Health Professionals Back GOP, Why Hospital Food is Bad for You, and Indian Health Service in Hot Water
Health professionals have become the strongest supporters of the Tea Party Caucus.
Why is hospital food so nutritionally bad? Tyler Cowen gives five answers.
The hospital food article makes me think of a few things:
1) My mom recently had knee surgery, and I spent 5 hours in the waiting room while she went through various stages of the operation. I tried getting breakfast in the hospital cafeteria, but it was DISGUSTING. I paid $6 for a stale rice crispie and a dry fruit salad. By the end of it, I was bumming snack crackers off of the nurses in the recovery room.
Why would they do that to me? Because I only spent the morning there. It’s the same reason airports charge $10 for a sandwich that tastes like cardboard: because in a few hours, you’ll be gone, and there will be more suckers coming in.
The ratio or patients’ families to doctors is probably pretty high, so even if you piss off some staff by serving bad food, you can still make a hefty margin on the “folks that don’t know any better.”
Plus, docs in the know will still buy cokes and other snacks that they know are “safe,” while still importing the rest of their food from outside.
2) Isn’t this the kind of market that is more prone to failure because the consumers don’t stick around long enough to get to know the reputations of local vendors?
3) This actually happened to me yesterday. I was on vacation and ate lunch at a bistro in the tourist area. I was sick for the rest of the day, but there’s nothing I can do because I don’t live there and can’t tell all of my friends not to go there. The best I can do is ding them on Google. (I don’t think I had food poisoning. I think it was just bad food. Otherwise, I would have called the health department. And, for the record, I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. How can you mess up grilled cheese?!)
It’s interesting about the hospital food. I used to work for a hospital and it touted the fact that Marriot ran its food service. Yet, as Tyler Cowen points out, the food was no doubt not the same food Marriot would serve at one of its flagship hotels.
If health professionals had any sense, they would be taking up arms.
Here?s the cislsac attitude by you Jim Doran as to why the VA does not improve and is not improving when the treatment of our veterans is concerned ?If you get a bad doc, don?t blame, VA blame the doc.? When is the VA then to held accountable? Is there not a system in place with checks and balances to hire qualified doctor?s? Apparently not for you Jim Doran as you would have it, the VA has no liability or responsibility to screen first class, top notch doctor?s, to hire the very best qualified? As in this particular case the Doctor had been dismissed from his previous practice by his fellow physicians? who called his diagnostic skills and methodology into question due to several complaints registered by other patients as well as observations, complaints and scrutiny by fellow Oncologists in that current practice. So he is asked to resign from this practice due to incompetence and leaves for the mutual benefit of all parties involved, then he gets hired by another practice with lower standards. This then leads this same doctor to apply and be accepted by the VA, who obviously didn?t look farther into this doctor?s past beyond his current practice, as the VA?s standard in this case clearly was, does the doctor have a current valid medical license? Yet you find this acceptable Jim Doran? So if your child or grandchild is then treated by a doctor such as this, then you would not demand to have the best possible care, if the VA screened this doctor and he had your family member?s life was in his hands then it is perfectly acceptable to you that the VA has no responsibility or liability in the hiring of this doctor? In your mind it is acceptable to hire less qualified physician?s? Jim Doran I blame both the Doctor and the VA!! I blame the VA first and foremost because they were negligent in hiring a doctor that was and is a second rate professional! You can have your entire family and friends be seen by ?C or B? medical students, but as for all of us other veterans we demand and are entitled to be treated by the very best medical professionals that our country has to offer, if you think and accept anything less then you surely are part of the problem with the entire VA Healthcare system. As far as filing a complaint Jim Doran, my wife and I did both with the VA as well as with the State Medical Board. This is where further information then comes to light and you find out that the VA?s screening process to hire and recruit medical professionals is so poor. Yet once again there is no accountability with the VA, as the people that recruit, screen and hire these professionals are still in place! Perhaps the VA employee that gave the final approval to hire this doctor was made aware of the complaints by both patients and fellow doctor?s, yet this person had a billet or quota to fill a need for an Oncologist at the VAMC North Chicago? The attitude that somebody is better than nobody can and does cost lives, yet you find this acceptable Jim Doran still blame only the doctor right? So if your spouse is treated by an Oncologist such as this and God forbid it costs her life, well then it?s just the individual doctor?s fault, it?s the luck of the draw right Jim Doran? This would be acceptable to you, blame the doctor right, the VA has no responsibility right? If you do not hold the VA to higher standards, then higher standards will never be achieved Jim Doran. Part of this entire VA nightmare is with people such as yourself who feel that it is acceptable to pass the blame Jim Doran, rather than to hold all parties involved beginning with the VA who hired this quack as well as the doctor himself. I myself am to blame as I was foolish enough to blindly be seen by this doctor without checking him out ahead of time, by looking into his reputation, by making a few phone calls, investigating. But my point being here, is to pass on and make aware to other veterans that they should be empowered to make sure that they have earned the right and demand to have the very best healthcare available! The VA spends millions of dollars in advertising to inform us veterans that they are a first class organization, so that is where their standards should be held to. Veterans are entitled to second and third opinions, and not just from another VA physician, but by physicians outside the VA healthcare system. In fact in my case, I went back to my civilian Oncologist who referred me to a Surgical Oncologist who is renowned in the Chicago area, this doctor who performed my surgery and guess what Jim Doran, he volunteers and is employed by Hines VA hospital and donates his time and knowledge, yet he is one of the very best in the state and perhaps the Midwest. This same surgeon conducted my surgery at Loyola University Medical Center where he has his practice. This doctor asked me if I wanted to have the surgery and follow up care at Hines VAMC? After I relayed my experiences with this doctor at VAMC North Chicago he totally understood as to why I would not allow one doctor to treat me at a VAMC. So please don?t tell me and other veterans that the very best is not available in the VA healthcare system, it?s there. But don?t continue to contribute to the VA Healthcare problem by saying that the VA is not to be held accountable for the very employee?s that they recruit, screen and hire, by saying that ?If you get a bad doc, don?t blame, VA blame the doc.? Both the doctor?s and the Veterans Administration are and should be held to higher standards and are both accountable. We need to get rid of these quacks at the VA wherever they are. Each and every veteran, their spouses and family members that walk through every VAMC or clinic, every day of the year are entitled to and demand to have the very best treatment available that our country has to offer, we have paid the price to receive this. It is part of the public and military trust, we want to be ensured that when we are treated that we are being treated by the very best, not by second rate professionals from second rate medical schools who have been awarded their Medical Degree?s just because they passed the minimum curriculum and have demonstrated the basic knowledge in the practice of medicine. This is not acceptable to me other veterans and should not be accepted by you either Jim Doran, so don?t become part of the problem Jim Doran, become part of the solution and demand that the VA be held to the highest standards that it advertises.
No system is a oeitrctpon against a lazy doctor and the US right-wing delights in digging up the most egregious failures they can find, sometimes creating them from whole cloth, and trying to present them as typical of the NHS, much to the bemusement of Brits everywhere.Is the NHS perfect? No. Does the NHS deliver an acceptable level of service to the vast majority of its patients, without thought to finances or insurance. Yes. Can the US system say the same? No.Let’s consider my experience as a contrast to Al’s little tale. I have a severely disabling back condition, I can normally get an appointment with my own doctor in a busy inner city practice in a socio-economically deprived area within 2 days for a non-urgent matter, while my personal record for hospital treatments in a year, seeing my consultant at each one, is somewhere in the mid to high 20s. When I complained of worsening symptoms in my neck last year, the rheumatologist I was referred to sent me for x-rays, MRI and a full body bone scan with isotopic tracer without the bat of an eye. The x-rays were done on the spot and all three had been done within about 3 weeks. After further referrals I’m currently awaiting an appointment with a visiting professor from one of the London specialist hospitals for further tests. Total cost to me in all of this, zero.Now when you consider my situation: unemployed, with a long term and disabling medical problem that is ineligible for health insurance cover, which system will I do better under? The US which will bankrupt me if it treats me at all? Or the UK, where things might move a little slower without the profit margins to grease them, but no matter the complexity or the test or the noteworthiness of the specialist, I will be treated and the only cost to me is for prescriptions, with an absolute maximum cost there of about a3120/year, no matter the cost of the drugs or the number of prescriptions needed, and where I will receive even those freely if my finances warrant it.I have incidentally bumped into the UK version of private medicine, when my former employer wanted a medical report on my disability. As soon as I presented myself at the reception desk of the private hospital, I was met with the demand Who is paying?’, so I pointed out that my employer had made all of the arrangements, I need a credit card, can you give me yours?’ No’. Having reluctantly accepted that they would have to invoice my employers, I finally (after a 45 minute wait) got to see the doctor the same consultant I see freely on the NHS, and usually without the delay. When a colleague was injured in the course of company business she was treated at the same private hospital, until her condition worsened, and the private hospital had to dial 999 to ask for an ambulance to come and take her to the NHS hospital because they couldn’t cope with any kind of medical condition they couldn’t turn a profit on.The US right bleats about the threat’ of socialised medicine, crossing to the other side of the street so that they can keep their eyes turned from the third world standards of medicine that the rest of their compatriots have to put up with. I know which system I would choose, I know which system I will survive under, and that isn’t the US one.