But in America thousands die from gunshot wounds each year. People doing good, people behaving badly, people making a mistake, mass shootings, school shootings. Each a family tragedy. Each in a way preventable. (Compare our gun deaths with other industrialized countries if you doubt this)
Medicynical Note: You would think from the funeral service, the mass mourning of this good man, the attendance of dignitaries that all of these folks would be looking to find a way to decrease gun violence. You would be wrong. That’s America.
I recently had an outpatient medical ultrasound procedure. It took all of 30 minutes and was performed by a skilled technician. The bill came to something like $3900.
I don’t know how to value such a procedure but apparently my insurer does.
Below is the accounting of payments and “adjustments” to the price.:
Medicynical Note: Pricing of healthcare in the U.S. is more opaque and difficult to understand than the pricing at a new or used car lot. My sincere apology to car salesmen for the comparison.
Actually, hospital pricing makes the car dealers look good. But, unlike a car purchase, healthcare is not a discretionary expense and when needed, shopping for the best “price” is impossible because of time constraints and because the bottom line price is obscured.
In this case my insurer paid a total of around $900. The rest of the balance, something like $3,000 was an adjustment/discount. My total co-pay was $50.
A person without insurance, however, would have been billed the full $3,900 and would have had to pay that total or enter into some type of bargaining.I may be wrong but I doubt that the hospital would offer the same magnitude of discountevenifa patient was savvy enough to ask for it.
In this case the medical facility used was one of the Catholic “non-profit” PeaceHealth facilities in the Northwest.
I’ve noted similar huge adjustments to bills ($25,000 bill discounted to $12,000 for example) in the past. These “adjustments” appear to be the standard operating procedure in hospitals in America.
When I was a government employee we were instructed to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest. At that time we couldn’t even accept payment for a meal, much less vacations and monetary gifts of any kind.
So it without risk of contradiction to say that there is an order of magnitude difference between the situation Justice Thomas and other Supreme Court Justices and the long accepted norms noted above.
Medicynical Note: Harlan Crow, didn’t know Justice Thomas before Thomas became a justice. But since that time Thomas and his wife have received direct and indirect monetary payments and other benefits (free private flights and luxurious vacations) from Crow and I would presume others. In dollars Crow’s contributions are valued at over a million dollars.
And just what did Crow receive in return? Yes the citizen’s United decision which Thomas supported allows the Crows and other wealthy individuals to give unlimited dollars to influence political campaigns (a form of legalized bribery)….. but are monetary gifts to judges bribery? And just how much in contributions and other emollients is bribery?Just where is the line? And how should the recipient behave when his benefactor has business before the court?
In any case, Thomas became a reliable vote for whatever issue Crow considered important….. and also issues that his very politically active wife (who also received payments) supported. Should Thomas have recused himself from some these contentious cases?— he didn’t.
Just how corrupt is the current Supreme Court? Are judicial ethics a new disgraceful oxymoron?
According to the Supreme Court murder and mayhem were the founders desire. This happens again and again and again only in the United States of America. Every other industrialized country seems to understand that it’s not the doors or mental health or high criminality or not enough hopes and prayers. It’s the guns and everyone knows it
Medicynical Note: Families devastated, lives lost and the Republican Party is concerned only with voiding any limit to gun ownership. Every day again and again and again until we get it right.
The murder abetting Republican dominated Conservative Supreme Court sits above it all with some members in hiding because someone near their homes might be legally carrying a weapon or because of their own personal, open for all to see, corruption (yes Justice Thomas, you). They blame it all on the slave owning founders. Amazing what has become of the once civil society of America.
Medicynical Note: A citizen of three countries (Canada, South Africa and the the U.S.) Elon, the good capitalist, is only loyal….. to himself. In the midst of the American vs Chinese economic wars he hedges his bets and expands in China. I guess he doesn’t buy into this made in America and hiring Americans stuff. His interest as always is doing well rather than doing good.
It’s bad enough that a minor cable network picked up the moneygrubbing LIV tour without ESPN touting it as a “good” sign. It’s a terrible confirmation what we already knew.
Morality? Right and wrong? Ethics? They’re for suckers. It’s the money stupid.
Medicynical Note: A devil inspired murderousmedievalmisogynist, theocratic monarchy is buying it’s way into the public consciousness. Buying businesses, athletes, sports franchises, properties and souls.
I’m not a golfer and could care less whether LIV golf is successful. But I do think we should understand the motivation of the Saudi government sponsor. In the case of LIV, the Saudis are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to buy, I’m told, top golfers and to sponsor golf tournaments. Yes, the same government involved in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the embassy of Saudi Arabia in Turkey is bringing us LIV. (a bit ironic to say the least)
“Saudi officials said the journalist was killed in a “rogue operation” by a team of agents sent to persuade him to return to the kingdom, while Turkish officials said the agents acted on orders from the highest levels of the Saudi government.”
Now, just a few years later the oil-wealthy Saudi’s are attempting to distract the world from it’s past by sponsoring sports events, and golf is not their only target.
“Saudi Arabia has proved to be an alluring hub for sports events over the past few years, having signed a 10-year, $650m deal for a Formula One motor racing event, having invested millions in a Saudi International golf event, and hosted some of the biggest boxing showdowns in recent memory. The kingdom has also hired the Boston Consulting Group to help lobby its interest in hosting a World Cup event in the not-so-distant future.”
Medicynical Note: it’s depressing. Sports icons such as Messi and Ronaldo and the prominent golf pros sell themselves and participate in events sponsored by an amoral and murderous regime. We watch and participate. We think nothing of going to the World Cup in Russia or Qatar. If we have no conscience we might even watch an obscure LIV golf event. We watch as the icons of world sport sell themselvesand while they’re playing, people die.
America has a system of revenue generation that it calls healthcare. Many of it’s “healthcare” corporations work more diligently to improve revenue and income than on improving patient access, affordability and outcomes. That’s American private healthcare even if the company involved is supposedly “non-profit.” This article documents some of the actions of a large non-profit church run hospital system. In reality it is a cash cow that launders hospital income into huge privately held investments.
As noted in the article “But The Times this year has documented how large chains of nonprofit hospitals have moved away from their charitable missions.”
“Some have skimped on free care for the poor, illegally saddling tens of thousands of patients with debts. Others have plowed resources into affluent suburbs while siphoning money from poorer areas.’
And: “Today, Ascension operates in 19 states, mostly in the South and the Midwest. It serves about six million patients.”
“By many measures, Ascension is rich.”
“In addition to its billions in cash, it runs an investment company that manages more than $41 billion. Last year it paid its chief executive, Joseph Impicciche, $13 million.”
“Because of its nonprofit status, Ascension avoids more than $1 billion a year in federal, state and local taxes, according to the Lown Institute, a health care think tank.”
Medicynical Note: In large areas of the country, because of the tax advantage from their non-profit and church related status, hospitals like Ascensions’ have become the only provider of health care, dominating both inpatient and outpatient services. Besides scrimping on staffing and services to maximize return they also enforce health care religious proscriptions on their non-practicing patients and staff.
In the end America has a revenue generating rather than a health generating system of care. It’s interest is more in income than outcomes. Sad but true.
Medicynical Note: Given the politicization of the military it’s only a matter of time before we learn of active duty types being compromised by monied political types…… it may have happened already given the sordid Retired General Flynn’s track record.
Each of these generals has a retirement package from their thankful government that is better than that available for 99.9% of the U.S. public. They do not need the money. But in America it appears that everything and every one ……. is for sale. Including our feckless Supreme Court who made it all possible and is destroying America one ruling at a time.
“We have doubled our determination now to end senseless gun violence that has its grips on our country and now on our city,” Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said. “I know that brings us all sadness and anger. We have to do something.”
Medicynical Hint: The answer is not thoughts and prayers. The answer is not more guns. The answer is not fewer doors. The answer is not mental health counseling.
Medicynic 