I know, like most of you, I'm on many, many electronic mailing lists. I usually just consider them the price one pays for participating in the political process. Unfortunately, like the junk mail before it, electronic mailing lists are peddled or otherwise exchanged between supposedly like minded organizations. My inbox runneth over. Occasionally I will unsubscribe from a particular groups mailings for one reason or another. Many of these organizations will ask you why you're asking to be removed from their august organizations mailing list. On more than one occasion I've had quite a bit fun with that question.
Today I received an electronic plea form an outfit asking me to help spread the word about the plight of the poor beleaguered Hospital Industrial Complex. Therefore, If I have judged the motives of The Coalition to Protect Health Care unjustly, then I do hereby apologize. Whenever I see the title "Coalition to Protect Blaw, Blaw, Blaw" I tend to assume it's from a Republican front group. I suppose that I could be wrong in this case. If so: sorry.
Now, after documenting all due fudge factors, I give to you good folks of the Kos my response to The Coalition to Protect. If you're not acquainted with my history, I was head of a busy urban Level 1 Emergency Department for about twenty years. My wife is currently a Registered Nurse at a busy urban hospital. I mention this because most of my non-health care employed friends assume that I must love the Affordable Care Act. While I begrudging admit that it's better than nothing, it's far from that first step towards true universal health care that I was hoping for. I'd have even settled for a public option. At least that might have lead to a path to a single payer. Although the ACA resulted in many more people getting health care, it did nothing to get at the root problems in health care today, insurance companies and for profit hospitals.
So, in response to the Coalition to Protect Health Care's request that I "spread the word," and their question asking why I'm unsubscribing from their electronic mails, I give you the following.
Why am I unsubscribing? Because huge for-profit hospitals are more than capable of taking care of themselves without my help. They seem too have been doing a damn good job up until now. The only thing that will fix health care is for all hospitals to go to not for profit status, and more importantly, the insurance industry needs to be taken out of the loop and the government needs to take it's place. Big Pharma's influence also needs to be minimized, but insurance companies and for profit hospitals give no value added to the product they're selling. They just add extra cost to the system! They bring nothing to the table except their greedy hands out looking for new and novel ways of screwing patients and their families outta there hard earned duckets .
There's a God Damn reason why most hospitals are named after religious organizations, although it's getting harder and harder to find hospitals who are actually owned by the organizations that bare their name anymore. Hospitals were part of their charitable outreach. For profit hospitals and the insurance industry's top interest, by their very natures, isn't with patient outcomes. Just like any business, their prime directive is to give the maximum return on investment to their stock holders. Making a profit off of the suffering of the sick and dying is a corruption whose influence on the industry makes it rotten to the core.
I worked in hospitals for 30 years and they ended up running me into the dirt with ridiculous productivity standards, and these were all not for profits outfits! My wife works for a for profit hospital now after the nonprofit she worked for was bought out by a crappy for profit hospital group out of Tennessee. And now, on top of their crazy productivity standards and staffing insufficiency, they provide crappy outdated equipment for them to do their patient care with; when you can find it.
Most all of hospital administration looks at nursing, as well as all the other human resources they employ, as a big, deep, dark, bottomless pit that they're forced to shovel money into every two weeks. Funny how they sure don't have any problem finding more than enough cash to build a new doctor's office complex; or a new surgicenter for nipping and tucking all of life's little owies and boo boos; or the newest multimillion dollar toys in the form of scanning machines and advanced surgical equipment that turns surgical suites into assembly lines. In a for profit world, money goes into what pays the best, not into what's best for the community. They don't even try to pretend to staff their hospitals adequately anymore. Poor staffing seems to be chalked up to the nature of the beast anymore. Administrators increasingly predate on the dedication and exhausting, back breaking work of their staffs who do the dead best they can, with whatever meager resources they're given to make sure the patient gets the care they need and deserve. So if you want me to raise my voice in social media on behalf of the Hospital Industrial Complex, well, to quote our former Vice President, "Go Fuck Yourself!"
I'll spread the word alright. I'll share the facts you assholes! Quit pretending you're concerned about patient care. Profit motivated market capitalism and good patient care are antithetical concerns to one another. You guys are the only ones who are in a position to decide how your resources are spent. If you were truly concerned about your patients it would show in your monetary allocations. You could staff your hospitals adequately, or you can go out and buy a gamma knife or a linear accelerator Radiosurgery set up that might get used a few times a week in a smaller market. You could provide proper blood sugar monitors on your floors, or you can build a new office building, because God knows we physicians can't get by in our old offices. For Christ's sake the old floors have scuff marks on them! Who can practice proper modern medicine with scuffed up floors? Are we barbarians here? The next thing you know you'll be asking us to perform surgery in our bare hands. Just think of the price savings by not having to buy gloves anymore.
Right now it's a corrupt system and by adding more capitalism to the mix it only makes it significantly worse; and the Hospital Industrial Complex, Big Pharma, and the Scumbag Insurance industry are all in cahoots to squeeze every last penny from the patients and policy holders that you claim to care so God Damn much about! In short, Bite Me! I fought you assholes for 30 years and I don't miss it for a second. I got your spread the word right here buddy!
Remember, you asked!