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I Held My Nose

1/29/2020

Do the Democrats want to win the presidency in 2020? I’m not at all sure. Oh, they say they do. They say defeating Donald Trump is the primary goal. But they don’t mean it. If they did, they wouldn’t be creating fodder for the Republicans to use in the race.

Like Elizabeth Warren saying that Sanders opined a woman couldn’t win. Now I have no idea whether he said that or not. He, of course, denies it. If he did say it, he’s reprehensible. If he didn’t, she is. What’s bad is, whether he said it or not, there is still a chance he could become the nominee. And if he does, that accusation will haunt him. I fear that women, Democratic women, may withhold their vote. And Donald reaps the benefit.

For at least the duration of this election cycle I’m a believer in a modification of the Reagan principle, “Never speak ill of a Republican.” We need to apply that to the Democratic party. Especially this year. Especially with the current president in office.

But it wasn’t Warren’s statement, or any of the multitudes of others made by one of our candidates about another, that triggered this screed.

It was someone not running for office.

It was Hillary Clinton.

The New York Times reported her stating in an upcoming documentary, when asked about Bernie Sanders, “Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done.”

What was she thinking? What possible good could come out of it? Why does she believe her words have significance anymore?

She even declined to commit to an endorsement if he becomes the nominee.

Does she blame him for her loss in 2016? Is this just sour grapes? Ironically, when she won the nomination that year, he didn’t hesitate to endorse her and work for her election. He accepted that the threat to our nation surpassed any bitter feelings of his loss.

That threat, of course, is even worse than we could have imagined. We’ve had three years to learn how easily a democracy, even one that has lasted almost two and a half centuries, can be lost.

Hillary Clinton seems to share no such fear. It is her ego, her entitlement, her basic character that seems to drive her.

And it is these characteristics that had me holding my nose as I filled in the oval by her name when I voted.

If she is as smart as she thinks she is and she truly has bad feelings about Sanders, she should hold her own nose—and clamp her mouth.

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Doctors and Hospitals

1/22/2020

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My wonderful primary care physician of many years retired some time back. He worked hard to find each of his patients a replacement doctor. To his credit, he also arranged for continuing employment for his staff, most of whom had been with him for years. His solution was to join a large group of 275 physicians offering 29 specialties in 89 different locations. Not the single doctor office I was used to!

It wasn’t only the size that differed. This huge practice is part of one of the two major hospital systems in my area. Both of these systems have been gobbling up doctors throughout the region in a competition to build the largest organization, presumably to attract the greatest number of patients.

Recently the same hospital brought a major orthopedic practice into its fold.

I read of one instance when the hospital offered each physician in a different coveted practice a bonus of $500,000 if they would sign up. They eventually did.

A few months ago, my new primary care office referred me to a cardiology group, also a part of the same hospital. And to a pulmonary group, also a part of the same hospital.

I can understand why this type of arrangement would appeal to doctors. They no longer have to be concerned with insurance claims and malpractice coverage. My former doctor had to hire several people just to handle all the paperwork. And malpractice insurance has been an increasing worry for physicians in our litigious society. All that effort can now be centered in one area and the doctors can concentrate on what they trained so many years for and presumably love to do.

I know all the paperwork had, in the past, detracted from the joy of practicing medicine and many doctors left the field in frustration.

Also, I have no problem with the level of care I received by this arrangement. Furthermore, the concern and friendliness I sensed from receptionist to nurse to schedular to doctor seemed genuine.

In spite of the excellent care, however, I do worry about the marriage between physician practices and hospitals.

Suppose I had a medical problem that required specialized treatment and my family doctor was associated with Hospital A. Suppose, further, A has an excellent associated surgeon specializing in the needed area. On the other hand, Hospital B also has such a surgeon who is world renowned and recognized as the leading one in his field.

Would my doctor recommend seeing the one associated with the opposing hospital? Of course, I don’t know the answer. I do know that such a question was raised in one of the newspaper reports. The response from the hospital was something akin to the following: yes, our doctors are free to recommend whomever they wish. But the comment was extended to: but we would expect significant justification to be provided. My worry was exacerbated by a recent article describing a doctor’s lawsuit alleging his firing was the result of treating a patient outside his home base’s system.

Let’s look at another scenario. Suppose Hospital B had equipment that could treat my ailment and A did not. Would I be informed of it by my doctor or would I be treated by Hospital A with the best they had to offer, but not the best available?

I don’t have any reason to suspect my medical team would advise anything less than what would be best for me. But I have a healthy suspicion that any organization’s desire for the almighty dollar might result in significant pressure on them to stay in house.

The possibility of a conflict of interest seems high. And I suspect, if anyone were to suffer from the arrangement, it would be the patient.

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How Have We Sunk So Low?

1/15/2020

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Through the holidays I enjoyed the company of family and friends. During this period of conviviality, one can be excused for believing people are decent, caring, and sensitive.

Until the headline hits: “Judge orders Alex Jones and his InfoWars website to pay $100,000 in Sandy Hook legal fees.”

As you probably know, Alex Jones is the radio talk show nutcase who has a huge listening audience of adoring fans. He is a conspiracy theorist. He harbors right right right wing views. He claims access to President Trump, even had him on his show during the 2016 campaign. He has said so many awful things including the Bush administration was behind the 9/11 attacks, Democrats were plotting white genocide offensives, and global warming is the World Bank’s plan to institute a carbon tax and thereby control the world economy. I did some reading about him and his history for this piece, and the list of his atrocious pronouncements seems endless.

But his attack on decency reached unimaginable heights, or rather depths, when he announced that the Sandy Hook massacre did not occur, that the entire scenario was manufactured by gun control advocates. He said no one died there. To further exacerbate the horror, he accused David Hogg, the articulate Margery Stoneman Douglas shooting survivor, of being a “crisis actor.”

How low can a person get?

Alex Jones is bad enough. But if he was just some confused and disturbed crackpot, we might be able to dismiss him without undue concern. But, unfortunately, he leads an army of similarly obnoxious individuals who breathe in every one of his words, decide they speak the truth, and then enter the saner society with those views shaping their lives. And willing to act on them. The family of one Sandy Hook survivor was threatened by one of them for daring to challenge the absurd statements.

How do such zealots develop? And why are so many willing to listen?

I don’t have a clue, and I am not qualified to speak with any authority. On the other hand, when has that ever stopped me from spouting?

Early in my life, when I was still in an area where radio stations in New York City could reach my tube radio in New Jersey, there was a talk show featuring an articulate guy who attacked local leaders, exposing them to embarrassing questions on corruption and incompetence. I thought it was wonderful. There definitely was a need to bring our leaders up short on these points, just as there still is. The man was fair, attacking actual wrongdoing independent of party.

Later on, Meet the Press appeared on television and performed a similar duty on the national stage.

These early attempts were so popular that the army of talk show hosts grew. In order to build large audiences, they became more and more strident—and less and less objective. They began to be partisan, and the situation we have today was born, where facts have no importance and hatred rules.

I wish I could blame all the hatred on Trump. But it existed way before he appeared. After all, our country has a long history of hate: against native Americans, against blacks, against women, against the Irish, against the Chinese, against Italians, against Latinos, against any immigrant nationality.

A few years ago I thought we were maturing, evolving into better people. I was wrong. The hate was dormant, waiting to be aroused by the Trump ascendency.

I feel sick about it and fear for our country. Have we sunk so low that hope for recovery is gone? I guess we’ll find out in the next few years.

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I Held My Nose

Doctors and Hospitals

How Have We Sunk So Low?

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