It Is To Laff’!
Atrios highlighted this nonsense.
Arthur Laffer on CNN:
If you like the Post Office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they’re run well, just wait till you see Medicare, Medicaid and health care done by the government.
This is THE Arthur Laffer of the “Laffer Curve”, the most famous cocktail napkin in US politics. This is the brain power behind “supply side economics”, the foundation of RepubliCon policy since the administration of Reagan.
First off, let me say that he obviously is unaware that the DMV is a function of state government, and, therefore, comes in a minimum of 50 different flavors. In Florida you generally deal with the state on drivers’ licenses, normally by mail. The license plates are issued by the individual counties, and in Okaloosa County I can walk a block to the local office, mail in the renewal, or click on the ‘Net site.
Would anyone dislike that experience more than trying to get Kaiser Permanente to pay when the EMTs take you to the “wrong hospital”?
News flash for Mr. Laffer, the “Post Office” became the “Postal Service” in 1970, and is required to operate like a private corporation. If you think that you have a plan that will offer mail delivery between any two points in the US for a lower rate than the USPS, put up or shut up. If you have mobility problems, they will pick-up from your home, they will also pick up packages at no charge if they are ready to mail. You can do almost everything over the phone or on the ‘Net.
If you don’t like the USPS, try paying telephone tag with Blue Cross/Blue Shield to correct the spelling of your name on their benefits card, something that occurred after 5 years of coverage with the spelling correct.
Another news flash for Mr. Laffer, we have been watching Medicare and Medicaid deliver health care for four decades. The VA has been providing it even longer, and the military medical system has been in the field almost since the founding of the country. The government has a rather long history of providing health care, you might want to look into it.
16 comments
all my interactions with the dmv for years now have been fast, efficient, easy. if only i could get medical care the same way…
I think the waiting room at the tax collector’s office is cleaner than the emergency room, and you don’t have people bleeding on you. The chair are definitely more comfortable.
hospital cleanliness, or more precisely, lack thereof, has become yet another issue i keep meaning to tackle.
i wouldn’t know of the chairs are more comfortable or not. the last 2 times i was at the dmv, i took a number to wait in line and didn’t even get the chance to sit down before my number was called.
.-= last blog ..Dominoes 1 =-.
Pretty much the same procedure as here. I think the furniture was bought from the condo swaps. Every three to five years rental condos get the furniture swapped out because it has 100% depreciated and it’s some pretty nice furniture, cheap.
My Mother had a very bad years a while ago and she had an extended stay in the hospital, so I saw it a lot. She was constantly complaining about the lack of cleaning, and I could see it myself. It wasn’t just that the floors never seemed to get mopped, it was a definite lack of dumping trash cans and picking up dirty laundry. When a pile of bedding stays in the corner for two days, that’s bad.
Hospitals are as bad here. When my mother was in hospital when she had cancer it was pretty bad. She had tier 1 private cover and went into a private room. It was a hot summer and the A/C in the room didn’t work and it was very stuffy, the TV didn’t work either. It took 3 days of threats etc to get it fixed. My mom’s room was on the same floor as the maternity ward BTW. Oposite the elevator on that floor was a drinks vending machine. On top of the machine, someone had left a small bucket of hot fried chips (cold by then) and the floor was dirty around the machine. We went to the floor admin station and reported it. Next day, it was the same and we reported it again and to the main reception also. It took almost a week for it to be cleaned up.
I shudder to think what it would have been like in a public ward.
No wonder babies die young and patients come out sicker than they went in.
Rudd is finally addressing the problem, or trying to anyway. *shrug* We’ll see.
Keep in mind that I’m describing a private, for-profit hospital that is supposed to be proof that the US has the “best health care in world”. It is owned by HCA [?Hospital Corporation of America?]. This is the place that charges $250 for a half liter of salt water.
When you complain they say “we meet all standards for hospital staffing”, not that they have enough people to keep the place clean.
when i was sitting at the bedside a couple of years ago of someone with a long a long hospital stay [at a hospital with a good reputation too], that’s what i saw too, except that they were leaving the dirty laundry on the patients as well. and don’t even get me started on wound care.
.-= last blog ..Dominoes 1 =-.
well, obviously, i was impressed by the length of the hospital stay! 🙂
.-= last blog ..Dominoes 1 =-.
In the future you might consider contacting the state medical board in Tallahassee, as well as working your way up the chain of command at the hospital. That’s how I got my Mother on regular changes of gowns, which I made of point of signing and dating in washable ink when I went to visit. I also took a notebook with me and noted any variance with the prescribed treatment, and made sure people were aware I was doing it, as well as leaving the cards of a couple of malpractice attorneys with my Mother for display on the bedside table.
I made sure that the staff knew that I was well aware that staffing levels were not adequate and that they didn’t make those decisions. People were working 12-hour shifts, which is stupid. At the end of the shift they are zombies.
“People were working 12-hour shifts, which is stupid. At the end of the shift they are zombies.”
Worse, this appears to have become a permanent feature, not a response to exigent circumstances. A couple years ago, one of my clients that does hospital admin s/w had to redesign tables for a new product because their original design did not accommodate 12-hour shifts.
.-= last blog ..Apple Censors The Words You May View =-.
The military has long term studies that prove that people are operating at 50% efficiency after 8 hours. I used the studies to justify hiring more people, rather than filling in with overtime, because the overtime rate was 150% of normal with a 50% efficiency.
They also have studies on the effects of rotating shifts, rather than fixed hours to cover 24-hour manning requirements, and a lot of other things that are readily accepted as applicable to law enforcement, but just as relevant to any other employment. [BTW, rotating shifts suck, when it comes to efficiency, because of sleep issues.]
i hate rotating shifts.
as a bench chemist, just doing routine analyses over and over, i didn’t mind the 12-hr shifts. boring, but doable. especially since i worked at a place that let people swap shifts with each other, which meant that we could put together a string of several weeks on the same shift before somebody had to switch. once it morphed into getting out into the plant or the field, and doing safety officer stuff too, that was a whole ‘nother world. i would not want to be sick and in the care of someone working that kind of schedule.
.-= last blog ..Dominoes 1 =-.
wish i’d thought of the attorneys’ cards. that’s a nice touch.
we did end up with a small cadre taking turns, so that there was almost always someone at the bedside for almost all of the 24 hours, and we kept a notebook for writing down questions for the drs, answers to the questions, notes on changes in medications, ….
provided lots of free staffing for that hospital, we did.
.-= last blog ..Dominoes 1 =-.
The cards were a promise, not a threat. One was put on a retainer, and the other was a backup. My brothers were not happy with reports of her treatment and took what actions they could long distance.
The hospital CEO made several long phone calls attempting to mollify her, but that didn’t happen. She’s already told her doctors that that hospital is not an option for anything.
I am tired of hearing people say to me, “I don’t want health care run like the Post Office or the DMV”. There is no convincing these people they are misinformed. They believe this because they want to. When they get an opportunity to really experience the private, for profit, healthcare system, they will change their minds. If it doesn’t kill them first.
After what my mother experienced with a multitude of doctors and several hospital stays last year, the govt could not possibly do worse.
.-= last blog ..Zucchini Fritters =-.
It’s the Medicare recipients who really torque me off. Who the hell do they think they are getting their health insurance from – WalMart?