Need or want proof "Obamacare" is working?

Read it and weep, Republicans, Right Wingers and haters out there.  For the rest of us, it's a relief and the beginning of good things:

Top-Ranked Hospital Cuts Budget $165 Million Due to 'ObamaCare

And lest anyone here think it's from some Left Wing, very Liberal, biased and deeply slanted site like 

The Huffington Post, check out that source for the article:  Christian News, The Christian Post

Snippets from the article:

Possibly signaling a national trend, The Cleveland Clinic, ranked the fourth-best American hospital by U.S. News & World Report, announced that it plans to cut $330 million from its 2014 budget, and attributed about half of those cuts, roughly $165 million, directly to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as "Obamacare."

Massachusetts General Hospital, ranked number two by U.S. News & World Report, also reported increased budget cuts but did not have a specific number.

"We had to take about $330 million out of next year's budget," Eileen Sheil, executive director of corporate communications at the Cleveland Clinic, said in an interview on Monday. Sheil told The Christian Post that "half of the 330" is directly attributable to Obamacare.

And as for jobs?

But Sheil set out to correct rumors that the Cleveland Clinic had plans to lay off 3,000 employees. "We offered early retirement to 3,000 employees who were eligible for it," she clarified.

One hospital. One highly-ranked hospital. One budget. 165 million dollars.

It's a start.  Heck, it's a great start.

We have the most expensive health care system in the world. 

We have the worst health outcomes, from that absurdly-expensive system, of the top 17 industrialized nations.

More Americans go bankrupt from health care expenses than any other one source. Some 40% of the total bankruptcies in the nation are from health care expenses.

The system was and still is, truth be told, broken, folks. Very broken. It was only working for the corporations and wealthy, not for the people.

We needed a fix. We needed the Affordable Care Act. We direly needed "Obamacare."

Another big, local story the Star didn't report on

Here's a story that was right here in our own figurative "back yard", that's being covered nationally but our own local paper, weak as it is and short on reporters, didn't go after:

What Actually Happened To That Same-Sex Couple In The Missouri Hospital

 

Hospital that had gay man arrested issues contradictory statement

As you may or may not know, a man in a same-sex couple was in Research Medical Center in Lee's Summit. His partner wanted to stay with him, rather naturally, but Research not only tried to throw him out but had him arrested and removed from the premises.

This is a fairly big and even timely story, one of very current topics--equality, gay rights, fairness, legal issues, it really has it all, I'd think.

And the Star, the local paper of note, didn't touch it.

So it goes.

National sources cover the story but not our own paper.

I hope they have a good, viable plan for wanting to stay in business at the Star.

Because from here, it surely doesn't seem obvious.

Additional links:

Gay Man Arrested For Refusing To Leave Partner's Bedside At Missouri Hospital, Told He's Not Family [VIDEO]

 

http://americablog.com/2013/04/missouri-gay-hospital-visitation-remove-research-medical-center.html

http://www.weareatheism.com/arrested-at-hospital-just-for-wanting-to-hold-his-partners-hand/

Hospital issues new statement contradicting earlier statement to the police.

One of the few times they're all on the same side

The mascots of the Big 12 Basketball Conference all got together and visited the children patients at Children's Mercy Hospital today.  Pretty fun. Very cool.  Good for the kids and them and all involved.

More here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151544515710915&set=a.10151544301070915.1073741830.51136075914&type=1&theater

Link:

Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics

Our broken--badly broken--health care system

 

A friend of mine was sick last week, over his holiday vacation.

That stunk for him, of course, poor guy.

He called in to his doctor, to get something for it.

His doctor concurred and prescribed Tamiflu for him.

He got ten pills of this little "wonder drug."

Now, he has health insurance but even with that, do you know what that one little--very little--prescription cost him?

$111.00

One hundred and eleven dollars for ten pills, even with insurance.

America's health care system.

We're number one.

In cost.

On kindness

From a friend's Facebook page last evening (thanks, Kevin):

A NYC Taxi driver wrote:

I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes I honked again. Since this was going to be my last ride of my shift I thought about just driving away, but instead I put the car in park and walked up to the door and knocked.. 'Just a minute', answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.

After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90's stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940's movie.

By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets.

There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.

'Would you carry my bag out to the car?' she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman.

She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.

She kept thanking me for my kindness. 'It's nothing', I told her.. 'I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.'

'Oh, you're such a good boy, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, 'Could you drive through downtown?'

'It's not the shortest way,' I answered quickly..

'Oh, I don't mind,' she said. 'I'm in no hurry. I'm on my way to a hospice.

I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. 'I don't have any family left,' she continued in a soft voice..'The doctor says I don't have very long.' I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.

'What route would you like me to take?' I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.

We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, 'I'm tired.Let's go now'.
We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico.

Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

'How much do I owe you?' She asked, reaching into her purse.

'Nothing,' I said

'You have to make a living,' she answered.

'There are other passengers,' I responded.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug.She held onto me tightly.

'You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,' she said. 'Thank you.'

I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light.. Behind me, a door shut.It was the sound of the closing of a life..

I didn't pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day,I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver,or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?

On a quick review, I don't think that I have done anything more important in my life.

We're conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments.

But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

Link: http://www.randomactsofkindness.org

Kansas City not on "Best Hospitals" Honor Roll this year

US News & World Reports has a "Best Hospitals 2011-12: Honor Roll" out today and tough luck, Kansas City, we're not on it. We're not on the top 17 best hospitals list. St. Louis is with their Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University, but not us. Heck, Barnes even bested Mount Sinai in New York, for that matter. As Lucy Van Pelt always said, "Maybe next year, Charlie Brown." Link: http://health.yahoo.net/articles/healthcare/best-hospitals-2011-12

First there was the MRSA anti-virus; now, CRKP is here in Missouri, too

If you've had any hospital stays in the last few years, you're likely familiar with the super anti-virus MRSA, for which hospitals have had little or no effect fighting.

It seems we've antibiotic-ed ourselves into a never-never world where little if anything fights these infections.  It can and has killed people.  You go into the hospital to get better but instead, contract MRSA and get worse.

Or die.

Honestly.

Well, now, news is out of a newer and apparently more strain-resistant infection, CRKP (carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae).  And the fact is, it's been found here in Missouri, too:

Just so you know, it's another strain-resistant bacteria.

And it's here.

    

Links:http://health.yahoo.net/experts/dayinhealth/antibiotic-superbugs-crkp-mrsa-risk

http://patients.about.com/od/medicalmistakessafety/a/CRKP-Superbug-Infection-Found-In-Hospitals-And-Healthcare-Facilities.htm

http://patients.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=patients&cdn=health&tm=14&f=00&su=p284.9.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.cdc.gov/HAI/organisms/cre.html

Two fights for America and Americans

There are two fights, at minimum, going on right now--today, in fact--and it truly is over America and Americans.

Mostly our money.

The first was made obvious by the debate today at the Supreme Court over whether corporations will be allowed to pour their untold billions of dollars into our political campaigns, so they can say whatever they wish and about whomever or whatever they wish.

If you've read me before, you can no doubt guess I'd be vehemently against this.

In the first place, it simply goes against all court rulings and precedence and so, our law.

More importantly to me, though, is the fact that because of the dissolution of the "Fairness Doctrine" years ago by Republican lawmakers, our airwaves have been made far more ugly and vitriolic while at the same time, taking accountability and level-headedness out of our discourse.

Pouring far more corporate money, anonymously, into our political campaigns--which is what is being considered--will only increase the ugliness, bitterness and irresponsibility into our lives and political development.

There are other reasons, too, but these are the two main ones for me and certainly enough to show this should not change and should not go the corporation's way.

The second fight going on right now in America is evidenced by President Obama's address this evening to a joint sesson of Congress over health care reform.

He's pushing for this, sure, but it does look, in this case as well as the first one, above, that the corporations and big business are winning while Americans are losing--mightily and badly.

It's interesting but it doesn't look good for you and I--the man and woman on the street.

All Americans need to see this

US Health Care

While everyone else, on both sides of the aisle, rant and rave, one way or another about Sonia Sotomayor as the next Justice on the Supreme Court, I'm going to let them and go on to something different, if not more important.

And that is, as you see above, health care in America.

I've said for a long time, the way we need to fix health care in the US is to take the gross, ridiculous profits out of it, the way the rest of virtually all of the world has so it's more a right instead of a privilege.

We're the only people on the planet that do it this way, ours is the most expensive, we don't have the highest mortality rates and yet Americans have been convinced ours is the only and best system to distribute health care.

Insane. Insanity. Fools.

Anyway, as I write this, I saw, a few days ago, some writing by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship that asks the question: "How can we expect an industry that profits from disease and sickness to police itself?"

Followed by this note: "The health care industry has spent $134 million on lobbying this year to keep its profits high and public health in the shadows."

And it is crazy.

Why would we even expect them to be involved in the conversation? They're only going to have one answer, again and again, and that is to either NOT CHANGE anything about the current system or, at worst, to change it as little as posssible from its current form.

They'll be thrashing about all over, saying how horrible it will be to change virtually anything about our health care system.

They'll say the same things they always do--

--"We have the finest and best health care system in the world" (we don't)

--"In Canada and Europe, you have to wait for hours or days to see a doctor" (you don't)

--"In the rest of the world, you can't see the doctor you want" (yes, you can and in the US, for lots of us, we can't--and we know it)

And more.

But it's all just rubbish.

We have the MOST EXPENSIVE health care system IN THE WORLD;

We are not the healthiest group of people on the planet;

Millions of us in this country are going WITHOUT health care, because it's so expensive;

The numbers of us that are going without health care in the US is growing--the situation is getting worse;

The doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, insurance company executives, pharmaceutical companies and their executives are all GETTING RICH, on the backs of the working people of this country, just so we can have health care--and that's an insane, unsupportable, unsustainable outrage.

We need to change the health care system in America.

We need to change it radically.

We will need to fight the health care, insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital corporations and lobbyists TOOTH AND NAIL, so to speak, to get a good, smart, workable system for us all, instead of for them.

They shouldn't even be let into the conversation, frankly.

There needs to be an organized riot, of sorts, by us, regarding health care in America.

We need to be strong. We need to be forceful. We need to push to make this happen.

Frankly and sadly, I don't think the American people have the stomach for it.

I don't even think the average American on the street knows we have a problem.

I salute Bill Moyers and Michael Winship for trying to educate us.

Link to story:
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/140226/bill_moyers%3A_how_can_we_expect_an_industry_that_profits_from_disease_and_sickness_to_police_itself/

Hear that sound?

It's the sound of our chances of getting good, single-payer health care with a workable system for all Americans being sucked out of reach.

Have you heard about this yet?

The Obama Administration is doing the right thing--to an extent--in going along with the health care community's promis to cut 1 trillion dollars from their costs.

Actually, what happened is that the health care community--hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical and insurance companies--all got together when they realized the kind of clout President Obama has right now, due to his election and goodwill with the American public and said we'll cut our costs that much.

They are threatened.

They also know our health care system doesn't work and that President Obama was going to do something about it. They knew he had the backing of the American public to do something about it.

So instead of letting him do something, they pre-empted him and offered this "1 trillion dollar cost cut."

All well and good, sure.

But it's 2009.

What's to keep them from reneging on this deal?

Nothing.

What penalties are being set, to make sure they come through for us all?

None.

This buys all of them--the hospitals, the doctors, the pharmaceutical and insurance companies, all of them--time. They get time until this popularity and power the current President has blows away--as they know it will. It's inevitable.

Right now, President Obama is at the height of his popularity and power and they know it.

This gives them the ability to delay any meaningful cuts in our health care costs, all with the idea and promise that they'll do just that, until he's dragged down by W's war for oil and the financial mess the US and the world is in and everything else that's on our national plate.

But they won't follow through on this completely and effectively and this will all come to nothing.

If not forced--and right now, no one's talking force--nothing will happen. They'll hold down their cost increases for a while and then later go back to business as usual and we won't get the health care solutions we need.

Health care will continue to just be for the wealthier of us and it will grow worse.