People aren't buying the big cars and SUVs in these economic times, these were the products that brought in the proffit that offset the lossed in the other areas of the car business. The same is true for medicine. It is the elective procedures that pay the bills for most hospitals. These are the ones that are covered by the private insurance and provide the profit that allows for all the care of the life threatening conditions and the care of those who can not pay. As the economy has tightened so has the medical market. People are holding off on having that hysterectomy, cholecystectomy, knee scope, hernia etc. In many ways our medical system can be defined as a system where the profit from one group (Private Insured) offset the care for those with government insurance and those with none. The people with private insurance are not spending and as a result of the economics, the rest of medicine is starting to collapse. Two of the seven hospitals in our city are closing and the remaining are restricting their services.
Chrysler like the other big three had huge entitlement burdens that they could not shake. It had a huge tax burden that its foreign competitors did not have and regulations up the wazzo. As the economy declined, it could not survive. The government stepped in, gave it billions of dollars and did nothing to the taxes or the entitlements. It still failed and those billions are gone. They now want it to go bankrupt and merge with a Italian company that has failed many times and now is a constant failure supported by the bankrupt Italian Government. Italy supported the company by raising taxes and entitlements and now they have huge emigration of their young out of the country. Obama wants to raise taxes and increase entitlements here.
Medicine is like Chrysler. It is plagued by huge entitlements, regulation and taxes . Obama wants to change healthcare like he did Chrysler. He wants to increase the entitlements and wants to raise taxes to pay for it. Given what he has done for Chrysler I wonder how long it will be before he bankrupts medical care.
Chrysler like the other big three had huge entitlement burdens that they could not shake. It had a huge tax burden that its foreign competitors did not have and regulations up the wazzo. As the economy declined, it could not survive. The government stepped in, gave it billions of dollars and did nothing to the taxes or the entitlements. It still failed and those billions are gone. They now want it to go bankrupt and merge with a Italian company that has failed many times and now is a constant failure supported by the bankrupt Italian Government. Italy supported the company by raising taxes and entitlements and now they have huge emigration of their young out of the country. Obama wants to raise taxes and increase entitlements here.
Medicine is like Chrysler. It is plagued by huge entitlements, regulation and taxes . Obama wants to change healthcare like he did Chrysler. He wants to increase the entitlements and wants to raise taxes to pay for it. Given what he has done for Chrysler I wonder how long it will be before he bankrupts medical care.
1 comment:
Some years back (this decade) our staff was discussing that it was SDS and Emergency that were keeping our little Mayberry RFD afloat.
SDS was always booked solidly for weeks ahead. I want to say 3 weeks. (forget now)
But knowing all that I have read about ED's in the med blogosphere... I am surprised that they said our ED helped to keep it afloat.
Unless because up in our county..at least then... more people came in with private insurance than didn't. ? Although... self payers, charity and mdcd's were pretty frequent. But a lot had insurance too.
I wonder what it is like now? Not good if it is as you say all over.
The Chrysler thing is mind boggling. Heck... all of it is. Everything feels so different from a few years ago.
I have 4 hospitals job positions that I follow on line. A year ago, especially 2 years ago... Positions were abundant. Not at all now.
I don't understand why they want to merge with a failing company.
I feel so sorry for the autoworkers/dealers.
Regarding putting off surgeries..I can appreciate that. People either don't have the money, insurance or don't want to risk being away from their jobs now..being seen as a liability. Or they don't have time because they are too busy working keeping things afloat.
It seems imminent that Obama is going to reform health care... and it scares me.
I don't understand why people don't understand "free" is not free at all... and will cost us in other ways.
Even WORSE...seriously ..WORSE... i DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY THE SUPPOSEDLY INTELLIGENT PEOPLE IN CHARGE...DON'T FOLLOW THE LOGICAL CONCLUSIONS TO THEIR PLANS (oops, didn't mean caps but will leave for emphasis :)and probable NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES. ???
And that goes for the medical arena and private/business sector regarding our political leaders thinking processes. And I wonder how much effect the lobbyists still have on these political leaders during this time of economic crisis.
No one should be in it for themselves, their party but rather it should all be about the good of our country and it's citizens.
This is definitely off track, but just want to say that it irks me how the liberal politicians, media, etc have portrayed the Tea baggers/parties. They totally missed the point...that *regular,decent people want a voice and regardless of their political affiliations..they want the government to listen to them.
I would love to see a grass roots 3rd party start up and really shake up politicians because THEN as they see potential votes for them going to this other party... they will wake up and do what they were elected to do.
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I'm going to give one of our friends a call and get his take on the Chrysler/Fiat thing. he's an engineer and had been working for Mercedes-Benz and was when they merged w/Chrysler. With them for years but was laid off a couple of years ago. Lucky guy got to test drive all the newly designed cars because he had to evaluate their performance/design etc and so he *had* to bring these cars home and drive everywhere with them and he used them quite awhile before going on to the next one. The never needed auto ins because the cars were insured by the companies.
The sporty ones were awesome! It was always interesting to see what car he came home in. Before I actually knew him..I thought he had some kind of good job that he could continually own these expensive new cars. LOL! :)
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