"Why do we behave the way we behave? What has become of us? Where is our soul?" DUMPED ON SKID ROW - Hospitals drop homeless patients on the city's Skid Row. -- jlm
--The first thing that comes to mind is that this is an expect-able, albeit immoral, response to the mess that hospitals find themselves in with regard to treatment of the indigent. ... what is needed is a system in which everyone can get a Chevy, but you have to pay your own money if you want a BMW. The system we have now is that... (sic) once a patient is in, they must be afforded the best care available... This is an overwhelming cost to the hospitals. (sic) i just had routine microsurgery for my lower lumbar region and the bill was well over $20,000. my in network portion is over $10,000. they kicked me out after one day with very little followup. i would have been better off spending the money on prevention and seeking alternative medicine. i suppose hospitals have to compensate for losses when they provide services for indigent patients like my alcoholic and homeless brother. the hospital wanted me to sign a release to take him off life support, but i couldn't do it. miraculously his liver recovered, probably due to the expensive intensive care he received. the last time he tried to go into rehab he was refused, so he robbed a bank for $100 and went to the police station to turn himself in. he spent thirty months in a federal detention center, which is the longest he has been sober in forty years... the insurance and pharmaceutical companies seem to be doing quite well, which is part of the reason my brother became addicted to prescription medicine when he worked for a think tank and had great coverage. --This problem is a good one for discussion here. However, it will not be solved by polemics that provide simple stories with heroes and villains like that provided by Moore. There is a hard way out for this, just no easy way out. Dan M. i think michael moore has done a real service with his controversial documentaries. he doesn't pretend not to have an agenda when he has louis armstrong singing "it's a beautiful world" with a collage of all the world's inhumanities as background, or bush sitting dazed like a deer in the headlights for seven minutes while america is under attack. the message is much more powerful than rants by dennis miller or bill o'reilly, who also have an agenda. i very much like the idea of a string of simple health clinics staffed by medics, med techs, nurse-practitioners, and physician assistants - with doctors on call, so they can be free for important emergencies. i do believe there are some good alternative medicine resources, and some out right snake medicine scams. there are plenty of quacks in the medical profession, as well and doctors who think they are god, or are in the profession for the money. even though i am a skeptic about chanting, gris gris and juju cures, i never negate the power of suggestion. --jlm Knowledge is Power ____________________________________________________________________________________ No need to miss a message. Get email on-the-go with Yahoo! Mail for Mobile. Get started. http://mobile.yahoo.com/mail _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
