase and the benifits and number of doctors in the "program" decrease. The health insurance we have at work just dumped 2 or 3 local hospitals and a number of the doctors in those areas. I have to find a new doctor now. And possibly one that may (or may not) be as good as my old one. The reason the others were dropped was because they wanted to keep being paid what they had been paid, but the insurance company didn't want to pay that much. Who looses? The people who have health insurance. I know a few people at work that have dropped insurance all together.
Something definitly stinks in health care and its not the doctors and nurses and others who provide care. Its the "business" end of things that is hurting things.
Either the world is going to shit or I'm getting jaded as I grow older. ugh!
Posted by: Marc at January 8, 2003 07:52 PMMy aunt had a liver transplant several years ago. It was at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) - one of THE top transplant hospitals in the U.S. AND
A teaching hospital. With some of the best doctors and students - students that become some of the best doctors. Funding is what keeps it going.
I ALSO go there (the Casey Eye Institute) for my keratoconus (if anybody doesn't know what keratoconus is, go here: http://www.nkcf.org/ and for MY OWN experience with KC go to my URL and then the Keratoconus Diary page). I haven't gone in too long a while because I don't have medical coverage to pay for any of it...but every opthamalogist or optometrist (even ones working for those 1 hour eye glass places) I've talked to KNOWS the hospital and KNOWS the doctors and interns at OHSU/Casey Eye Institute. They are the best- professionally and personally...I don't know what I would do if funding cuts meant the hospital would make serious cutbacks.
There are two things I can think of that are messing up health care for ordinary people: 1) medical-insurance companies; 2) malpractice insurance gone way out of control. If we could fix those things there might be some hope.
Posted by: dragonfly jenny at January 8, 2003 08:27 PMI agree! Oh, and they could use some of the money to find the 33,000 sex offenders they lost track of in California too... that might be good.
Posted by: Robin at January 9, 2003 12:14 AMThis is a tired axiom already, but it's true: if you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until it's free.
Notice how as Federal spending increased and insurance companies proliferated the costs of going to the hospital have increased a hundredfold over the rate of inflation?
Ask yourself the question: where is the money going now? How big is your bonus compared to that of the six administrators above you? And their three managers? Plus, the executive committee? I'm willing to bet that management buys suits to wear that cost as much as your salary.
It's not the hospitals, nurses, doctors, janitors and security guards who eat up the budget. It's the bureacracy above them. Their purpose is to hire and pay bureacrats, not deliver quality, cost effective healthcare.
I agree with your opinion that healthcare is of utmost importance to the nation. I disagree that Federal involvement is going to fix it. (They are the ones who broke it in the first place.)
As far as what our taxes (actually, it's the richest 1% who pay for 95% of the tax burden, but I digress), pay for, I'll rant against farm subsidies, breast-size scientific studies, and airline bailouts.
Posted by: Grognard at January 9, 2003 07:21 AMThanks for the post.
Posted by: term life insurance at October 4, 2003 06:32 PM