Hospitals

Trump Budget A War On The Poor, Disabled, And Rural Supporters: A Savage Class Warfare Attack By The Elite Wealthy Against The Rest Of America!

Ronald 11 Comments

The Trump Budget proposal to Congress is a war on the poor and the disabled, as well as rural supporters who believed in Donald Trump!

It is a savage class warfare attack by the elite wealthy against the rest of us!

It is aiming to destroy the Food Stamp Program; Medicaid for the elderly, poor children, and disabled; disability programs of the Supplemental Security program under Social Security; and cuts funds for the War on Cancer and other health care spending.

It will affect nursing homes, hospitals, schools, and college students, making it harder for young people to gain a college education.

This is a reverse Robin Hood!

Its purpose is to force people to work at minimum wage to gain any benefits, and to, effectively, create a permanent lower working class that will be exploited and treated as if under the Poor Laws of England in the 19th century, setting up the horrors of unsafe factories and mines of two centuries ago in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

It is a war on all common decency and compassion, and the Budget Director, Nick Mulvaney, is Ebenezer Scrooge to the extreme.

The people who elected Donald Trump will, in many cases, be the biggest victims of their own ignorance, selfishness, stupidity, and racism.

It is hard to have compassion under the circumstances, but no one, not even the clueless, deserve the fate they might face if this budget plan is not radically transformed!

Ways To Cut Medicare Costs, But Keep The Program Solvent Without Raising The Retirement Age

Ronald 3 Comments

With all of the discussion of raising the retirement age for Medicare from 65 to 67, a totally unacceptable idea, there is a way to cut Medicare costs, and still keep the program solvent.

That is to address the issue of hospital infections, which can endanger lives, prolong hospitalizations, and lead to readmissions that raise costs dramatically!

Hospitals need to be held accountable for high infection rates, by penalizing such hospitals with decreased reimbursement from Medicare, to force them to change their practices.

The Centers For Disease Control estimates there are about 1.7 million hospital-associated infections each year, leading to 99,000 unnecessary deaths on the average per year!

Thorough washing of hands in hospitals and nursing homes is an urgent emergency, and the record of hospitals as to infection rate and death rate needs to be exposed for all to see, and that will force hospitals and nursing homes to stop being reckless and careless in their treatment of patients!

Fraud and waste need to be addressed, but also infection rates which will allow more patients to go to a hospital or nursing home, and feel confidence that their medical treatment will be far better than it has been.

And these matters, along with allowing pharmaceutical goods from Canada, taking the power out of the hands of American pharmaceutical companies that wish a monopoly, will also keep the Medicare program alive, well, and prosperous!

These ideas came from a good friend of mine, and a fan of my blog, Maggie Mitchell of Maryland, and I thank her for this blog entry idea! I could not have produced this without her cooperation! She is an advanced practice nurse, Margaret Mitchell, RN, CNS, CHPN!

Health Care, Women’s Health Rights, And Churches And Synagogues

Ronald 2 Comments

The Obama Health Care legislation has come under attack on a new front: that hospitals and universities and other institutions connected to religious groups, other than actual church or synagogue properties, are being required to provide contraceptive and abortion services to women who work for those institutions, outraging the Catholic Church, Orthodox Jews, Mormons, and Evangelical Christian groups that oppose such practices.

An exemption for churches and synagogues has not been enough to appease these religious groups, and it threatens the support of these groups for the Obama re-election campaign, but if the Obama Administration abandons the rights of women of all religious persuasions and denies them such services, they could also lose support among women who want these services covered.

It is clear that a majority of Catholic women ignore the teachings of their own church, while it is not clear that the same is true for Orthodox Jews, Mormons, and Evangelical Christians.

So this presents a quandary for Obama, and is being called an attack on religion, rather than an issue of an attack on women’s health and basic human rights to control their own bodies. Rather than have to follow the teachings of groups that are dominated by men, many millions of women want to determine their own futures, and not be controlled by their employers as to what health coverage they have.

The likelihood is that Obama will cave in on this to the religious groups, but a true profile in courage would be to make it clear there is religious freedom in this country, but it should not dictate health services available to women in the name of religious liberty.

One does not have to accept contraceptives or pursue abortion, but women should have the freedom, no matter what their religion or no religion, to pursue their own freedom, separate from organized religious institutions trying to control their destiny. They should not be required to quit their employment to have freedom of choice.

Obama And Gay Visitation Rights In Hospitals: Important Step On Human Rights!

Ronald Leave a comment

President Obama took a great step forward on human rights yesterday, when he ordered that the Department of Health and Human Services immediately move to promote the right of gay and lesbian couples to have hospital visitation rights, something often denied in many health crises involving gays across the nation up to now.

While there is much more that needs to be done regarding the subject of gay rights, Obama is bringing about changes in a more measured way to avoid conflict with Congress in the short run.

This will not, of course, please gay activists who want immediate and dramatic changes on gay rights on the part of the Obama Administration.

But this move to allow better treatment in hospital situations is still to be applauded as a move in the right direction! One must remember that there are so many areas that Obama is working on at the same time, and some patience is therefore required!

The main point is that Obama’s attitude and mind is in the proper place, and he will be seen as having made great progress on a difficult subject as time goes by!