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Originally Posted by Cynthetiq
Someone asked me if I knew anything about the Icelandic healthcare system since it is supposed to be a great system and I have a desire to live there one day. But if you look at the fact that Iceland cannot provide great coverage for 300,000 people as highlighted by large debt and waiting lists from the articles I posted.
And yes, isn't that part of the American Dream? that people can strive to achieve and earn more and better their lives than previous generations? Seems to be working for me as a 1st generation immigrant. Seems to be working for my wife who grew up below the poverty line.
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You don't know how frustrating it is to read your posts on this thread, thinking as I do, that you do not have a clue. You forage for flaws in Iceland's admirable universal healthcare effort, while these parasites suck our "system" dry, for their own selfish gain, using questionable or illegal methods...the Frists took HCA public, at huge ancillary expense, and then, again at huge expense for fees to m&a lawyers and investment bankers, they took HCA private again, just recently:
Quote:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=16045685
Feds Fight Rampant Medicare Fraud in South Florida
by Greg Allen
Listen Now [5 min 13 sec] add to playlist
All Things Considered, November 6, 2007 · It doesn't sound sexy, but amid the bikinis, beaches and palm trees of South Florida, one of the most popular and lucrative crimes now is Medicare fraud, and a team of federal investigators and prosecutors are tasked with putting a stop to it.
The dollar totals are staggering: Law enforcement officials say they've uncovered more than a half-billion dollars in fraudulent claims this year in South Florida alone.
If you want to know how bad Medicare fraud is in Miami, a good place to start is with a study released by federal inspectors. They visited, at random, nearly 1,600 businesses in Miami that bill Medicare for services allegedly delivered to beneficiaries.
The U.S. attorney in Miami, Alexander Acosta, says the inspectors found that nearly one-third of the businesses — 481 — didn't exist.
"Those 481 businesses — so-called businesses that didn't exist — had billed $237 million in fraud over the past year," Acosta says.
That study helped focus national attention on the problem of Medicare fraud in Miami — especially among shell companies that purport to sell what's known as "durable medical equipment" — wheelchairs, walkers, respirators and the like.....
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinv...ionaires_x.htm
New names among the richest on Forbes' billionaires list
Updated 3/11/2005 5:40 AM
....Tennessee had three entries on the list: Martha Ingram and family of Ingram Industries at No. 228 with $2.6 billion; Frederick Smith of FedEx at No. 306 with $2.1 billion; and <h3>Thomas Frist Jr. and family of HCA Inc. at No. 584 with $1.1 billion.....</h3>
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<h3>...and in a state with less than 9 million people with 1.7 million unisured, this is what is happening to the most important hospital in a metro area of 5 million residents, as a consequence of caring for the uninsured:</h3>
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http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...nt&btnG=Search
Sweeping changes expected for Grady | ajc.com
Pete Correll, a leader of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, ... <h3>Grady's equipment has suffered as the cash-starved hospital has focused on paying its ...</h3>
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/met..._1116_web.html - 48k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
http://broadcastatlanta.com/index.ph...974&Itemid=871
DeKalb Gives $5 Million To Grady, Asks For Audit And Plan
Mary Swint
Tuesday, 09 October 2007
...“The issue is not going away,” Commissioner Kathie Gannon said. “The $5 milllion is a token amount of money. It says DeKalb County is doing its part, supporting the mission and vision of Grady.” She added that the board looked forward to working with the hospital authority on developing a plan for Grady.
Commissioner Burrell Ellis introduced the last resolution to come up for a vote. It urges the Governor and General Assembly to raise the Medicaid reimbursement rates to the maximum levels permitted under federal rules to adequately cover Grady’s cost in caring for Medicaid patients. The Ellis resolution also asked the state to provide health insurance to more uninsured and underinsured residents by extending Medicaid to cover more adults and extending Medicaid and PeachCare to cover all Georgia children. The resolution also urged the Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Speaker of the House “to state publicly at the earliest opportunity their intention to request the 2008 Session of the General Assembly“ to make these proposed changes.
Ellis pointed out Grady provided $72 million in unreimbursed care to uninsured and underinsured patients in 2005 and the Medicaid program pays Grady for about 85 percent of the cost for caring for Medicaid patients, causing the state’s largest hospital to lose $144 million in 2005. His resolution was approved....
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=1&gl=us
State to give Grady $5.4M next year
Hospital board claims the money still is not enough
By Gayle White
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/08/07
Financially strapped Grady Memorial Hospital got a boost from the State Department of Community Health on Thursday, but not as much help as Grady officials had hoped.
Under a new formula for distributing federal funds, Grady will get $5.4 million more for next year than in 2007— but still considerably less than in 2006.
Grady Health System's estimated share of the funds in 2008 will be about $73.2 million, up from $67.8 million in 2007. But in 2006, the hospital system received almost $91 million.
Clayton Shepherd, treasurer of the board that governs Grady, said the additional money will help "a little bit," but that the state board of community health "just doesn't get it" when it comes to Grady.
"This is not what Grady really needs," Shepherd said. "We had hoped this Department of Community Health would be a big help to Grady in the turn-around process."
The federal money being distributed is from the Disproportionate Share Hospital fund, commonly called DSH or "dish," set aside for hospitals that provide most health care for the poor. Grady is by far Georgia's largest provider of health care to the poor and uninsured.
But because Georgia has changed the criteria hospitals must meet to qualify for the funds, about three dozen more hospitals are now eligible—meaning the pie has to be sliced into more pieces. And the federal government furnishes only about $260 million to cover about $1 billion in uncompensated costs for Georgia hospitals.
In a statement released after the meeting, the Department of Community Health emphasized its obligation to the whole state, saying Grady "is by no means the only hospital incurring costs from indigent and <h3<uncompensated care of the state's 1.7 million uninsured.".....</h3>
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=1&gl=us
Shutting Grady would swamp other hospitals, many say
By GAYLE WHITE / gwhite@ajc.com
Published on: 11/25/07
Consider these possibilities:
A well-insured woman's long-awaited hip replacement is postponed. Her bed has been taken by a homeless woman in need of emergency surgery for a broken hip.
A house in Buckhead bursts into flames, and several people are burned. Helicopters airlift them to Augusta to the state's only burn center.
A late-night pileup occurs on the Downtown Connector. Ambulances race the most severely injured passengers to Macon, where the specialists they need are available around the clock.
Those and other images of metro Atlanta without Grady Health System have brought business leaders, elected officials, doctors and clergy together in a historic effort to save the state's largest public hospital.
Having Grady healthy is in the best interest of all metro Atlanta residents and all other hospitals, said Dr. Robert Albin, chairman of the board of the Medical Association of Atlanta.
"There's no doubt in our minds that the medical delivery system in Fulton and DeKalb counties is entirely incapable of absorbing the inpatient, outpatient, emergency and referral load if Grady is not there," Albin said.
"People would be naive to believe there wouldn't be a logjam in the emergency rooms in all our hospitals. They would be naive to believe there wouldn't be a shortage of beds. The access to health care people have taken for granted may be severely compromised."
Hope for survival
Months of studying, meeting and negotiating could come to a head Monday when the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority is scheduled to vote on restructuring management of the Grady Health System.
A task force of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce proposed turning over day-to-day management to a private nonprofit corporation run by a board independent from county politicians.
Leaders of the task force, which was created at the request of the hospital authority, said the shift is mandatory to attract the money needed to keep the hospital afloat.
Grady has lost money every year since 2000 and faces a projected record deficit of about $55 million this year.
Chamber leaders say they have a $200 million commitment for capital improvements at Grady if the proposal is approved.
Critics argue that county, state and federal governments should fund the hospital adequately under its current management system and warn that creating a private corporation could endanger Grady's commitment to the poor.
Both sides say Grady must be rescued. At stake is a range of medical services, from a neonatal intensive care unit that cares for babies from throughout Georgia, to Crestview, the state's largest nursing home.
Right now, Grady is the front-line hospital in the event of a plane crash at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, a major influenza outbreak in metro Atlanta or an assassination attempt on a visiting presidential candidate. And, as a teaching hospital for Emory University and Morehouse schools of medicine, Grady Memorial Hospital trains a quarter of Georgia's physicians.
"Grady doctors go all over the state," said Ben Robinson, executive director of the Georgia Board for Physician Workforce. "Grady is servicing rural Georgia as well as Atlanta."
Selling point for business
Any threat to Grady threatens not only medical care across metro Atlanta but possibly the region's economy, business and medical leaders say.
"Atlanta hosts over 3 million people a year in conventions and trade shows alone," said Bill Howard of the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau. "Trauma centers are probably not at the top of the mind for meeting planners, but they become top of the mind if an emergency comes up."
Georgia Tech economist Thomas Boston, who conducted studies in 2001 and 2006 on the economic impact of Grady, said Grady is an essential part of the social infrastructure that draws businesses to Atlanta.
"Major corporations will not move to an area they perceive has overcrowded and inefficient health care services," Boston said.
Business aside, some Atlanta area clergy are saying Grady is essential to the moral vision of the city because of its role in indigent care.
Grady is there, said the Rev. Gerald Durley, co-chairman of the Regional Council of Churches of Atlanta, "for the least, the lost and the left out."
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=1&gl=us
9 reasons Grady could matter to you
By GAYLE WHITE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/25/07
What's so important about Grady? Medical experts say the 115-year-old hospital offers a range of services not duplicated elsewherein Atlanta.
TRAUMA
When a major tragedy happens in Atlanta — from the 1996 bombing at Centennial Olympic Park to the Bluffton University baseball team's deadly bus wreck in March — Grady Memorial Hospital's medical team is usually on the front line.
On an average day, Grady's trauma unit treats about 10 severely injured patients — about 3,700 a year.
Grady is one of only four Level One trauma centers in Georgia, a designation that signifies 24-hour-a-day coverage by a range of medical specialties. The others are in Macon, Augusta and Savannah.
"Grady sees literally twice the volume of trauma we do in a year," said Vernon Henderson, the surgeon who heads trauma at Atlanta Medical Center, which has a Level Two trauma center. "Grady is the standard-bearer for trauma in Georgia."
AMBULANCE
If workers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are exposed to a biohazard, specially trained Grady paramedics will transport them. Grady's is the only such team in the country outside the U.S. Army and is training medical transport teams from other cities.
As for day-to-day operations, Grady ambulances make more than 90,000 trips a year, transporting more than 66,000 patients.
INFECTIOUS DISEASE
Last year, clinicians from six countries visited Grady's infectious disease center, which is recognized internationally for HIV care. Patients with tuberculosis and increasingly with tropical diseases also are cared for there.
Besides treating 4,700 outpatients last year, infectious disease doctors were consulted on more than 1,000 additional inpatient cases.
The infectious disease clinics also dispensed more than $33 million worth of medication for the Georgia AIDS Drug Assistance Program.
MEDICAL EDUCATION
Earlier this year, Emory University neurosurgery resident Luis Tumialan allowed a television crew to film his life for a CNN documentary called "Grady's Anatomy."
Tumialan is passionate about Grady. "We take enormous pride in what we do here," he said.
About 900 of Emory University School of Medicine's 1,000 medical residents and almost all of Morehouse School of Medicine's 100 residents train at Grady. Emory and Morehouse faculty serve as Grady's attending physicians.
As many as half of the medical residents who come from out of state to train at Grady stay in Georgia, said Dr. Thomas Lawley, dean of Emory's medical school.
MENTAL HEALTH
Schizophrenia, depression, addiction — more than 1,000 patients a year are admitted to Grady's famed 13th floor with those and other mental health problems.
Some come through the health system's emergency psychiatric service, one of the busiest in the country with more than 17,000 annual visits. Altogether, patients see Grady psychiatric staff members more than 77,500 times a year.
With state mental hospitals already crowded, hospital officials say, many patients would be on the streets unmedicated without Grady.
NEONATAL SPECIAL CARE
Some are tucked under blankets decorated with teddy bears and bunnies. Some are invisible in isolettes that keep them in the dark, as if they were still in the womb.
The babies in the neonatal special care units at Grady are among the state's most fragile infants and are often born to indigent mothers. Some are delivered as much as three months premature, weighing less than 2 pounds. They will stay here for weeks or months until their organs develop more fully and they reach a weight more normal for birth.
On an average day, the Grady staff cares for 30 infants. Last year, about 600 were born or brought here from 55 counties across North Georgia.
POISON CONTROL
If a panicked mother in Hahira or a doctor in Valdosta calls the state poison hotline, Grady answers.
Grady operates the Georgia Poison Center, with funding provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Georgia Department of Human Resources.
The center, whose phones are staffed by doctors, nurses and pharmacists, answers about 200,000 calls a year — 800 a month from animal owners whose pets have just eaten something suspect.
SICKLE CELL DISEASE
With more than 1,000 patients, Grady is home to the world's largest center for adults with sickle cell disease, the most common genetic blood disorder in the United States. The Georgia Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center at Grady also has the only around-the-clock emergency department just for adults who develop acute complications from sickle cell disease.
The combined approach allows Grady doctors to do research on sickle cell disease.
"We're heavily involved in national trials to improve treatment and avoid complications," said the center's medical director, Dr. James Eckman.
BURNS
An average of one severely injured patient a day is admitted to Grady's 23-bed, specially equipped burn unit, the larger of only two such units in the state.
Many patients end up hospitalized for weeks because of severe pain and high risks of infection, scarring and complications. Grady physicians see outpatients for burn care about 2,000 times a year.
Georgia-Pacific executive Eric Armstrong was lighting a water heater at an Oklahoma vacation home two years ago when a propane leak caused a flash fire that burned him and his wife. Georgia-Pacific flew them back to Grady.
"My husband and I both talked about what great care we got," said Barbara Armstrong. Today, she's a volunteer in the burn unit.
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