Bushie Goes to Congress
I have never been a fan of watching the State of the Union, mostly because it is a President throwing out some things that sound like good ideas, and then not following up on them (be it through congress, or whatever). But I keep watching. Now that I work in a hospital, I realize that physicans only get remimbursed 60% of what it costs them to provide care to Medicare patients. I see so many men, women, and especially children who come in entirely too sick, because they couldn’t get health insurance. I see abuse of the system… people coming to an ER for a snotty nose because they know that they don’t have to pay for it…
So I watched to see if maybe he had a plan, or maybe he would follow up to what he said last year. He doesn’t, and he didn’t. No one did anything about medical liability reform. No one did shit about raising Medicare reimbursement rates. President Bush stated the following:
“For all Americans, we must confront the rising cost of care, strengthen the doctor-patient relationship and help people afford the insurance coverage they need. We will make wider use of electronic records and other health information technology, to help control costs and reduce dangerous medical errors.”
How, sir, will you manage that? You can’t manage to keep your staff out of jail, much less implement medical records. Do you know how much that costs? Where is that money coming from? The 140 “poorly performing” government programs that you are going to cut?
And then he goes there. He goes to education. He says a bunch of shit that he will never do. He wants to bring 70,000 teachers in to teach AP math and science courses. How about you teach kids how to fucking read before you worry about AP calculus? Where are you going to find these “highly qualified mathemeticians and scientists” that will work for less than 30,000 a year?
I won’t even go there with the whole embryo-stem-cell-outlaw-thing he talked about. That would take all day.
He wants to give all those poor black folk medicines for HIV/AIDS… but he declines to say how the hell these people are going to pay for these medicines…. and he wants Black-American churches to test their members for AIDS. He forgets that heterosexual females are the fastest growing group with AIDS. And I guess he forgets about the GLB population too… Why in the hell would you turn over AIDS testing to faith-based groups???? Because if I think I have AIDS, the first place I’m going is a church. Jesus.
I guess I don’t mind his whole spill on the War. I’ve always agreed with him on the whole supporting the troops and democracy thing… I just wish he would pull his head out of his ass when it comes to every single other issue.
okay, let me go for a bit…
first of all, I agree that when a snot-nosed shit goes to the emergency room for a case of the sniffles that it is the methods of a hypocondriac at best. However, even if the bastard has insurance and doesn’t have to pay, somebody is paying and usually to the inflated tune of about 200 bucks a pop for a visit. That’s a good days pay for blowing someone else’s nose. So personally, if the ‘doc’ is only getting sixty percent of that, well…
Did he have a plan about medical liabilty or reform. No. Not at all. So I’m not saying he’s a good in that manner. But pushing it to the for front in his address does say that he does still recognize it as a problem, and calling attention to something buy talking and protesting and making a scene is something that the Democrats, if anyone, should appreciate.
And education. I hate his stance, I hate his choke-holding money at the federal level with release criteria being federal mandates and standard testing; I hate his neglect of the arts. I think you are absolutely right; you want good teachers in both quanity and number? Pay them. And stop humoring parents when the second guess the school system.
I am interested on your stem-cell research stance, being a nurse and all…. feel free to email me.
But, I didn’t hear him say anything about testing for AIDs in black churches. I did hear him boast about humanitarian aid to foreign countries, which I think is a good thing. Your whole last paragraph is a bit hard for me to follow because I don’t think that turning over AIDs reserach to Jesus was what he was getting at… but I could be wrong, this is Bush.
Lastly, if medical reform is to come from anywhere is could come from within the medical community itself. It has the money. Well, the private sector does. Government should be cross-leveling all the shit at the top to all that shit in the bottom. And on either end of the spectrum; I don’t think I’ve ever seen a doctor actually living in the middle class… at least not after his residency. And the thing about my stance on the State of the Union. It was just a speach that I enjoyed and had merit to our state as a union; I still think Bush is a moron.
People who have insurance have to pay so much to cover healthcare for people who do not. If more of the poor were insured, we wouldn’t be charged nearly so much. People in this country view healthcare as a right. That means the hospital must treat anyone and everyone who walks through their doors. Hospitals wouldn’t be able to keep their doors open without jacking up the costs on insured customers like ourselves. The reason your healthcare bill is so high? It’s not because of the mean, greedy doctor. It’s because of the homeless man who comes in every single day without insurance. You are eating his bill.
You would be astounded if you saw the figures on physicians that were driven completely out of practice because of medical malpractice insurance rates. OB/Gyn was hit the hardest, and ER docs were hit next. The most important sectors are the most likely to be sued. Rural docs can’t afford to practice anymore because of their insurance rates. Women are having to drive 300 miles for prenatal care. How about some lawsuit reform? I have hard time understanding why healthcare isn’t too important to this man.
And you are correct, docs don’t exactly live in the poor house. They should be paid well. I have never met an overpaid doctor. They work their asses off for their salary. Are you suggesting they cut their own salaries so they can take care of the poor? Why should they have to?
Bush stated that he would like to give funding to “faith based institutions” for HIV and AIDS testing in African-Americans. Not to the health department or free clinics, but to “faith based institutions.” That’s what I meant by turning over AIDS testing to churches.
And as opposed as I am to abortion, I wholeheartedly agree with stem-cell and organ-cloning research. There are other ways to get stem cells besides aborted fetuses. And hell, we might as well use them for something, right?
By the way, I am a registered republican.
Still not a lot of argument, but to stay on track, originally we are just critique for the speech, not the administration, which I am not fan of for the record. And considering the speech, I missed the whole “faith based institutions”. At least in any sort of leading tendencies… but then again, I didn’t TIVO it.
I agree their should be health care reform, and yes Americans believe that health care is a right because we do not deny them it. That is the State of the Union, the absence of denial, the concept of credit, the more-or-less moral state. If an American can have something, they will take it, without thought to the price; provided that someone leads them to believe that it is in their “right”. The words “rights” and “morality” should go hand in hand, but they do not because to do so would be at the detriment of the American consumer instinct. It is unfortunate that healthcare walls victim to such a mindset, but it is not alone. America’s moral debasement and lack of personal responsibility to the State is at the heart of our National issues and, I believe, will be the downfall and or perversion of this country. But I digress…
But lawsuit reform, I say Hell Yeah! Goes hand-in-hand with the greed of America.
But I will offer this; most private-sector doctors are rolling in the bucks. Tit docs, facial reconstructors, laser eye geeks; these guys make the bank. I’m not saying that ER doctors or OB/Gyns take a salary cut because the poor. Rather, I roll around with the concept that those private guys (who hand to start in an ER or something anyway) should have to take care of their own. Just a thought.
My jury is out on stem-cell. I understand the medical aspects, but I tend to look at it with more a Bushido aspect: If those who are truly the master’s of their art and science are going take up the role of God on the level of creation and life, I want society to allow me more leeway in my art and science - death.
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