Someone has leaked the new ad campaign planned for Obama’s socialized healthcare plan (which includes universal abortion coverage)! Here ’tis (click all ads to enlarge)…
See more ads on page 2.
[HT: Connie]
Violations will be deleted and you may be banned.
Threats will be immediately reported to authorities.
Following these rules will make everyone's experience visiting JillStanek.com better.
Our volunteer moderators make prudent judgment calls to provide an open forum to discuss these issues. They reserve the right to remove any comment for any reason. Jill's decisions on such moderations are final.
Go to gravatar.com to create your avatar.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
The only way we can trust ObamaCare is if the entire congressional, judicial, and especially the executive branch of our government agrees to have it as their ONLY coverage. What are the chances?
That was hilarious….
is he proposing health care or health insurance?
the abortion coverage aside (which I would of course oppose), i thought that Obama was merely wanting to create a government provided insurance to compete with the private sector. From what I heard, no one will be required to actually switch to it.
what’s so bad with this? could it be much worse than profit-based privatized healthcare?
Greg, the problem is that private insurance will not be able to compete with government coverage. Soon it will morph into 100% single payer.
Greg,
“From what I heard, no one will be required to actually switch to it.”
Well, if it’s free, why wouldn’t EVERYONE switch to it? They will, and when that happens, private insurance companies go out of business and we’ll have 100% government controlled healthcare.
No more competition and no more choices for the health consumers. Sounds like a bad idea all around.
“Greg, the problem is that private insurance will not be able to compete with government coverage. Soon it will morph into 100% single payer.
Posted by: Lauren at June 18, 2009 2:16 PM”
==========================================
Yup..basically, the Gov’t version of healthcare will be subsidized by the Tax system (think higher and higher taxes) w/c is how it can provide for ‘lower’ out-of-pockets for its members that will compete with private or company-sponsored benefits.
This “competition” will drive the private insurance companies to dust since the employers will drop their contribution/share and force their employees to go for the gov’t version.
Once the gov’t version has the monopoly on healthcare..the rationing/socialized medicine will begin.
And yeah, “no one will be required to actually switch to it”…go figure.
Great artwork. Whose creations are these?
Once upon a time, social security sounded like a great idea too…
Wait’ll women going into later are getting told by hospitals, “Uh…yeah. We’re kind of out of beds right now, but we expect that one should open up…let’s see here…April. Is that good?” Wait’ll people who need surgery within the next two weeks get told that the new “free” system means they won’t be able to have it done for another eleven months.
As Dennis Miller said, “You think health care is expensive now? Wait ’til you see how much it costs when it’s free.”
the sky is falling, the sky is falling!
Apple it’;s not a matter of no one choosing to pay for private insurance, but rather a matter of not enough people choosing it. Think about it like this.
You have a sandwhich joint. It serves several sandwhichs, some overpriced, some not that great. Some really great and really cheap.
A sandwhich shop opens up next door “giving away” pb&js.
Your sandwhich joint is probably going to lose all customers who were buying your cheap sandwhiches. That means you’ll have to make your money up by either A)raising the prices on all your other sandwiches or B)lowering the quality of all your other sandwiches.
No matter what option you choose, you’re going to lose more customers. Some guys won’t be able to afford the increase so they’ll be forced over to the pb&j place, and some will think it’s not worth it to pay for ham when they could just have free pb&j.
Pretty soon the only customers you have will be those with both the ability to pay higher premiums and the tolerance of a lower quality product.
Those customers won’t be able to sustain your sandwhich shop, and you’ll soon close.
Now everyone has to go to the “free” pb&j shop. The problem, of course, is that now there are more people eating pb&j. Some days there may not be enough sandwiches to go around. Rationing begins.
The free tv vs. cable is a horrible analogy.
If the government care offered only prevention and well patient visits, you might have a point.
It doesn’t.
A better analogy would be offering “free” Dish Network and putting it against cable.
Do you honestly believe that cable could survive if everyone could just watch 200 chanels for free?
Uh, it’s going to offer a lot more than the proverbial 4 channels you get with your antenna.
It will be like basic cable. If the government started offering basic cable for free, Time Warner would have a problem.
Oh and Apple, your little solution doesn’t fix anything.
Say they drop the pb&j’s. Now everyone who wants a pb&j has to go to the government shop. Since they have now lost those customers, they have to raise the prices on their other sandwhiches to make a profit. Some people wont be able to pay those higher prices so they’ll go over to the government shop as well. The more people migrate, the higher they’ll have to charge. Soon, they will fold because they will not be able to charge enough to enough people to remain profitable.
The government will essentially be undercutting the private companies until they go under.
Apple, there are serious cases of people dying because of rationed health care in Canada. They have organizations whose sole duty is to assist Canadians in coming here to pay for health care because it is not available to them.
This is not fear mongering. We only have to look to the north to see what the drawbacks are.
Is our system perfect? No. But don’t tell me that health care is only for the rich in the U.S. I know better than that. I work for an inner-city county hospital and I know full well the high quality of care we provide to everyone who walks through our doors.
And the generosity of Americans is amazing. When a friend of mine had a child with hypoplastic left heart and even with insurance the bills got huge… the local motorcycle club had a chili cook off and fundraising ride. That happens all the time here.
Going from one imperfect system to an even more imperfect system is not an answer.
Apple, you don’t seem to be able to grasp the concept that actions have consequences. Sure, in the beginning people will be able to keep their private insurance. That will last until those private companies fold and they are forced onto the government programs. Then we’ll have a single payer system that mirrors Canada.
The Obama plan is simply a stop over on the road to single payer healthcare.
Here’s an article detailing why this plan is not the best road to follow.
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/2009/06/18/0618cornyn_edit.html
Apple, I can not believe you’re not understanding this.
If the government starts offering free basic cable, what will Time Warner do?
According to you they should just drop their basic cable offerings.
So all those basic cable customers are now Government Cable customers.
Time Warner has just lost a huge chunk of its base and profits. Does it just shrug its sholders and take the loss? No, it raises the costs for everyone else. Now people are paying 150/month for their 200 channels instead of 100.
Well, some people won’t be able to afford the increasae in costs so they’ll have to become Government Cable customers as well.
Now TWC has a big problem. Up prices go, again. More people leave, more rising prices.
Soon, TWC is no longer a profitable company and it shuts down. Government Cable is overwhelmed by the influx of customers and has to ration its services. People don’t like this and want to go elsewhere, but there is no where to go because TWC shut its doors long before.
That’s because private schools can educate a child for a lot cheaper than public schools. The opposite is true for medical care. The private schools are able to stay profitable because they can slash their opperating costs. Not so for private insurance companies.
Once again, we go back to the government undercutting the private companies. Cost shifting alone make private insurance premiums increase significantly when a cheap, government alternative exists.
Do you think that something magical will happen to obscure the rules of economics?
This isn’t matter where we can rely on wishful thinking.
Don’t get me wrong, I want a system where everyone is covered. I just don’t think this is the best system.
Here’s another article discussing the conservative alternative to Obamacare.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1831797/a_conservative_health_care_solution_pg2.html?cat=9
Apple, I just explained the difference between private vs public schooling and private vs public medicine.
You’re the one who wants to suspend basic economic principles. Your only response to me is that “they’ll figure something out.”
Really? I want to know *exactly* how they’ll “figgure something out.”
Impartial watch groups have analyzed Obamacare and found that private insurance groups WILL shut down and government care WILL become a monopoly. If you have the magic bullet to keep this from happening, I’d love to hear it. Just stating that everything will be ok isn’t going to cut it.
No, the sky is not falling, Hal. What is happening though is far more serious than that.
Thanks largely to the non-critical, adoring press he gets from the MSM, the American people are not getting the real story on just how destructive Obama’s health care proposals are. Even the Congressional Budget Office says that one trillion dollars will end up only covering a third of those without insurance. Someone did the math and it came to some 60k per person covered.
There are over 3,700 community health centers around the country that provide care on a sliding scale basis. This is quality care that extends health care to some 15 million people. What we need, instead of massive government intervention, is more of this kind of coverage.
Having participated in several union contract negotiations with my employer, I am keenly aware of the issues surrounding costs, both to management and to the employee. Beginning in 1995, our first experience with managed health care began to control costs in multiple ways, and these efforts continued in each subsequent contract at three year intervals. Across the country billions of dollars of health care costs have been shaved from the balance sheets of companies, and employees have increasingly picked up more of the cost burden. Do increased medical costs mean the government should enter the picture with a plan that will immediately chill all private efforts to continue managing costs?
Companies across the land would like nothing more than transfering their costs onto the goverment. One needs to only look at what happened to retiree health care once Medicare started up. Retirees on company health care plans were immediately transferred to Medicare as their primary carrier, and if they were lucky they got to keep the company plan as secondary coverage. If Obamacare passes, this is exactly what would happen to just about everyone. DO NOT BELIEVE the fiction that “if you like your plan you can stay with it.” Whether Obama really believes that, or is just lying like he is known to do, does not matter. Basic economic reality will dictate what every cost conscious employer in the country will do–jettison their health coverage to the care of Uncle Sam. When that happens, the quality of health care in the United States will begin a rapid descent into a bureaucratic nightmare of confusion and incompetence.
Apple, it costs about half as much to educate a student in a private school than it does a public school.
http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=1118
Take a number and I’ll be right with you GREEEEEAT!!!
Apple, we’re talking about the average private school. First of all, the average tuition for all private schools is 3,611.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-025.html
Let’s look at DC for example:
Public school:
$24,600
Private school:
$14,534
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/04/07/the-real-cost-of-public-schools/
So even when we are talking about more expensive per student costs, we still see that private schools are able to educate students for far cheaper than public schools.
the sky is falling, the sky is falling!
Posted by: Hal at June 18, 2009 4:28 PM
For once we agree Hal! Although I am quite sure you were being sarcastic, but I’m not.
Great post Jerry.
Next week the Always Barack Channel will be broadcasting from the White House, and will have a prime time “infomercial” about what Barry wants to do with health care.
Opposing views will not be allowed. Yes they will have people there to ask questions but you can be certain all the questions will be prescreened and favorable to the administration.
It’s the same with those fake “town hall” meetings Barry still likes to have. Does anyone believe for a second that Barry doesnt know ahead of time what the questions are going to be, and how he is going to answer? And you can also be sure they don’t take people randomly and allow them to these “meetings”. They are very well screened and I am sure registered Democrats since birth.
Poor Barry whines that Fox news is devoted to complaining constantly about his adminstration, according to him. Actually, Fox was hard on Bush if they disagreed with him too.
There is no denying Fox is conservative, with the exception of Geraldo, however all the other “news” channels are far left and totally dedicated to agreeing with Barry 100% of the time.
Hal,
You are calling yesterdays ball game.
You are betting on the replay and you are still losing.
The ‘sky’ has already fallen.
You mistakenly thought it was heaven coming down to earth to celebrate the coronation of pbho.
Details at 10pm.
yor bro ken
Lauren you forgot the point! Focus!
What are you talking about, Apple. My claim was that private schools are able to provide a superior service for less money. I proved this was true.
Private insurance companies are not in the same position because they are massively undercut by government programs.
DO NOT BELIEVE the fiction that “if you like your plan you can stay with it.”
Posted by: Jerry at June 18, 2009 5:35 PM
Good post, Jerry. Also don’t believe the fiction that if you stay with your private health care plan you will continue to have a full range of treatment options. The government aims to universally apply “best practices” to both privately and publicly insured patients.
You can also put away the notion that your health care decisions will be a private matter between you and your physician. The government will have unrestricted access to your health care records. At present you the patient have much control over the sharing of your PHI (protected health information). With Obamacare you can say goodbye to your privacy and ability to determine with whom your PHI is shared.
Lauren what am I talking about???? Go back to the start of our discussion. You were trying to say private insurance companies would disappear because of free public insurance. I said they would not just as private schools still exist despite public education. It doesn’t matter which costs more to provide, the point is that private school still exist because people will pay whatever to get something better or different than the public system offers…… Just like what will happen with health insurance. Private health insurance will not ceases to exist.
And btw, I don’t know that you’ve shown private schools can provide better education for less than public can. All you have shown is that in some cases they spend less per student…. But that doesn’t mean it’s better…. It may be better for that student’s situation or better for that family’s beliefs/religions/etc. But not necessarily a better quality of education. You haven’t shown that. Though that’s not the point here anyway…..
Apple 9:23PM
Sure, and see just how great public schools are. Parents often have no options but to send their children to public schools. The voucher plans that would give them choices(like the Obamas had in selecting a private school for their children) have been killed by Democrats beholden to the teacher unions.
So now health care will be the same. Those who can afford private will receive better care than those depending on the gov’t. In countries with gov’t run health care the rich can pay for better, or fly to the U.S., the rest of the people stand in line. Just look at medicaid and medicare to see how efficiently our gov’t runs medical care.
Apple, I’m honestly flabergasted at your lack of comprehension.
The difference between private schools and private insurance is that private schools have the ability to make a profit. The private schools can provide their service for cheaper than the public schools and thus do more with less.
Private insurance companies would not have this advantage. Public insurance would only raise the per person costs for the private companies.
There is a huge difference between the two, invalidating your claim that the success of private schools indicates that private insurance will also be successful with government competition.
Asitis, er..Apple, you’re really making yourself look foolish.
No one can buy highpriced insurance if that insurance no long exists because it isn’t profitable.
For the 100th time, private schools stay profitable by cutting the cost to educate one student. The opposite effect happens with insurance. The two are not analogous.
You keep insisting they are without offering any evidence to support your view. Instead of saying “nu uh” try to actually back up your argument.
Apple,
Comparing insurance and education is like comparing apples and oranges. You of all people should understand that. :)
“Private insurance will stay because there will be people willing to pay to get better coverage than the public insurance offers”.
If so, there’s always the question of how many people will be willing and for how long. The nature of insurance is such that there have to be many more payers than payees or the system collapses.
Greg wrote: is he proposing health care or health insurance?
Obama throughout his campaign, has used and continues to use the terms interchangeably, though each mean something different. (I work in health insurance sales.)
The statistical numbers of the uninsured in this country are very skewed. Almost half of the uninsured are people who’ve come here illegally, so that brings it down to 20-some-odd-million without coverage of which a large portion are young people who have aged off their parents’ plan and if it’s not offered to them from an employer, don’t want to purchase it on their own. This is also the age group where coverage is most affordable (usually well under $100/month) and the least likely to have pre-existing conditions, so are the most easily covered segment of those who should be covered.
What is boils down to with Obama is that we’ll have socialized medicine, like in Canada and Europe, which is mostly a disaster. The government will pay and thus decide who gets what, also known as rationing.
My thought on this is that none of this really has to do with getting people health care or insurance, but by beginning another massive entitlement program (Polls show most people believe the government owes them health care.) that will ensure him a second term and ensure democratic victories in the future.
Apple,
If Canada’s health care system is so marvelous, why did a member of their gov’t fly to the US for treatment of advanced cancer? Would a Canadian woman who works in a factory have the same option?
I’ve heard it speculated that actress Natasha Richardson would more likely have survived her tragic accident had it occured at an American ski resort, which would have provided immediate medical evacuation to a facility able to care for her instead of ambulance transport from one hospital to another. I was appalled when I read the sequence of events involving her care.
So you admit there is a standard for the rich and the rest of us. I thought the gov’t program was supposed to put an end to any alleged double standards.
Oh, and wouldn’t it be fair for the gov’t to take over the legal business. I don’t think its fair that some people can afford more high priced and skilled lawyers and others can’t.
Yes there are good public schools. Apparently there aren’t enough.
Apple,
I should have said helicopter evacuation from an American ski resort in my 7:24am post.
Time is very critical where head injury is involved and I remain convinced that in the US she would have survived.
Actually, the legal system is nicely analogous to the proposed insurance system. Most people who can afford it pay for a private lawyer. Those who can’t use the public defender.
Wendy,
Somewhat, except no one is suggesting the gov’t take over the legal system or that we have a legal “crisis”. People have gone bankrupt paying legal bills.
We have medicaid, medicare, and public hospitals already, which is already analogous to the legal system. Why do we need more gov’t involvement?
Apple,
Thank you but my opinion is far from misinformed. I’ve been in the medical area almost 40 years.
That is why I remain convinced Ms.Richardson would have survived had her tragic accident occured in the US.
I’ve seen abuses of “free” care you cannot begin to fathom.
Gov’t involvement only complicates matters.
“Apple,” (spell that A-S-I-T-I-S), the reason your posts continue to be deleted is because you have been banned from this site, and you’re aware of this.
Thank you for the compliment, however, assuming that I’m the only one who moderates comments around here, though it’s not true. (I do have other job assignments.) We have a whole set of wonderful moderators who know who you are and know that you can’t seem to refrain from posting comments here, even when banned.
Not sure why that is, but it would make for an interesting mental health case study, I’m sure.
My family and I have been under Tri-Care for the last 4 years. I shudder to think of this system or a similar system applied to the rest of the country. It was ok before Ft. Carson took on more soldiers than it could handle without thinking of their families (or parking for that matter), but that’s what the government does. So efficient, it’s inefficient. Before the Ft. Hood soldiers moved in, we could call to schedule an appointment and get one usually that day, or at least before the week was out. After we moved back when my husband returned from Iraq (post integration w/the new soldiers) we’d be lucky to get an appointment the same MONTH we needed it. All they could tell me was to go to the ER, which was always so full that being seen was an all day affair. My son was having an allergic reaction, and all they could do was give him Benadryl in the waiting room. I had to leave to go pick my daughter up from school before he could even be seen.
So, I’m in no hurry to see such a system emulated around the COUNTRY, these people can’t even handle one single army base. Government-provided ANYTHING is always sub-par.
The whole “banned” business, “Apple,” means you have been asked to refrain from commenting on this site. Of course, you KNOW that’s what it means, or why come back under different monikers after saying you’d stay away? Recently, you pretended to be so “outraged” that you said you wouldn’t be back…and then, in less than 24 hours, there you were, under a different moniker! Surprise, surprise.
You will still have access to this site, of course, but your comments will not be published. Period.
Jill is not sending you personal emails. You are receiving her newsletters, like most commenters to this site. But nice try. ;)
I don’t typically even read your comments, to be honest, but I don’t consider personally insulting commenters to be a great way of “dispelling myths.” That’s pretty much what got you banned in the first place.
“Apple,” Jill’s newsletter is automatically sent out to those whose emails are here on the site. If you would like your email removed from the list, please just email Jill and/or the mods and we will take care of it.
Problem solved?
You need to qualify for Medicare and Medicaid — they’re not available to everyone. The health insurance proposal does not propose ‘taking over the system.’. It proposes offering a publically funded option to anyone who chooses it, while leaving in place the private for-profit system, just like the (very profitable) legal system we have today. That’s the analogy — no one is talking about changing the legal system because it already mirrors the intent of the health proposal.
Wendy,
Medicaid and medicare are available to those who need it, and they’re both costing a fortune.
Health care is available to those who want it. There are sliding scale fees, free clinics, and something called personal responsibility. You have people who badly abuse their health. Keep in mind there are people who take no responsiblity for their health, for having insurance, or much of anything else.
Should there be a gov’t policy for car insurance? Home insurance? If not why not?
Mary, I actually need a roof over my head every day while a visit to the doctor may only be once or twice a year, so shouldn’t the government pay for my housing?
I think what really went wrong with Natasha Richardson was that she never received a head CT scan. Had the accident occurred in the US, it’s almost certain she would have had one. They’re not routine in Canada. What happened to her is terrible; a young woman lost her life, a husband lost his wife, a mother her daughter, and two young boys their mother.
Luana,
“The statistical numbers of the uninsured in this country are very skewed. Almost half of the uninsured are people who’ve come here illegally, so that brings it down to 20-some-odd-million without coverage of which a large portion are young people who have aged off their parents’ plan and if it’s not offered to them from an employer, don’t want to purchase it on their own. This is also the age group where coverage is most affordable (usually well under $100/month) and the least likely to have pre-existing conditions, so are the most easily covered segment of those who should be covered.”
Thank you. Could you shout this from the highest roof-tops, please? The MSM obviously doesn’t get it, nor do most Americans. I’m shocked at the number of doctors who don’t. Doctors need a solid business education in addition to their medical education, IMHO.
In your opinion, in the long term, will doctors ultimately become salaried government employees? Will there be such thing as “private practice”? What about the private hospitals?
* * * *
Kel, I suspected that Apple was “Asitis” after commenting last night.
I don’t remember, is Asitis the same person as “SoMG” (or “Smoggy”) ???????
I don’t want to be put in a position of defending something I don’t believe, so let me say right off that I think insurance, in just about all it’s forms, is a huge scam. I’m required by law to have car insurance; I’m also a Massachusetts resident so I’m also required to have health insurance, which is expensive because I recently quit my job so I’m paying out of pocket. I believe that I will pay more money to the insurance companies than they will ever pay out to me, and I resent the fact that I’m by law required to help enrich the fat cats at the top of the medical and car insurance industries. I also believe that the cost of medical care is ludicrously high largely due to health insurance companies, which distort normal economic pressures, and malpractice insurance, which is a whole different set of problems (but look, it’s that “I” word again!).
I’m just telling you a bit about my situation so you can see I’m grappling with the insurance situation on both personal and ideological levels. So, do I think the government should be getting into all kinds of insurance? Since I kind of hate insurance there’s no way I’m going to argue that. But I think a publically available health insurance plan addresses the biggest current problems, which are:
1. health care without health insurance is prohibitively expensive (anecdote: a friend who got appendicitis while uninsured ended up $100k in debt. you can’t go to a free clinic for surgery.)
2. the working poor and people employed by small business owners who can’t afford employee insurance are falling into the gap between Medicare and private insurance
3. the medical insurance lobby is rich and powerful, and any legislation trying to correct problems 1 and 2 is going to have to contend with that.
I do think we have a health care crisis happening. I don’t know that government funded health insurance is the solution, but it seems reasonable given the current situation and the political constraints. I particularly like that the proposal avoids placing additional government regulations on the private health insurers. I would definitely be interested in hearing some other solutions to the problem.
Luana,
So sad about Natasha Richardson. To think that one CT scan could have made the difference between her life and death.
Mods, I have a comment on que…. Thanks…
FYI,
Newsletters usually have an “unsubscribe” option at the bottom of the page. The recipient just clicks on it and that’s it. No more newsletters.
Asitis is not SoMG.
Phew! Thanks Carla.
Hi Wendy,
Yes there are certainly imperfections. But gov’t takeover is not the solution. It just means more mismanagement and expense.
Hospitals allow a payment system and will arrange with patients on their ability to pay.
Doctors donate services to low income areas and people or use a sliding scale.
I’ve always thought low income people could pay medicaid a monthly fee that they can afford, as they would an insurance company. Maybe this would help fray costs??
We see that medicare and medicaid have become huge albatrosses. Gov’t interference only increased price, bureaucracy, and inefficiency.
Also, people who thought they were getting something “free” badly abused these programs and insurance coverage as well.
Hi Luana and Janet,
About Natasha Richardson. From what I read, and please correct me if I am wrong, she was never air-evacuated at any point, which surprised me. This would have been a given from any American hospital not equipped to handle head injuries and I understand American ski resorts all have medical air-evacuation.
Our medium size hospital flies patients in and out all the time and our midsize city has air-evac for accidents, patient transfer, etc.
The instant Ms. Richardson complained of headache and nausea, about an hour after the incident, she should have been air-evacuated to a facility equipped to care for her. I read instead that she was driven by ambulance to one hospital and then another, which appalled me.
Time is of the essence when there is a head injury, especially when a patient shows such profound symptons. That’s why you would air-evac.
From what I have read, I’m convinced that if this had occured at an American ski resort, a mother, wife, and daughter would still be alive today.
Banana 6:54PM
Not a lot of us do. I’ve never been to one. Please show me examples of people who are left out in the street to die because they cannot get health care.
Also there are people who will take no responsiblity for their health. They abuse drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes and would never think of spending money on a doctor visit.
Time is of the essence when there is a head injury, especially when a patient shows such profound symptons. That’s why you would air-evac.”
I think it was the air travel that killed her, unfortunately.
Hal 7:30PM
What air travel?? That wouldn’t kill her Hal, it likely would have saved her life.
Banana 7:33PM
My years of experience have taught me that head injuries are very insidious. This is what makes them exceptionally dangerous. Patients can be symptonless for many hours then suddenly become critical. Ominous symptoms may have a very slow onset or be very abrupt and deadly. Victims may be able to seek help in time, they may not.
I personally know of one case where a woman was seen in the ER after hitting her head, no indication of injury was observed, her family was advised to observe her and what to watch for, 3 days later, feeling fine, she laid down for a nap and was found dead by her husband. A very slow and symptomless intracranial bleed.
The fact that Richardson did not even think she was hurt is very typical. That is why these persons must be observed very closely. When Richardson developed headaches and nausea this was ominous and she should have been immediately air evacuated to a hospital equipped to manage her care. It was not too late at that point, or at least we will never know for certain if it was. I remain convinced that immediate air evacuation would have at very least given her a fighting chance.
Health coverage or not she would have been immediately treated. When I worked emergency room, I never checked coverage or the patient’s ability to pay when they came in a life threatening situation, or any situation for that matter. Patients were treated.
I understand she was brought back to a New York hospital after brain death occured. I understand she was taken by ambulance from the Canadian resort to one hospital then transferred by ambulance to another. If this is how it indeed occured, then very valubable time was lost in treating her. She should have been air evacuated at the onset of symptoms.
If she showed up in a rural American hospital with these symptoms, let’s say she walked in on her own or someone brought her, they would have had her air evacuated pronto to a medical center equipped to handle her care.
Gee, I wonder if Banana is Apple is Asitis.
Wendy, what happens in terms of those unable to qualify for medicaid (state insurance) is that they still get care. When the cost of the care becomes high enough and the bills get high enough… they now qualify for medical care because it changes the balance sheet of their finances. Generally speaking it is also retroactive for a certain amount of time (1 to 3 months depending on the state).
We arrange it every day at the inner-city county hospital I work at. Healthcare is available. Help is already available. Arizona’s AHCCCS is one of the best systems I’ve ever seen and I’d hate to have the federal gov’t come in and screw it up. It works way too well and we have a huge number of immigrants (not just Hispanic) and low to lower middle class residents. I’m proud of our state. I’m proud of our system. I don’t trust the federal government to do better.
Janet, I would love to shout it from the rooftops! MSM has an obligation to report this, but they only show the side that they want seen. Media’s job is to be a watch dog, especially for the government, but since they’re having such a slobbering love affair with Obama (title of Bernard Goldberg’s latest book), it ain’t gonna happen. And I’ll harp on this again: Jeffrey Immelt is the CEO of GE; GE stands to get billions in contracts with Obama-care; GE owns NBC and MSNBC, and Immelt is one of Obama’s advisers. How many people know this? I wanna scream this from the rooftops, too!
MSM does not want to report that half of the uninsured are here illegally, because it would not be PC, and a lot of media are so far left these days, they don’t believe in the concept of borders, and it begs the question: Do we have an obligation to provide health care and insurance to people who break our laws to live here?
I don’t know what will happen to doctors and hospitals in the future, and as for the near-future I hope none of this health care stuff the White House is proposing passes.
Mary, I’m not sure of the time details with Natasha Richardson’s death. I had read she initially refused an ambulance when it was called. I don’t know how much later it was when she did get to a hospital. What I read stressed that a CT scan would more than likely have saved her life.
Luana and Banana,
The fact she refused medical care is no surprise. Its likely she felt perfectly fine and thought the “fuss” was ridiculous.
How many times have we told people “look, I’m fine, stop making an issue of this!”. Fortunately we were right for the most part.
Also, the paramedics may not have seen any cause for concern on an initial exam, even if they had been allowed to check her out. Her “neuro checks” may have been perfectly normal and they would have no way at that time to diagnose the severity of her injury.
What she would then have to be observed for is the type of symptoms she did develop, I understand within an hour. Though these can occur several hours later as well. Headache, lethargy, nausea. These are very ominous and immediate transport to a facility equiped to care for neuro trauma is crucial.
The patient may fail very quickly, or you may have a window of opportunity to save the patient. Whatever, speed is of the essence.
That is why transport from a ski resort or rural hospital would best be accomplished by air evacuation. I have worked in rural hospitals and air evacuation is routine in serious accidents or suspected head injury.
Thankfully our hospital can transport a patient across town via ambulance in less than 10 minutes and we can do CAT scans, so we would be able to save valuable time and alert the hospital we are transporting to exactly what is going on with the patient. Even if there is no bleeding close observation by experienced personnel is certainly in order.
Also, paramedics routinely transport major accident victims, who are always assumed to have head and spinal trauma, to these other hospitals.
Again I can only speculate but I think immediate air evacuation the instant she began showing ominous symptoms could well have saved her life.
Going only by what I read, valuable time was lost transporting her by ambulance from the resort, first to one hospital and then another.
Helicopter evacuation from accident sites is pretty routine in the US, we have it in our midsize city, and I understand air evacuation is available to all ski resorts, which certainly makes sense. Not only head trauma but spinal and orthopedic trauma, as well as medical emergencies such as stroke or heart attack can certainly necessitate immediate transport.
Hi Luana 1:31am
Let’s not forget Chris Matthews and his leg tingle as well as Tom Brokaw and his awe struck seagulls at the Inaugaration. Uh Tom, those are brainless, flying rats. If they were “in awe” of anything it would be of all the garbage they could feast on, not the size of Obama’s adoring crowds.
The All Barack Channel, formerly known as the American Broadcasting Company, will be doing a health care broadcast, more like an Obama infomercial, from one of the White House rooms.
Give me a break. Will they sit on Obama’s lap next? Talk about sock puppets.
At least under a dictatorship the media has the excuse of having no choice but to be lapdogs to the leader. Ours has no such excuse.
I never thought I would see the day when I miss Sam Donaldson. Obnoxious as he was he was nobody’s lapdog.
Luana @ 1;31,
“And I’ll harp on this again: Jeffrey Immelt is the CEO of GE; GE stands to get billions in contracts with Obama-care; GE owns NBC and MSNBC, and Immelt is one of Obama’s advisers. How many people know this? I wanna scream this from the rooftops, too!”
I’ve seen this commented on here, but never in the MSM. Can you explain how so? (In a nutshell.) Thanks. :)
I’m all for a National Health Service… if…as Doyle Chadwick puts it, the entire Congressional, Judicial, and especially the Executive Branches of ‘our’, I mean their Government agree to have it as their ONLY coverage.
Seeing the comments here has me truly puzzled, how on Earth do all of those bums get elected?! Could it be that the people capable of reading and writing are greatly outnumbered?
Bannockburn,
Perhaps it’s a symptom of our poor education system. Hmmm…. perhaps the Dems would prefer to keep the status quo (on education) to ensure their re-election? Nah…..
I love Lauren’s points using free DISH tv v. cable and also the sandwich shop —
it’s the “birdfeeder effect” and just what happened in Hawaii, Obama’s home state, when they tried to offer universal health care for kids in 2007! More here – http://tinyurl.com/n46kz3