(Snippets from the frontline)
Surviving the onslaught
Sometime in the future…
“Hey great, great, great grandpa. What was it like to be a doctor in America?”
With a crackly yet firm voice:
“Healthcare was the basis of our society as it allowed us to compete in the world marketplace. The Greatest Generation won WWII, coming back and establishing our prominence as world leaders through the rest of the 20th century. But then profiteers took over and something went wrong.
Patients couldn’t pay premiums, were given low-quality medical care, lost their homes, and went into bankruptcy. Veterans were denied care, mental health resources dried up, and common citizens were relegated homeless.
Pharmaceutical companies raised their prices beyond affordable, and hospitals with HMOs developed Medicare death panels knocking off The Greatest Generation. Life-expectancy spiraled downward.
Lobbyists enacted self-serving laws while bribing legislators who lived under a separate healthcare plan than their constituents. Business interests propagandized their pseudo-altruism to the public, while doctors sat silent.
Lost was the strength and character of The Greatest Generation to battle the onslaught.”
“But great, great, great grandpa, how did you survive to 110 years old?”
“I moved to Canada!”
Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D.
Virginia has tax-credits for charity-care by doctors, dentists, and lawyers: “Donations of Professional Services ” is the law. Google it.
Why not ask Congress to adopt such a law? H
Ethical practice-choice begins with choice of teaching-hospitals, whether as a medical student, intern, resident, fellow, or attending at two or more unrelated hospitals so that you can choose what is best for your patients:
“Omnis pro aegroto”, as A.A.P.S. says. We are all patients.
See the leadership of Senator Grassley regarding hospitals’ ethics. Dr. Karen Summar is on his staff in Washington.
H.E.Butler III M.D., F.A.C.S.
Instructor, Psychiatry, E.V.M.S.
Commander, U.S.N.R., Fleet Reserve
HButler@post.Harvard.edu
Senator Charles Grassley exposed a nonprofit hospital taking a tax-benefit as a nonprofit and still suing indigent patients. Michael Mather did the same thing on ~8 December 2010 in Norfolk, Vorginia regarding Sentara Hospital, a “teaching” hospital. Would you choose to associate with such a teaching hospital? What did Mr. Mather suggest the administrator is teaching? Google “Charity Profiting Millions.”
Let’s start ranking our nonprofit hospitals for ethics. Write to Senator Grassley and to your senators.
Estimates of administrative costs in three medical systems (unofficial):
England: 7%
Canada: 14%
U. S. A.: 34%.
See also T.R.Reid’s book, The Healing of America.
Please contact me if you have current data: HButler@post.Harvard.edu.
H.E.Butler III M.D., F.A.C.S.