Mr. Fancy Pants – A video on Tort Reform
December 8, 2009
Mr. Fancy Pants
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h85j1vNxd8A]
This short movie should be viewed by everyone. It ought to be made into a commercial.
16 Death Per Day…
November 17, 2009
16 Deaths Per Day
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pssw5bnjnr4]
Under existing laws, these employers get a slap on the wrist, or walk away scot-free. Meanwhile, workers who blow the whistle face threats and retaliation at the workplace. It is time to change the feeble and antiquated rules that fail to protect workers on the job. Visit 16deathsperday.com and sign the petition protecting American workers’ rights.
Testing my tweeter
November 3, 2009
Test!
How To Get Rid of Trial Lawyers
September 25, 2009
Putting trial lawyers out of business – Anthony Tarricone
Let’s cut the wheat from the chaff: Tort reform will do nothing to fix health care. Forty-six states have already done it, and costs have continued to skyrocket. The Congressional Budget Office and Government Accountability Office have said tort reform will save practically no money, and they found no evidence of defensive medicine. Medical malpractice suits are less than 1 percent of all civil filings — and this has declined 8 percent during the past decade. The research is definitive and absolute, and those claiming otherwise are just trying to obstruct health care reform altogether.
More than 98,000 people die every year from preventable medical errors, according to the Institute of Medicine. That report is 10 years old, and estimates are the number has gotten significantly worse. This is the equivalent of two 737s crashing every day for a whole year. If planes were crashing like this today, would we focus on giving airlines immunity or making air travel safer?
So this is how you really put trial lawyers out of business: Just cut down on the errors. Fewer errors mean fewer complications — or fewer people who will need legal recourse. Electronic medical records, bar-coding equipment, tagging surgical instruments and routine operating room checklists are just a few measures that can decrease errors. And there are countless more that can corral this epidemic and make patient safety a priority once again.
Who Comes Up With These Policies?
September 15, 2009
Medicare Covers Transplants, But Limits Payments for Anti-Rejection Drugs
The story of Ms. Whitaker’s two organ donations — the first from her mother and the second from her boyfriend — sheds light on a Medicare policy that is widely regarded as pound-foolish. Although the government regularly pays $100,000 or more for kidney transplants, it stops paying for anti-rejection drugs after only 36 months.
The health care bill moving through the House of Representatives includes a little-noticed provision that would reverse the policy, but it is not clear whether the Senate will follow suit. The 36-month limit is one of several reimbursement anomalies — along with inadequate primary care payments and incentives that encourage unneeded care — that many in Congress hope to cure.
Ms. Whitaker, 31, who describes herself as “kind of a nerd,” has Alport syndrome, a genetic disorder that caused kidney failure and significant hearing loss by the time she was 14. In 1997, after undergoing daily dialysis for five years, she received her first transplant. Most of the cost of the dialysis and the transplant, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, was absorbed by the federal Medicare program, which provides broad coverage for those with end-stage renal disease.
Despite that heavy investment, federal law limits Medicare reimbursement for the immunosuppressant drugs that transplant recipients must take for life, at costs of $1,000 to $3,000 a month.
Fight back against health insurance lies
August 7, 2009
450,000 Doctors Can't be Wrong
July 30, 2009
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkGGDOp4uUg]
Elderly Abuse Is A Very Real IssueA
July 13, 2009
When Caregivers Harm: Problem Nurses Stay on the Job as Patients Suffer
Nurse Owen Jay Murphy Jr. twisted the jaw of one patient until he screamed.
He picked up another one – an elderly, frail man – by the shoulders, slammed him against a mattress and barked, “I said, ‘Stay in bed.’ “
He ignored the alarms on vital-sign monitors in the emergency room, shouted at co-workers and once hurled a thirsty patient’s water jug against the wall, yelling, “How do you like your water now?” according to state records.
Murphy’s fellow nurses at Kaiser Permanente Riverside Medical Center finally pleaded with their bosses for help. “They were afraid of him,” a hospital spokesman said.
Under pressure, Murphy resigned in May 2005. Within days, Kaiser alerted California’s Board of Registered Nursing [2]: This nurse is dangerous.
But the board didn’t stop Murphy from working elsewhere, nor did it take steps over the next two years to warn potential employers of the complaints against him. In the meantime, Murphy was accused of assaulting patients at two nearby hospitals, leading to convictions for battery and inflicting pain, board and court records show.
Even Murphy, who has since taken classes to curb his anger, was surprised the board didn’t step in earlier.
Read on…
