RES: AW: [HSF] (OT?) Dr.Jacobs concern

[Tea Acuff]

I liked Jacob's car analogy as one of the first generation cardiac surgeons in Dallas used to state that a CAB cost the same as a new Cadillac. It was a decade or two ago, so I think he was expressing inflation. The idea has stayed, however.
 
The analogy is also interesting in terms of transparency. There is a published "price" for a new Cadillac, but it is in reality a moving target. We are hearing a lot of calls (now from Pres. Bush also) for transparency, which seems "reasonable" to me. However, it does not seem reasonable to me to have a fixed and fair price, and be expected to give a different rate for medicare or even free if the buyer has no money. Then transparency (like our previous "cost" thread) means nothing. I guess our bill could look like our phone bills:
CAB X3...$3000, medicare surcharge (for paying patients)... $1000, required free care surcharge...$800, HIPPA compliance fee...$78, etc. Now that would be transparency.
 
I was a little in disagreement with the proletariat reference as I think much of what is going on is more due to open market and less closed market forces, and thus would be a commodity impact and less a Marxist one. However, Theofile shares the same philosophic orientation. The UN is certainly is leftist or at least beyond regulation on to central control in its leaning. The "aim lower" motif attributed to the UN reminds me of my favorite proletariat confession which is "they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work." I have certainly continued the assertion that governments and economics matter greatly to everything we do, particularly for our concerns in medicine and its practice. "Pretending" that it doesn't pushes one philosphically (either by accident or design) towards those that are "left" to pretend. I may be quilty of wearing too American glasses in my analysis, but maybe a few are starting to notice and speak out. I got that sense at the STS. No consensus, but
 more awareness seemed present in the comments.

tea


----- Original Message ----
From: Theofilo <gauze at brturbo.com.br>
To: OpenHeart-L at lists.hsforum.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 7, 2007 10:51:52 AM
Subject: RES: AW: [HSF] (OT?) Dr.Jacobs concern


Dear Jacob,
Your words are true and very up to date with the reality of our profession.
Not only heart surgeons have been proletarized but medicine as a profession
that care for the individual human being. That's against the communist
agenda of many governments and even UN once we can make a difference as
doctors and expose their lies. We need people like you and many others to
raise our concern and stand against this. Corruption is in many ways what we
see frequently in low pay environment where people say its possible to
perform for very little money. You can't squeeze lemonade out of rocks and
someone in someway is paying for that bill. Today in many parts of the
world, under UN influence the motto is "if we lower our personal
expectations the world would be a better place" - that's communist bull#*@
and we're seeing more and more political and not technical based decisions
guiding our practice and even worst the fate of our business. 
Unfortunately we may be too few and too late, anyway time will tell.
O man, that's some preaching, uh?
Theofilo Gauze
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