-well written, funny at times , poignant at others,love that he shares his own experiences and not
Thank you all for your sharing !
Posted Feb 04 2009, 02:28 PM by Anthony Mirhaydari
I think it was well written and covered the issues succinctly! Right, this is something I can not seem to do lately, my run on sentences and dangling participles are out of control, but, do troll on if you dare! These"wall street monkeys", as I call them, gambled away the American dreams of so many during the past 8 years !! Their outrageous risk taking with other people's money created the Fleecing of America grace à Bush/Cheney's policies.
Right, you may detect a sour taste here at WDF, and you would indeed be right. You see fellow bloggers, I witnessed, both as a physician and a patient ,the evisceration of the American health care system by the insurers who operated with the so called " business model of Wall Street" Here is how it worked:
- they answered first to their stockholders and paid board of directors ,
-then to their top-heavy administrators, who over a five year period from 2001 to 2005, received a 100% increase in salaries
- and somewhere after advertising, accounting manipulations,ie kiting ,they dealt with paying for health care!!! After a little whose bill is it pingpong .....An upside down arrangement for sure!
Meanwhile the small businesses and families of Rhode Island ( a microcosm of America, being the smallest state) sustained 20% increases each year for 5 years- thus a family plan originally costing 425USD per MONTH increased over this period to over 1000USD per MONTH-not including the costs of medications and supplemental fees.
And we wonder why most Americans have no health insurance?( for those following this from other more civilized nations where health care is a right and not a privilege - this seems outrageous!!!) ps the doctors do not , I repeat, DO NOT see any of this profit because of the strict regulations set forth by the government to date by medicare and a complicated formula similar to a derivative
For me, the corporate manipulations of the medical system was just the tip of the economic crash's iceberg! Shall we say foreshadowing?
How could the medical world dedicated to caring for the sick and suffering have allowed these parasites, often masquerading in nonprofit status (ie BCBS), to bleed off the very best medical system in the world to the point where it now stands at 27 by WHO standards. Luckily, France is #1 and still directed by physicians.
Why did so many of my colleagues leave practice early? because among other things, they were in moral conflict with themselves to withhold care from patients to obtain, what I called, "kickbacks" but, the insurers called incentives, bonuses! sound familiar?
For me the demise of the American economic Wall Street driven system FIRST took its toll on the weakest of the weak; the sick and the naivest of the workforce ;the doctors and nurses. These third party players placed antitrust laws on doctors preventing them from gathering to discuss fees or collaborative platforms to address these issues to protect patients. They placed gag rules preventing doctors from communicating to their patients about the insurer's incentives. They passed the risks onto the physicians, hence the malpractice insurance costs went up as more and more patients experienced the fallout of this process wherein the almighty dollar came before the primary intention to heal.
Why do I say the doctors and nurses were naive? Because they thought that everyone was working toward the same goal on behalf of the patients. Rather, the objectives of the insurers could not have been more diametrically opposed to this goal.
The insurers used monies to create warm and fussy advertisements to seduce the businesses but, their modus operandie sp? was to create a quagmire of ridiculous paperwork, billing procedures, audits, oversight subsidiaries who were made up of non clinicians geared toward debating with the doctors about their choices of medications , treatments or services. Hence, more than 60-70% of clinicians' time in the USA was spent tackling the paperwork and billing codes to JUSTIFY their clinical decisions. Talk about regulation and capping earnings! Hellllooo!
Now ,you are no doubt wondering why I have linked my experience with managed care medicine to the financial collapse of the Wall Street....it is because the greedy fed on the weak or highly distracted medical world first before it went onto feed on the home buyers and credit markets in the USA and EU, China, Russia...
At least this is how I see it.
For me leaving my work as a pediatrician, trained at an Ivy League Medical Center, and who experienced the realities of being a patient at the mercy of care plans which were directed by the greed from those in control, the 3rd party payer corporations yes, who were bought and sold on Wall Street ,breath--- I can tell you frankly, I saw this financial downturn coming! Why so many experts have denied understanding this infection of the financial systems is beyond belief and borders on disillusionment.
Lastly, on a more positive note:
- I am glad Daschle withdrew, he was as related in the NYT and THE NATION in bed with these 3rd Party Payers, United Health etc. earning millions from them- this is much more of a detriment to avoiding taxes.
- I am confident in Obama to find the right fit for health care reform, I am rooting for a physician or nurse or someone with more experience with patients.
- Those of you who know me personally, know I fought not just my cancer, to stay in practice, to keep food on the table for my children and good education in the picture for my children but, also,to stage protests in the dead of winter at an Insurer, to help my patients access their care, to serve as an advocate for what is a human right not a privilege of ONLY the wealthy, to gain media support from major networks, to question the editors of major newspapers about their conflict of interest taking big advertising dollars from insurers and not featuring the real new of the abuses at RIBCBS, to write and lecture and teach about how to be proactive when disease or trauma strikes- and yes, I would say, I am tooting my own horn or as we used to say about my Sicilian Grandma, I am on my soap box.
However,as is true to form, from my Grandma in the factories defending the rights of immigrant women during the depression, to my Father as he fought to bring pediatric surgical and intensive care up to the forefront in RI, Italy, Argentina, to my cousin who was one of the first to challenge (and win against) the Vatican regarding the Priest abuses - I hope I have been of service to a cause greater than myself. I so miss practicing, I miss my patients, watching them grow, advising them, being there for them. I see it as the end of a love affair yet, I know that the future hold promise with the intention for HOPE and CHANGE. Thanks for listening to me rant about a subject close to my heart.
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