Healthcare Education and Q&A Thread

I'm flexible and acrobatic enough to point out the hypocrisy of American's history, adore America, and advocate for spending more money caring for our people instead of some of our people all in the same breath. I pray I do not offend your sensibility with my views good sir for I have put quite a bit of effort in formulating my thoughts.

As articulated in my previous post the government can buyout these fledgling private hospitals if they can not stand on their own...and I am sure the current hospitals have somewhat enough staff to care for their current patients.

No one said this is was all going to be a cakewalk. One can not possibly expect to enact universal heathcare without some serious ramification to the current system. Unfortunately we have people wanting the balancing act to go on when the elephant needs to be shot before his handlers gets trampled.

Why not your and all that support Obama care fork up the money and go for it. I'm sure with the cost savings you guys will actually save money.

schneed, what happens at your hospital right now, if and uninsured person comes in that desperately needs help?

I'm not sure why you're talking about rural hospitals? Ours are inner city Philadelphia, in the poorest section of town.

To answer your question, about 55% of our Medicaid patients are emergency, 30% are maternity, and the rest elective.

The point isn't that we shouldn't have to take care of them. The point is without the Disproportionate Share payments, there won't be a hospital anymore. Our University can't afford to subsidize losses as massive as this would generate.

Based on your response, which was pretty confusing, I'm not sure you fully understand. My point is we're already a government hospital in a lot of respects. We get an $80 million lump sum payment annually from the government just to keep us in business. We need to keep getting that government payment or we'll go out of business.

Being run by the government won't solve anything. Believe me, our management has us running lean and mean, our staffing levels are low. A takeover by government management would not yield any expense reductions. We don't need to be run by the government, we just need to be propped up by the government.

That is if you want poor people to have any healthcare at all. That's reality.


My sentiments also applies to urban hospitals. I understand the problem fully, we have this bastardized hybrid system where hospitals are "basically government hospitals" when they aught to be "fully taxpayer funded government hospitals."


Let me ask you this, are there any type of savings having universal healthcare would yield? I know the AHA was all for saving taxpayers 155 billion (http://www.medpagetoday.com/Washington-Watch/Washington-Watch/15005) no too long ago if 95% of Americans were coverage.

My sentiments also applies to urban hospitals. I understand the problem fully, we have this bastardized hybrid system where hospitals are "basically government hospitals" when they aught to be "fully taxpayer funded government hospitals."


Let me ask you this, are there any type of savings having universal healthcare would yield? I know the AHA was all for saving taxpayers 155 billion (http://www.medpagetoday.com/Washington-Watch/Washington-Watch/15005) no too long ago if 95% of Americans were coverage.

I can answer that. NO, there has never been a goverment programe that has reduced cost.

I understand the problem fully, we have this bastardized hybrid system where hospitals are "basically government hospitals" when they aught to be "fully taxpayer funded government hospitals." You have gone over the cliff my friend.

You have gone over the cliff my friend.

Why? We already have government hospitals for vets, why not for citizens? I haven't gone over the cliff though I'm sure there are plenty of folks here who would be more than happy to push me over and watch me fall with glee.

schneed, what happens at your hospital right now, if and uninsured person comes in that desperately needs help?

When you say "desperately needs help", I assume you mean emergency care. Like if they're shot, or having a heart attack.

We treat them. We have to by law. It is illegal to turn a patient away from an emergency care setting.

If they're uninsured, we try to collect from them directly. We usually fail because people can't pay. We lose nearly $75 million each year on these patients.

My sentiments also applies to urban hospitals. I understand the problem fully, we have this bastardized hybrid system where hospitals are "basically government hospitals" when they aught to be "fully taxpayer funded government hospitals."


Let me ask you this, are there any type of savings having universal healthcare would yield? I know the AHA was all for saving taxpayers 155 billion (http://www.medpagetoday.com/Washington-Watch/Washington-Watch/15005) no too long ago if 95% of Americans were coverage.

That is definitely an extreme view, out of touch with reality, and doomed to failure. Trust me, we can run our hospital a lot more efficiently than the government can.

We answer to the University, who will have our ass if we lose more money than they expect us to lose. They're willing to fund us to a certain extent, and if we lose more than we told them, they'll send us packing in a heartbeat. Our CEO and COO were pushed out the door last year, in fact. We just had a round of layoffs, too.

If the government runs us, then we ultimately get backed by the giant pit of money collected from the American taxpayer. Answering to the government would be a nice respite from the pressure we currently feel to meet targets. The University is up our ass because we are the only hospitals they have. Imagine a management team that has to manage every hospital in the country, or at least lots and lots of hospitals. Pretty easy to have your failures fly under their radar.

Sounds like Tenet, a large hospital operator. No wonder they had to close so many in the last few years.

Why? We already have government hospitals for vets, why not for citizens? I haven't gone over the cliff though I'm sure there are plenty of folks here who would be more than happy to push me over and watch me fall with glee.
And as someone who has been served by "government run hospitals", and provided IT products/services to a couple of the top "government run hospitals" in the nation, I can tell you if I'm sick or in an emergency situation I'm going to a private hospital every time. Take off the partisan blinders and ask any military member or vet how their health care experiences have been and you will see the fault in your statement.

The stark reality is, there are folks who don't have health insurance coverage. Their reasons are mostly financial. Most families spend/sacrifice a great deal to make sure they have coverage. There are programs to help the very poor (Medicaid). Those that don't/won't make the sacrifice to take care of their families or themselves should not burden the 95% of the U.S. who are doing what is needed to have health insurance. The Obama Care program solves nothing, but is simply a power grab, period.

I mentioned in the Obama Care thread about vouchers and their cost being significantly less that the current proposed program, you either missed it or chose to ignore that argument.

P.S. I'd reach out to pull you back, there's room for all in the conservative tent. A few books/documentaries on Reagan and a proper re-reading of Levin's stuff and you'll be fine.

In the Obama Care thread a question came up, and I want to bring it here for clarification, keeping in mind this thread's original goal of information

Specifically, I asked for a model that was based not on a homogeneous population. It seemed clear to me that a diverse population would have more stresses on the healthcare system than a uniform nation like Japan or Norway.

In Saden's response (http://www.thewarpath.net/parking-lot/30288-obama-care-30.html#post568943)he stated
Honest, I can't quite comprehend what difference diversity makes in the field of health care? Care to elaborate with something more than "it has, don't you think," specifically why you think it does. Also, France is very good example of a diverse country with a successful universal health care and relatively low poverty rate.


So, I am asking this question:

Does the diversity of a nation make a difference in the field of health care?

Thanks in advance.