Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Thursday, June 11. 2009

Heard in the clinic

Via a colleague from a patient in his 40s this afternoon: "With my unemployment now with 23 weeks, plus the State's 12 weeks, and the federal 18-week extension, I figure I can begin looking for a job in November. Since my wife got laid off later, she can wait until December or January. We're both burned out and need a break from work. She's been getting job offers, but there's no way she would take one now. And keeping our income down will help my youngest get a scholarship."


I didn't know this new world was offering Sabbaticals For All. How do I get mine?

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in Politics at 18:12 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

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The way I took mine was to save a big sack of cash... and quit. There's a front door method beyond letting everyone else pay for it. :)
#1 Spork (Link) on 2009-06-11 22:17 (Reply)
Anecdotal evidence... always the best for advancing viewpoint. Can we get serious?
#2 Luther McLeod on 2009-06-11 22:36 (Reply)
Anecdotal evidence... always the best for advancing viewpoint. Can we get serious?

Luther. What I hear as reasons for health care reform everyday are anecdotal. You know the poor person who has been wiped out financially because of a catastrophic illness in their family. The mother of three who can not afford her premiums...

Here are some facts that elucidate the above mentality. A recent Houston Texas study that found 9 people went to the ER over 250 times, in one year, costing on average $1200.00 a visit. All on medicaid with no co-pay. Remember the hospital can not refuse treatment for fear of lawsuits or EMTALA litigation.

Or in 2004 in Milwaukee: 162 Medicaid-eligible patients visited emergency departments an average of 37 times.

How many times have you visited the ER in the last 3 years? I bet a $20 copay would eliminate 75% of those visits. People see the government payment as something they have earned by virtue of being an American.
#3 Brian in Idaho on 2009-06-11 23:21 (Reply)
Oh, brave new world ... that has such damn fools in it!

Marianne
#4 Marianne Matthews on 2009-06-11 23:43 (Reply)
They want to introduce mandatory uncovered payment for all ER visits here, but with a twist.
To get permission to visit the ER at all you will have to have a letter from your GP telling them you have the right to visit the ER.

Removes the entire "emergency" of course, given that you typically can't get an appointment with a GP for less than half a day after you call (often a day or more), and typically they only work 4 days a week.
If I get ill on friday evening, I can call for an appointment monday morning and may get to see the doc tuesday morning.
Hospital has an emergency doctor on call for the weekend and evening shifts, but that's one doc for 200.000 people and the few times I've tried to get through noone is answering the phone (no busy tone, no answering machine, it just rings until you give up, and I did wait half an hour).

I guess having people with a medical emergency wait 3 days to see a doctor who will then maybe give them permission to visit the ER will indeed reduce the number of people going to the ER. A lot of real emergencies will end up dead before they ever see a doc, and of the rest of those wanting to go to the ER it will turn out to have been a GP matter.
As there's no more "emergency" in the emergency room, they can just close them down except for taking in people brought by ambulance (of which we have 1 for an area 30x40 miles in size on weekends, 3 weekdays).
#5 J.T. Wenting on 2009-06-13 14:49 (Reply)

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