Nurse Ratched’s Place

15 Responses to “Conspiracy Theories Rock!”

1. 

   Jeanne T
   August 22nd, 2009 at 7:20 pm

   Mother Jones,

   First,

   I always love reading your blog! You are very insightful and I always get a good laugh with your dry humor. This is my very first post!

   Of course, we all have a right to our opinions. Thank goodness for freedom of speech. Well, I guess that includes nasty emails but still I don’t think they are necessary.

   So I have some questions on the health care reform that I am hoping you can answer for me especially since you attended a town hall meeting in WDC.

   I’m just going to bullet the questions, I am not going to debate them. I would welcome the chance to debate healthcare reform with you, in a civil manner. I am serious!Maybe, I could learn something from you and you could learn something from me.

   Ok, here are my questions:

   - Have you read HR 3200? It was very difficult to locate the actual bill online so if there is an ammended version online let me know. This is the website that I am using:
   http://docs.house.gov/edlabor/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf

   -Do you currently have money taken out of your paycheck for Social Security?

   -Do you believe that you will receive Social Security assistance when you pass the age of 65, 70?

   -What is the reason that you and I will not receive Social Security checks? And no, it is not because MJ will still be working at UGH at the age of 95.

   -Based on those three questions: What is your opinion on the government being able to administer public health insurance? Do you think this will create alot of bureacracy which usually translates to increased governmental costs? And how much were those toilets that the govt. purchased??

   -How do you feel about politicians writing healthcare reform versus healthcare professionals? Yes, I like Gov. Dean but one MD congressman does not count. I am sure there are other MD politicians, however they are still outnumbered by non-MD congressmen.

   -Will you choose the public option health care plan? Why or why not?

   So those are my questions. I have a lot of other questions. However this is my biggest concern: a very large govt administering a very large health care plan is very concerning. Afterall, how many millions of Americans are there? And I did watch Presidents Obama’s news conference where he described how the plan was going to be paid for without increasing taxes. It left me confused. I’m totally serious, MJ, if you can tell me, I would appreciate it. And I am totally serious.

   Being a nurse, I do want everyone to have health insurance. A very dear friend of mine was in the hospital for three months back in 1992 for fulminating pancreatitis. Long time on the vent, vasopressors to support his BP. Totally amazing that he survived. By the grace of God. Darn near killed him. But when he learned that his hospital bill was 80,000., that almost killed him! He was a starving student at the time who didn’t think about health insurance.

   So, YES, I do believe that everyone should be insured and not have huge, depressing hospital bills and medical costs. But something as important as this should not be rushed – or pushed – through congress. It needs to be very well-planned and to look at ALL the options. Does Medicaid need to be revamped? In fact, and I just thought of this, why don’t we just offer Medicaid to those who need health care insurance but, right now, “aren’t qualified”? Whole heck of a lot cheaper than building a whole new system.

   President Obama did admit that there will still be Americans who will not be insured. I imagine that it will be hard for people who are unemployed to pay for public option health care premiums. What about those starving students? Or the young mother who can just barely scrape enough together for the rent and food. And what about the homeless who are down on their luck who can’t even afford rent? And the alcohol or drug user who is a “frequent flyer” to the ED? I believe ALL of those folks deserve health insurance. It used to be that it was FREE affordable healthcare. But that was an oxymoron so now the plan will be “affordable”. But what is affordable to you may be way too expensive for me. Afterall, you do work at UGH – lol! And what exactly is “affordable”? What is the cost of a premium? Will it be sliding scale? The details are not worked out yet, MJ, and that is what scares me for those who choose the public option plan. Just like you and I as nurses, do we just say, I am going to make this patient better. In fact, I am going to make all my patients better today. But we still need to form the details of how we are going to do this. I want details, details, details. I am not going to buy a car – not even through Cash for Clunkers – unless I know all the specs of that car. Yes, these details will come out later. After the bill is passed. Why put the cart before the horse?

   Well, I always say that when someone complains about something, they should offer a suggestion about how to fix the problem.

   Here is what I would propose:

   -a combined healthcare professionals/congressman large committee to offer at least two solutions for healthcare reform. Now I am not talking about all academic healthcare professionals. I want Joe Schmoe, MD and Nancy Nurse, RN who work directly with patients to be on the committee. And not some well-known professional. Oh yes, and Nurse Ratched too! And, really, we should have some people on the committee who are not insured. They would be very important.

   -I want tight deadlines and I mean tight deadlines for each process of the committee. The healthcare professionals will keep the congressmen in check! lol

   -I want this to be well-thought out.

   Ok, those are my questions. So, let’s have a debate, MJ, it would be fun. Dry humor allowed. And I am not a ranting Republican or Democrat. I just go with what I think is best.

   Well, that being said:

   During our debate, I won’t get all wee-wee’ up if you don’t get all wee-wee’d up! Ok, ok, I couldn’t help it!!

   Jeanne

2. 

   trekfan
   August 22nd, 2009 at 10:48 pm

   I have also noticed the large amount of traffic you have been getting over this issue. I have been following your blog for about a year and have never seen it so buzzing. The idea that you are faking the blog just to spew out liberal pro-health care dogma is…amusing. I love your blog! And I can attest to it’s validity…lolz

3. 

   WWWebb
   August 23rd, 2009 at 9:58 am

   This is not only funny, but also an astute observation on the human condition. Kind of an Ockham’s Razor, but in reverse.

4. 

   MadMike
   August 23rd, 2009 at 1:25 pm

   I have been following your most logical arguments with regard to health care T. and have enjoyed them most thoroughly, and of course, we agree, and that would come as no surprise.

   Since I have been blogging I have been threatened with nasty beatings, death, and various and sundry other forms of violence because of my views. There is no end to these nutters, although there does appear to be a lot more of them on the Right!!! Anyone heard of Michelle Bachmann? How about Sarah The Palin?

5. 

   Reality Rounds
   August 23rd, 2009 at 6:10 pm

   Of all the things to fake being, a nurse. Being a nurse myself, that cracks me up! Keep up the good word on health care reform. You rock!

6. 

   scrcoachdm
   August 23rd, 2009 at 8:31 pm

   It’s too bad that the dialogue has turned into a power debate, complete with all the coded phrases on both sides. I agree with you about HMO’s and the downfall of care in America. One prominant psych hospital near here boasts of a 97% “eviction under the wire” record, just to stay in the black. Disgraceful.

   But I’m leary of the government running any form of health support. And why would that be? Well, because of the numbers of needy patients I work with who are not eligible for Medicaid or Medicare because they live with their parents. And their parents are too compassionate to put them on the street. This is a common practice for the mentally ill. Would it continue under Obama – Care?

   So, yes the insurance companies are spending mega bucks to stop Obamacare. And Obama is spending mega bucks (some from taxpayers) to get this passed. And we have not had an honest dialogue in decades. We have become a greedy people, patients with made up reactions to doctor’s care, insurance companies and their executives, lawyers looking for the next big pharma tort to file, hospital executives willing to charge outrageous fees for a liter of d5w to cover their own bonuses and the next “expansion” to overwhelm the smaller hospital on the other side of town. The ones getting jammed are the nurses and doctors who have tried for too long to live under this system.

   And therein lies the problem: those who should have the backs of the patients and their profession are simply joining one side or the other without a plan of their own. You could help the dialogue, dear Mother Jones, RN, by thinking outside the box toward a true reform of this nasty system. Maybe even a two tiered approach where people who are comfortable with a less techno-intense medical care could opt out of the insanity of high tech medicine and it’s threats.

   What do you think?

7. 

   jody
   August 24th, 2009 at 12:07 am

   Yeah I’m a “fake” nurse too. So for God sakes will someone Please come take my place at work NOW..its after 1am and I’m sleeeepy!!!

   aghhh. stupid.

8. 

   trekfan
   August 24th, 2009 at 10:13 pm

   -Do you currently have money taken out of your paycheck for Social Security?

   yes

   -Do you believe that you will receive Social Security assistance when you pass the age of 65, 70?
   ……yes: he Social Security system is in need of another overhaul (similar to the one it got in 1983), the fund is hardly “going broke.” This year’s report by the trustees who oversee the fund found that, if left alone, the Social Security system will continue to be able to pay its bills for at least the next 40 years — thanks in part to a $1.4 trillion nest egg of Treasury securities that has been stashed away over the past several decades. (A separate analysis by the Congressional Budget Office figures the fund is in good shape until 2052.)
   link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7080681

   -Do you currently have money taken out of your paycheck for Social Security?

   repeat

   -Do you believe that you will receive Social Security assistance when you pass the age of 65, 70?

   repeat

   -What is the reason that you and I will not receive Social Security checks? And no, it is not because MJ will still be working at UGH at the age of 95.

   …………..You are making the assumption that your first question is true, and turns out, its not.

   -Based on those three questions: What is your opinion on the government being able to administer public health insurance? Do you think this will create alot of bureacracy which usually translates to increased governmental costs? And how much were those toilets that the govt. purchased??

   As for this, you are making a false analogy here. Social security and the public health option will not be the same program, thus, they will not be subject to the same institutional problems, what ever they may be. A better question would be to look at the health care received by congress, which is the same as the public option, and the health care received by the military. Personally, I would prefer to receive the same health care the military does. Also, look at medicare, that is a program the is almost exactly like what we will be receiving. While it is not perfect, it is light years better than what the average citizen is entitled to now.
   I think the best thing for the country would be to go to single payer, like every other industrialized country. I think it is a basic human right to have health care that is reasonably accessible. Sure, those who are uninsured have emergency rooms, but the result of using our health care system like that results in people putting of coming in until they are almost dead, then going bankrupt en exchange for their lives. Here is a link about that:http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/bankruptcy_study.html
   Also, there is a percentage of people who are insured, but the second they really need their insurance they will be dropped. The insurance companies will go through the records of people who are making claims and find reasons to drop them in their time of greatest need. For this I will refer you to this page: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/denied_coverage/index.html
   Also, a recent pod cast of “This American Life” titled ” Fine Print” #386 start 37 mins in. t
   Go listen to that, listen to the people who are told that they are going to die of because they forgot to mention a rash they had, once 10 years ago.

   In my opinion we are missing the real question of this debate: If it okay for people to make money from other peoples suffering. Are we okay with insurance CEO taking home multimillion dollar incomes while United States citizens are dying because they are uninsured, under insured, or insured until they are sick, then dropped. Is it okay to let poor people die because they don’t have the money to buy what is considered a basic human right in almost every other industrial nation. Is that the American you want to live in? Or your children to live in? Well, I sure as hell don’t. This system is not good enough for me and it is damn sure not good enough for my children!

9. 

   Sheryl
   August 24th, 2009 at 11:10 pm

   Hey Mother Jones…. keep fighting the good fight…. it’s important that meaningful, intelligent (and yes, civil) discussions be had on this topic. The previous response by Jeanne T was very good and thought-provoking…. why not open Medicaid to the uninsured at this time or at the very least change the requirements to allow more citizens be covered at least until a better plan can be had. Jeanne T brings up another very important point that this is a decision or plan that should in no way be rushed through….

   Take Care!

10. 

    The Curmudgeon
    August 25th, 2009 at 1:24 pm

    MJ, let me take off my tinfoil beanie for a moment….

    You and I agree on the need to reform health care… and perhaps not on too much more than that. I’m sure part of it stems from the different ways in which we encounter the health care system — you in the front lines, me around the edges, like looking at bills long after the fact.

    Also, I see a lot of non-lawyers who have an exaggerated and (I’d even say) romantic view of what law can do. Any such notions I might have had in this regard were burned out of me years ago.

    I’ve recently written about the absence of any real health care plan in Congress. I even linked to some of the major competing proposals… and I know I didn’t find them all.

    H.R.3200 is the one that gets the most ink — but there is no companion Senate Bill and there are prominent Democratic senators who have said there’s no way H.R.3200 passes in the Senate. That one bill is over 1,000 pages long — and, whatever it says now, if passed, it will say much that is different by the time it reaches Mr. Obama’s desk. That’s the way law-making works. A lot of people (and not just the noisy ones at town hall meetings who are demanding that the government not nationalize Medicare(!)) don’t understand this.

    The one thing I know for sure is that even well-thought-out laws often have unintended consequences. I don’t think any of the bills currently pending have been well-thought-out. I’m sure that some very clever people, acting on behalf of very special interests, have inserted things here and there in the major competing proposals that will (they believe) benefit themselves. But no one has had time to think the whole thing through. And demanding that some bill be passed on a very short timetable was just plain dumb.

    If my fellow Chicago attorney, Mr. Obama, were to call me up for my advice, I’d say that we need a vision more than a bill. We need to grow a consensus about what we want. About what we have that works now and what we don’t have now that we think we do want. Don’t you think it’s possible that we could build a consensus?

    I don’t know why there’s such a need for haste. To take a local example, uninsured people aren’t dying on the streets in Chicago — people are treated. I wouldn’t want to go to Cook County Hospital either — and I’ve had to go for a family member — and wait with him in one line or another and, even though it wasn’t for me, it was a depressing, soul-crushing experience. Granted.

    But if we make everyone “insured,” will all our ERs turn into versions of County? Or will the lines at County simply vanish as formerly uninsured people are spread out across the area? I’d sure like to have a pretty good idea of what the consequences are before I start banging the drums for this proposal or that one.

    There’s talk of making employer-provided insurance mandatory. But I’ll clue you: Wal-Mart and other big corporations DO NOT want this. They want single payer government health insurance. Because they think they’ll make more money this way — paying less in benefits. But is what is best for Wal-Mart necessarily best for the American people?

    Another example: Mr. Obama says illegals won’t be covered. But illegals won’t disappear. They’ll still be rushed to County or other Chicago hospitals; the necessary treatment will still be provided and we’ll all still have to pay for it one way or another. So how will reform change this? How can it?

    I don’t trust government to do anything well. Cash for Clunkers is a great current example.

    A shining example of government at its best, right? Rescuing the auto industry and resuscitating auto sales AND doing something good for the environment, right?

    Except… the auto dealers aren’t getting reimbursed… yet… for the deals they made. Paperwork is choking them to death. Oh, that and not all of the cars that qualified for the program were particularly fuel efficient. From a current USA Today article:

    “The federal cash-for-clunkers car sales program ran out at 8 p.m. ET Monday, but the government gave dealers until 8 p.m. ET Tuesday to file for repayment after the digital applications swamped the government computer system.

    “The Department of Transportation (DOT) system was slow all weekend, dealers say, and crashed Monday afternoon.

    “Dealers must electronically submit several pages of forms and scanned documents for each clunker deal.

    “The DOT said that as of early Tuesday, applications for $2.77 billion worth of vouchers had been submitted for the program, which had a budget of $3 billion.

    “Dealers have so far received, however, a small fraction of the money they are due in reimbursement for the cars they sold — which, in most cases, customers have already taken home and consider theirs.”

    The article quotes one large dealer as saying he’s not worried, he’s sure the government will pay up. Eventually. But it also quotes a Hollywood dealer who said, “a reason for slow pay is that the government is nitpicking every serial number on the documents or rejecting applications for a customer’s late insurance payment. The program required that the clunker have been continuously insured for the past 12 months. His store has done 185 cash-for-clunkers deals and been paid for just 15.”

    Yes, private insurers create their own bureaucratic nightmares. But this is the one area in which government can beat the private sector, hands down.

    I’ll go put my tinfoil beanie back on now….

11. 

    Kim
    August 25th, 2009 at 3:40 pm

    Hell, I think you are worth kidnapping and I’m an Astro-Turf Conservative! : D

12. 

    Misty
    August 25th, 2009 at 4:27 pm

    Why do people think we hate America and God becasue we want everyone to have access to healthcare. Does that make any sense?
    And fake being a nurse? I guess you have to be one to understand just how dumb that really is!
    LOL!
    Thanks for the Laugh!
    I love your blog!

13. 

    Jeanne T
    August 26th, 2009 at 12:49 am

    You know what really bothered me about “Cash for Clunkers”? Although the clunkers were not “green”, man oh man, would I have been angry if I didn’t own a car and could of used a car, even if it was a clunker.

    So the engines are “killed” and the cars crunched. Hhhmmmm, let’s see, we are probably improving our air quality but what to do, what to do, with all those engines and flattened cars? Oh, yeah, let’s build another landfill!

    And Scrcoachdm, you are absolutely right, “we have become a greedy people”. In the corporate world today, it is all about “The Almighty Dollar”.

    Jeanne

14. 

    Curmudgeon Too
    September 3rd, 2009 at 2:54 pm

    Curmudgeon, you hit the nail right on it’s head.

    It’s easy to imagine a wonderful result from this rushed through healthcare plan (magical thinking)….but since I’m not in kindergarten anymore I know that the government is not our great benefactor. It’s even easier to see it will ultimately be a great disaster. Social Security is not the only bankrupt government program (Amtrak, Post Office, you name it).

    Government TAKES, it doesn’t give. It doesn’t solve, it doesn’t cure.

    America is no longer recognizeable when politicians do what THEY think is good for us…vs doing what they were elected to do, that is…represent the people, not patronize them.

    I’m becoming pretty much resolved that I will earn less and less and receive less and less healthcare.

    No way can it be ‘budget neutral’. Obama stated that illegal aliens “won’t be covered”….but it does state right in the proposed bill that all aliens, legal or otherwise will receive free healthcare. (An obfuscation….illegal aliens won’t receive insurance, but they will receive healthcare. Legal residents must carry a Nat’l Health ID, but illegals won’t….that’s the only difference). I’m sorry, I’m too disheartened to look up the page number. Disbelieve me if you like.

    I’m not against helping others. I am against any kind of government entitlement program…and this one is of course the biggest one ever!

    I’m a nurse too and will work as long as I can. When the government is the only healthcare employer….what do you suppose the wages will be? I don’t think they’ll go up.

15. 

    Teenie
    September 10th, 2009 at 11:57 am

    As a Canadian, I’ve yet to understand how someone south of the border can call their fellow citizen “anti-American” for voicing a differing opinion.

    Um… isn’t having one’s own opinion heard the basis of democracy? Doesn’t the freedom you’re fighting for include the freedom to disagree?