Health Care

[Cleo's Mom 257]

You can find the healthcare bill at:

www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text

And the 1 AM vote was due to the delays caused by the obstructionist REPUBLICANS. There is procedure and timelines for these bills and because of all the delays and procedural obstructions the republicans did, the vote had to be delayed until 1 AM. You could watch it on CNN. It was on there, and I'm sure other stations, live. I watched it.

[tdslf1 0]

Your hysteria is showing PG. Trying to convince the audience with Glenn Beck tactics. Hilarious.

[pattygreen 5]

You can find the healthcare bill at:

www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text

And the 1 AM vote was due to the delays caused by the obstructionist REPUBLICANS. There is procedure and timelines for these bills and because of all the delays and procedural obstructions the republicans did, the vote had to be delayed until 1 AM. You could watch it on CNN. It was on there, and I'm sure other stations, live. I watched it.

I clicked on your link and was very patient with it, but it showed me NOTHING.

[pattygreen 5]

Reid (D) is a racist. His apology comes 'after' the people catch his 'real' feelings on Obama and blacks.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Reid (D) is a racist. His apology comes 'after' the people catch his 'real' feelings on Obama and blacks.

I don't know if Harry Reid is a racist or not. His remarks are what a lot of people were thinking and certainly not PC but he has apologized and the president accepted it.

I am not a big Harry Reid fan, I would like to see a more progressive democrat replace him, one that is a lot tougher.

Jesse Jackson made some disparaging remarks about what part of Obama's anatomy he would like to cut off because he didn't think Obama was being black enough.

I think Pres. Obama has learned very well how to walk that fine line of being portrayed as the first black president but not campaigning as that. He runs as a democratic candidate who just happens to be black. He has never portrayed himself as the black candidate or president.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Researchers at Harvard University and University of Southern California said an overhaul of the health care system would slow the growth of health care costs, allow employers to spend less on health insurance and more to hire more workers, potentially creating up to 400,000 new jobs EACH YEAR for a decade.

Helping the uninusred get insurance and creating jobs?

Now, that's change I can believe in!!

[Cleo's Mom 257]

OOh, I can't wait for November! I see that Dodd has chosen not to run for re-election. How wise of him. He knows he doesn't stand a chance. And the nerve to say that he wasn't running cause he felt he 'should give someone else a chance at the opportunity'. How 'giving' of him. Oh, but Obama will find him a place for him to be used by the government. I'm sure the dems have asked him to step aside so that there could be a slight chance for the democratic party that is so prevelant in CT. With the offer of a career still in politics, with a nice salary and benefits, Dodd would be foolish to refuse. All the corruption from the dems in the WH and congress make me sick.

I don't think RNC chair, Michael Steele, shares your enthusiasm:

RNC chair Michael Steele doesn't think his party can take back the House in '10, and even if they do, he doesn't know if the GOP is ready.

Appearing on Sean Hannity's nationally syndicated show the same day his new book, "Right Now," hit store shelves, Steele said the GOP is set for "nice pick-ups" in the House. But, he said, at the moment there aren't enough candidates to take out enough Dems.

[tdslf1 0]

For clarification, there many seats up for reelection in 2010. The bulk of them being Rethuglican. Dodd's seat will be taken over by a Democrat. That attorney or governor guy. He is polling way ahead of any Rethug or other Demo in the race. His seat is safe for now. Doogan, no take on that yet, but it doesn't look promising. But there is a whole host of Rethugs and Demo's in the House set to be reelected and I am sure that some will loose their seats and it might be a wash. The point is to get as much done as possible before the dynamics change and we won't be able to get things done. Lets ride the change train till then. I personally don't think it will be a blood bath just for the Demo's. Some Rethugs are going down as well and I think a lot of them know it. If the Demo's do lose the control, lets see what gets done or not gets done.

[tdslf1 0]

"Reid (D) is a racist. His apology comes 'after' the people catch his 'real' feelings on Obama and blacks. "

What part did he say that was racist, cause I don't see it.

[BJean 16]

Sometimes it takes a racist to know a racist.

[tdslf1 0]

Good one BJean.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

This article underscores why WE NEED GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION because left to their own devices PRIVATE BUSINESSES DO NOT/WILL NOT SELF-REGULATE.

And 98,000 a year who die from medical errors? THIS SHOWS WHY TORT REFORM IS A BAD IDEA. I don't want a cap placed on the value of these lives. Each case is different.

Sunday Forum: We need a federal safety agency for patients

It could save a lot of lives, money and anguish by policing medical errors, argues KAREN WOLK FEINSTEIN of the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Item: The newborn twins of actor Dennis Quaid and his wife nearly died after overdoses of heparin, a powerful blood-thinning drug. This occurred due to a mix-up between similarly packaged infant and adult doses (which are 1,000 times stronger). The same error had previously killed or sickened at least 250 newborns. The drug manufacturer had alerted hospitals to potential confusion but not until after the international publicity about the Quaid twins did it clearly differentiate the packaging. The Institute for Safe Medication Practices lists several dozen look-alike medications that cause preventable patient injuries and deaths.

Item: A Pennsylvania man, seriously injured and unconscious after an auto accident, was rushed to a hospital emergency department. A wristband placed on his right wrist denoted an injury. However, at a nearby hospital the same color of wristband meant "do not resuscitate." An ER nurse who worked at both hospitals became confused. Only quick action by other emergency personnel averted a possible death. National research has shown an average hospital wristband identification error rate of 2.2 percent.

Item: Wrong-site surgeries are supposed to be a "never event" in medical parlance. According to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, wrong-site surgeries in our state average 50-plus each year. Most instances are at least partly attributable to the failure of surgical teams to follow a pre-surgery safety checklist.

It's been 10 years since the Institute of Medicine's groundbreaking patient-safety report, "To Err Is Human." The report estimated that up to 98,000 Americans were dying annually as a result of medical errors and that hundreds of thousands more were suffering serious injuries.

Hopes for dramatic improvement in the wake of the report have not been realized. The federal government's 2008 National Healthcare Quality & Disparities Report asserts there has been virtually no improvement in patient safety in recent years.

Some health-care experts nevertheless believe the stage is set for substantial safety improvements. Others are frustrated after a decade of only marginal improvement through voluntary action; they advocate stronger government intervention.

The Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative favors government intervention. We propose that Congress create a Federal Patient Safety Agency to identify recurring medical errors and require quick, preventive action.

Federal regulation has been a powerful catalyst for improving safety in other industries, such as aviation. Rather than a large, new federal agency and onerous regulations, PRHI proposes limited federal intervention that could be implemented rapidly, at modest cost -- intervention that not only would prevent injury and death but also would produce significant savings for taxpayers and private insurers.

Here is an initial outline for a Federal Patient Safety Agency:

• No new reporting requirements: The agency could use existing public and private error-reporting systems to identify recurring patient injuries -- the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, for instance, collects and publishes data in Pennsylvania. Other government agencies, such as the Institute of Medicine, already conduct medical-error research. The new safety agency would rely on these resources to develop regulatory recommendations, such as a standardized hospital patient-identification system.

• Independent evaluation of proposed regulations: No regulatory action would be taken without the concurrence of a public-private Patient Safety Review Commission. Commission-approved recommendations also would go through the normal federal regulatory review process.

• Enforcement: As instances of noncompliance come to the attention of the safety agency, it would be authorized to issue warnings, publicize problems, levy fines or make referrals to federal law enforcement.

When PRHI was founded in 1998, we hoped mistakes in medical settings would be reduced rapidly and dramatically. One of our earliest projects enlisted 30 local hospitals and reduced life-threatening, central line-associated bloodstream infections by more than two-thirds.

That success gave momentum to tackling other infections, medication errors, pathology mistakes and patient falls. But hopes for rapidly spreading and sustaining improvements were naive. We have seen dramatic improvements in certain areas, but not in others. We've learned that quality is not viral.

Part of the problem is that our current health-care payment system rewards errors. If mistakes require further treatment, providers get paid even more for having made them. National exposure of this catastrophic irony played a part in Pennsylvania becoming the first state to require public reporting of hospital-acquired infections.

PRHI vigorously lobbied Medicaid and Medicare officials to withhold reimbursements when egregious errors occur, and it helped to enact new policies. But even negative incentives have produced insufficient patient protections. Observational studies show that most health-care professionals still do not wash their hands appropriately!

Pending federal health-reform legislation would direct Medicare to develop new safety policies to reward hospitals and physicians with good safety records; to penalize providers for high error rates; to publicly report on health-care quality and safety. But none of these promise the gold standard: rapid corrective action.

A Federal Patient Safety Agency of limited scope would not eliminate all medical errors and patient injuries overnight. But by concentrating on the causes of serious, recurring errors -- such as look-alike medications and non-standardized patient identification -- it could expedite significant reductions in preventable patient deaths and injuries. And it could save us all a lot of money.

Karen Wolk Feinstein is president and CEO of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation and president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (www.prhi.org).

Edited January 11, 2010 by Cleo's Mom

[BJean 16]

And that's exactly why tort reform is such a bad idea for people. Good for insurance companies, bad for victims.

I was a victim of a crazy nurse who we guess wanted access to the drugs she wanted to give me. Never mind that I had just come out of major surgery and had no business taking an oral medication. She gave me two huge pain relievers with a glass of Water. Nearly killed me. We tried to find out what happened to the nurse but they protected her and we never saw her again.

And I'm just one tiny little case in a hospital in little ole' Texas. How many other people fight for their lives every day against bad medical care and bad medicine? We'll never know!

My mother might be alive today if it weren't for the negligence of her GP. Who doesn't have someone in their family who as been a victim of bad medical practices? Speak up all you lucky people.

[pattygreen 5]

Sometimes it takes a racist to know a racist.

That was really uncalled for. I think you should apologize for that.

[pattygreen 5]

Health care is not a 'right'. The constitution gives us the right to persue these things, not to have them handed to us. The constitution says our 'rights' come from the Creator, not congress.