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Paying For Cancer Treatment for Children in America With a Car Wash, Bake Sale and Fish Fry
"It shouldn't be this way," read the subject line of an email I received Friday morning from a conservative friend and fellow Southerner. "People shouldn't have to beg for money to pay for medical care."
At first, I thought he was referring to my column last week in which I wrote about the fundraising effort to cover the bills, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, that the husband of Canadian skier Sarah Burke is now facing. Burke died on January 19, nine days after sustaining severe head injuries in a skiing accident in Park City, Utah. I noted that had the accident occurred in Burke's native Canada, which has a system of universal coverage, the fundraiser would not have been necessary.
Caroline RichmondBut my friend was not writing about Sarah Burke. He wanted to alert me to another fundraiser, this one on Alabama's Gulf Coast, to help pay for the mounting medical expenses for a beautiful 13-year-old girl fighting for her life at USA Children's & Women's Hospital in Mobile, Ala.
In late November, Caroline Richmond was rushed to the hospital after collapsing on the way home from school. Doctors quickly determined she'd had a stroke and required immediate surgery. The bad news just kept coming. The stroke had been caused by leukemia.
In the weeks following brain surgery, Caroline had to undergo chemotherapy. She later became so ill that she was put on a ventilator and had to be fed through tubes. Although she is still listed in critical condition and faces a bone marrow transplant, Caroline has made progress. She was taken off the ventilator and tubes last week, and is now eating solid food for the first time since the stroke.
As it turns out, Caroline is one of more than 50 million men, women and children who do not have health insurance in the United States, which is why her family is in the same predicament as Sarah Burke's. Caroline's father, Dallas, is self-employed and, like millions of other Americans who do not work for a company that offers health benefits, has not been able to find affordable coverage for his family.
A friend of the Richmonds, Robin Smith, told me Dallas is one of the hardest working people she's ever met. She said he owns a coin-operated laundry and has "two or three" other jobs to make ends meet. "He works round the clock," she said. "You never see him when he's not working."
Knowing that Dallas and his wife, Christy, are worried not only about their daughter but also about the real possibility they might be forced into bankruptcy and lose their home because of the medical bills, Smith has joined other friends of the family to raise money. Caroline's classmates and teachers have put "Cups for Caroline" in all the homerooms at Fairhope Middle School, where Caroline is an eighth-grader. They've also held car washes.
Last night they were scheduled to host a bake sale and fish fry at the American Legion Post in Fairhope. It was that event, also posted on a Facebook support page, that my friend brought to my attention. Until then, I had never heard of Caroline Richmond. I suspect you hadn't heard of her either. I am writing not only to spread the word, but also to ask that you think for a moment about walking in the Richmond family's shoes.
It is important to understand that almost all of us who do have health coverage through the workplace are just a layoff or plant closing away from joining the Richmonds among the uninsured. Those of us who are self-employed like Dallas Richmond or who work for small businesses that can no longer pay for coverage are increasingly unlikely to find decent coverage that we can afford.
Hundreds of thousands of families file for bankruptcy and lose their homes every year nationwide because of medical debt. Many of those people actually have what they thought was adequate insurance, but find that they still have to pay far more out of their own pockets to cover thousands of dollars in bills than their budgets will allow.
My column on Sarah Burke provoked many comments, some from people who essentially wrote, "too bad, so sad." In their opinion, Burke shouldn't have been taking risks on the ski slopes in Utah in the first place. She should have bought coverage that would have protected her in the U.S.
Maybe so. But I wonder what those people, all of whom condemned "Obamacare," will say about Caroline Richmond. When the reform law is fully implemented in a couple of years -- assuming it goes forward -- the Richmonds should be able to find coverage at an affordable price. That's what reform was all about. To make sure that American families don't have to lose their homes when someone gets sick and to make sure that insurance firms can no longer engage in practices that have swelled the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured.
Caroline's story is not unique. Tragedies like her's occur so often, in fact, that they rarely make the news anymore. But it is precisely because they are an everyday occurrence that health care reform was so urgently needed. We have been led to believe by opponents of reform that our health care system is the best in the world. The reality, of course, is that, while we do indeed have some of the world's best doctors and hospitals, the system in which they operate has become increasingly dysfunctional and unnecessarily expensive. This is why the reform law, despite its flaws, must go forward.
To learn more about Caroline Richmond and how to make a donation, visit the Facebook page established by her family's friends.
35 Comments so far
Show AllThe United States, the only advanced country in the world that does not have universal health care. Not exactly something that an American should be proud of. Just as loathsome is the fact that not one of the major presidential candidates, either Democrat or Republican, is championing the cause of UHC.
Simply another reason why every thinking American in this country of voting age should be casting his or her vote for Rocky Anderson in 2012 since he is, indeed, advocating for UHC.
All private-based healthcare insurances are greedy ... that is the intrinsic nature of capitalism! Universal care is the only way to go.
Not sure if Americans can understand that ... They seem so selfishly raised. As a result they should be war lords for any single things they try to get done, e.g. compete for jobs, monitor stocks for retirement, etc ... So unsecured but they find it justified by democracy ... the word they use for "exploitation"!
"the Richmonds should be able to find coverage at an affordable price. That's what reform was all about. "
Oh, Wendell - i do appreciate your coming forward with all the info that you did, but Obamacare was not about helping folks get coverage so much as it was about delivering more customers to the insurance companies.
With rates going up - "affordable coverage" will only be possible with large subsidies from the gov't and when it comes time to fork those over - guess what - the gov't won't be able to "afford" it - "we are so much in debt". Shucks, we have to cut back on Medicare and SS, doncha know - how the heck can we afford to subsidize all those insurance premiums? Sigh, too bad, but it was a nice thought, wasn't it?
If these turkeys had been serious - they would have pushed for single payer or at the very least a robust public option, but the fact that the admin killed both those alternatives, gives the lie, IMO, to this plan being about providing healthcare ...
Wendell, i think your heart is in the right place - start using your bully pulpit to push for single payer and support those who promote it. Here is a good place to start:
http://www.jillstein.org/
==My column on Sarah Burke provoked many comments, some from people who essentially wrote, "too bad, so sad." In their opinion, Burke shouldn't have been taking risks on the ski slopes in Utah in the first place. She should have bought coverage that would have protected her in the U.S.==
Wendell,
- - The degree of physical risk taken by skier Sarah Burke while in the USA is irrelevant. The 2-week term policy I purchased for my family of four was not subject to different rates for activities of varying risk levels. My family paid the same rate as some family that would sky dive for two weeks in the States. Second, a Canadian acquiring travel term insurance can be likened to wearing a seat belt. It's not rocket science. By pointing this out, I am not being cruel nor dismissive to the parents of Ms. Burke. I do not trivialize the pain of their daughter's death.
My principal point a week ago was that YOU seemed unaware that there is such a thing as Trip Medical Insurance for Canadians. For a career executive in the insurance industry, you should be embarrassed. One of the largest vendors of Trip Medical Insurance to Canadians is Mutual of Omaha.
==But I wonder what those people, all of whom condemned "Obamacare," will say about Caroline Richmond. When the reform law is fully implemented in a couple of years -- assuming it goes forward -- the Richmonds should be able to find coverage at an affordable price. That's what reform was all about.==
That's why I paid no attention whatsoever to the Obama health care reform effort.
I do not feel that any of 7 billion human beings on earth ought to be "able to find (HC insurance) coverage at an affordable price". Health care should not have one damn thing to do with Insurance on planet Earth. Saturn or Pluto, maybe. Here, individuals need a social contract with their milieu of residence that 1) responsible effort will be made to disconnect health from wealth, sort of like Church & State, and 2) health care will be financed out of the gross national product of the nation.
Hold on to your hat.
As I would entirely disconnect insurance from health care - so would I entirely disconnect state & private academic education from health care.
The national government should take full responsibility for providing healthcare professionals to treat the citizenry. Health care reform needs to begin at the door of academe. Admission to the Federal Schools of Medicine should be by highly competitive examination. Those few percent who succeed in admission would pay NO TUITION for their medical education. The public would pay for it. Consequently, no medical professional would thereafter get to bitch and moan about =the cost of my education= as justification for his/her income. Their eventual income should be competitive with that of doctoral graduates of other sciences. Imagine what THAT would do to health care costs!
One legitimate place for insurance is in medical LIABILITY. Health care costs in Canada reflect the case that CAPS have been placed upon awards from law suits. No person who has lost a foot due to malpractice can be awarded the province of Prince Edward Island as recompense by some sympathetic jury. Further, legal fees are capped. Canadian lawyers cannot even dream of winning a 12 million dollar lawsuit and earning 4 million dollars. Malpractice insurance for Canadian physicians is presently so low that Provincial governments commonly pay the cost for them, as a perquisite. Bet you didn't know that. Bet nobody else here knows that.
Trylon
Yes YET the Average payout on a malpratice claim in Canada is higher then in the USA.
Overall there are also far less malpratice lawsuits which is tied directly to there being less medical mistakes made.
Those huge Jury awards in the USA have a whole lot of the money going to the lawyers rather then the patient. Personally i think it would be wiser to skip the courts entirely outside a determination of guilt or innocence and then see 99 percent of any money awarded going directly to the patient.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd love to have the raw data for the malpractice claims by country, and do some statistical investigations. Average as a =mean= can hide a lot of information.
In my 17 years working in Canadian hospitals I encountered =a lot of mistakes=. I once had to tell a high school teacher of Industrial Arts that his surgeon had operated upon the wrong side of his spine. I saw evidence of incompetence, and challenged the performance of a surgeon in Kingston, Ontario. A committee of professional peers revoked his license to operate - so he retired early.
I'd like to see a Federal Malpractice Court that hears ALL cases by traveling across the country and being resident in a province for one month.
Trylon
While I may feel pity for the plight of the Richmond family, It in no way justifies socialized medicine. Guess what? News Flash! Bad Things happen. Floods. Fires, Car Accidents, Earthquakes...AND diseases like cancer to 13 year old girls of poor families who work 8 jobs and crawl on their hands and knees up hill to each job both ways, who work 95 hours a day for less than 1% of the minimum wage, just so they can afford to keep the single light bulb on in the deserted former chicken coop they call a home. It's also their only heat source. those poor people.
Let's have the government step in and fix everything! Sure, they screwed up our schools, and Medicare and Social Security, but they can fix this one! Uh, I'll take the "SCREW IT UP WORSE THAN IT WAS BEFORE" bet and spot you the top 25% and bottom 25% of people..
Bad things happen to the poor and to the rich. The poor can't afford quality care? That's life. Period. End of statement. You can't stop earthquakes, you can't stop floods, and you WILL NEVER been able to stop 13 year old girls from getting sick. Back in the early days most rural people didn't live within a WEEK's travel of a doctor. Yet our forefathers never saw fit to mandate X doctors for XXX people and mandate that the government would pay for it all. They were smarter than you give them credit for.
Churches and Civic organizations,employers and just FRIENDS(do you have any of those?) pitch in to help people out when there is a need. That's what good people do. Regardless of if they are helping the Richmond family paying medical bills for poor Caroline, or down at the local bar they "pass the hat" for Jimmy who lost his job at the furniture factory and hasn't been able to find a new job for 6 months.
It's Called CHARITY (have you ever hear that word?)
It's VOLUNTARY (Do you understand the concept of VOLUNTARY?)
Now you want to take my hard earned dollars away from me to pay to treat someone's drug problem, pay for their abortion, or maybe go to fix the gout in 95year old bernice's big toe? No. Simply NO.
Charity starts @ home...and is Voluntary. You can't force people to be charitable. You can encourage. You can inspire. But you can't force.
BTW
I have YET to see in any of these "oh poor poor family with no medical coverage" stories...anyone call out the doctor or the hospital. Where is their charity? Why aren't you demonizing The Hospitals/Doctors/Nurses/Drug Companies ET AL as money grubbing evil businesses who earn their dollars by taking every last penny from the poor Richmond family and forcing them into bankruptcy.
Where's the exposé on the hospital Chief Administrator going skiing in Vale every 2 weekends? Where's the biting article on how many round of golf a week her doctors do and what their country club dues are per year/month? How about a story on the medical reps who pitch the overprices chemo drugs to the docs who gladly accept those "Seminars" in Vegas/Miami/Hawaii "$300 4 drink luncheons" and "Charity Golf" outings the Medical reps and companies pay for yet the Doctors never report them on their taxes
Oh, that's right, ONLY the insurance companies that are evil and must be stopped at all costs..and you want to tap my wallet to stop em?
N O
Simply NO
Which insurance company are you paid by?
I think he lacks compassion, information and mostly imagination about how things could be different. They can and they are in other places.
wow....
Public schools are a foundational element of American democracy and have been since almost the beginning. Social Security and Medicare actually run pretty well, and exist because there was a need, and there was a need because the charity thing wasn't working so well. Single payer health care programs exist in many countries and work pretty well too, and in those countries families with thirteen year old cancer victims do not end up bankrupt.
Yes, but advocates of Randian Fascism want public schools abolished as well, so that argument doesn't really work. Their idea of paradise, which would be hell on earth for anyone with a functioning consience, is a dog-eat-dog world where the strong take everything and the weak are left to die in gutters.
It is weird to mention "American public schools". Most of them are just good at delivering diploma to work at Walmart. American universities/innovations so much rely on a constant flow of foreign brains from countries having more social governments that filled them up without price/quality maximization.
As I mentioned before ... Americans cannot understand it ... raised so screwed up.
Dear Drive-by-Troll,
Are you for real or are you a parody of a latter-day Dickens character?
You mustn't do much reading or traveling, or you would know that government programs providing vital social services are wildly successful around the world. A look at UNHDR statistics shows that the more social programs a county has, the higher it living standard.
Show me an example where your "charity" model has ever worked?
Charity. Okay. You do get that people actually applauded when they heard someone died who didn't have insurance. I don't think we can depend on voluntary charity. But then I'm sure you know that. And you can no more force people to not be selfish than you can force them not to be bigots. However you don't refuse to pass laws concerning human rights because you can't legislate people into not being racist. Neither do you refuse to pass laws to guarantee health care for everyone because you can't legislate people into being charitable. You can legislate for a moral and ethical society.
I just want to add i think it's about time those of us on the left reclaim words like moral and ethical. They have been co-opted by those on the right and used to justify the most heinous disturbing agendas one can imagine. There is nothing moral or ethical about right wing bigotry and special interests. Yet they have claimed the words and used them to beat the left into submission. I say poppycock and balderdash and fun words like that.
Actually, "libertarians" like this person Ron Paul, Rand Paul oppose civil rights laws too.
You are extremely confused. More listening and less ranting would help.
Oh he has been listening - to fox news!
American insurance.. the uninsurance! We are so dishonored.
Random00. Your facts and logic are almost totally inaccurate. Let's just begin with the fact that whether you like it or not, you and your employer are already paying for much of the Richmond family's health care through your insurance premiums and taxes. The hospital is going to provide care. If the Richmond's go bankrupt the hospital must still be paid because we need to have it there. Thus your insurance company pays and your government pays to keep it open.....and of course, you pay them.
The problem we have is the 15% - 20% profit margin going to insurance companies that add not value to the health care system.
Second, you really can't go down the "bad stuff happens" path and people need to take care of themselves because then you run in to wild fires in CA and TX, tornadoes in Al & GA, and floods all over the place..........etc. "Promoting the general welfare" is what government does. You just a picky about your definition of general welfare.
Finally, you repeat the much discredited myth that government can't do anything well. Study the G.I. Bill and its impact on our society, or the inter state highway system, or yes, our public university system with an open mind and you will find that government has done many things very well.
I doubt you will see the logic in any of my comments as I too suspect that you would lose your job should we ever join the rest of the world in providing universal health care.
The time has come for the military to have rely upon bake sales and fundraisers. I have a feeling that interest in war would soon decline if people saw things like "sponsor a drone" and "pennies for predators" and "tag sale for Bradley tanks"!
As we all know, the US health care system is not about delivering "health care" to patients, it rather involves delivering profits to private insurers. The heath care reform bill has some good things in it, but it doesn't alter the fact that health care in the United States is a commodity, like any other.It's a manifest moral evil to make people's health a matter of dollars and cents.
As for RandomOO, I pity your lack of shame in advancing such an "argument." But perhaps, I'm mistaken: you are joking, right? You are only pretending to be a heartless sophister?
I'd love to see a day when war was funded by voluntary contributions.
I find it unfortunate that Mr. Potter seems to have given up and is now promoting Obamacare as an solution, instead of government universal coverage.
Here is a short article on why the whole idea of paying for heath care through competitive "free market" based insurance and an individual mandate and obligation-to-cover (the Obamacare strategy) will only lead to a race to the bottom in terms of coverage and will not constrain costs:
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2011/december/why-competition-among-health-plans-cant-help-us
I agree. Instituting a captive market for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries through a mandate is neither reform nor a viable solution for anyone except the insurance companies.
The whole idea of "insurance" for health care is ridiculous. Insurance is calamities and accidents that will generally not ever happen, or in the case of life insurance happen only once. Medical care is necessity that everyone uses many times. Does one buy insurance to finance groceries of clothing?
But worse, the whole proposition that "free market competition" in insurance plans will control prices is preposterous becasue the competition pressures are completely different for insurance than, say, household appliances. Specifically, unlike someone selling the proverbial "better mousetrap" insurance companies do not want more paying customers if they are the "wrong" customer, and they only want more customers if the customer never uses their product.
You people really do only see what you want to see. You think Social Security is a success? DO THE MATH. How much does it take in over how much it needs to pay out over the next 25 years. That is not success. (or maybe since you went to public schools, your math is so bad, you think negatives are positives).
You REALLY think the Public Education system is a success? Really? Go visit South Central LA or Central Oakland some time. Count how many under 18 kids are riding bikes/walking hanging out @ 10:30am on school day. Ask them how many years of schooling they have attended, and how many more they plan on attending(usually about 6 and "none"). Go to the Indian Reservations in the west (Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas) or Midwest (Minnesota, North/South Dakota, Iowa). Graduation rates under 40%. You call it a success because it works in your wonderful little white, suburban, Starbucks on every corner world. It doesn't work where the majority of people live. If you think it does, I challenge ANY OF YOU to take YOUR kids out of your white bread suburban school and take them to a downtown school in whatever city you live in. Oh, you're not gonna do that? Separate but equal worked so well for racial segregation, I guess it works just as well in education. Hypocrites. Look at the fortune 500 Companies; Private College Degree's are 3 times more prevalent than public school degrees, even though there are 100 times more public school graduates. In what conceivable way can you call that a "success"? You have a 100:1 advantage and you are behind on a 3:1 Ratio? Man your public school education really did suck.
Lastly....If you want to help people who have fallen on hard times. HELP them. Donate time, money, food/clothing/shelter, etc. Charity needs to be voluntary. Weren't you people ever taught that in school, church or from your parents/grandparents? Is it really such a hard concept to grasp?
Just like the Richmond's family's decision to NOT BUY HEALTH INSURANCE was voluntary! They could have purchased health insurance. They would have had to make sacrifices in other areas of their life, but it was an option. They chose not to take it. They gambled. They lost. That was their choice. You want to help them. Great. That's your choice.
Trying to force every American to pay for people who don't want to make sacrifices in their life, who choose to gamble on/with their health, simply isn't right. It isn't the principal that this nation was founded with. No one has a "right" to a 3 bedroom home in the suburbs, 2 cars and 2.5 kids plus a job and the governments help in paying all the bills should poor Caroline get's sick. That's not heartless. So you sell the house (maybe at a loss) and move into a tiny apartment. So you sell the 2 nice cars and get one use hunk a junk. Or you sell both and ride the bus/train. You do what you've got to do to put a roof over your head and food on the table but still keep everyone safe. My parents did it for me and my bro, and my wife and I do it for my daughter. It's HARD to choose to have one crappy car, and live in a tiny apartment, and not have DVR/TV and 500 channels when everyone else appears to have so much. But the reality is, most of those people who appear to have so much are many years salary in debt. I did what my parents, and common sense (which isn't so common anymore), tells you to do. We save for bad days. We plan for the bad times. We spend less than we earn and we don't take risks with our future. I'll be damned if i'm going to let you people FORCE me to pay for the people who took risks with theirs. They made their choices. I'm not paying for them.
" Look at the fortune 500 Companies; Private College Degree's are 3 times more prevalent than public school degrees, even though there are 100 times more public school graduates. In what conceivable way can you call that a "success"? You have a 100:1 advantage and you are behind on a 3:1 Ratio? Man your public school education really did suck."
What's your point? That only the wealthy deserve to succeed. I hope you've saved a lot. Because I am thinking it's not going to last long if the people that share your mindset have their way.
Social Security is successful and unless you're working a scam I think you've paid into it and should assume you will get something out of it like John McCain and many other very successful people. Social Security has proven much more stable than 401ks or other investments.
Many very successful people have spent more than they earn and they've taken great risks with all of our futures. They were the firms that were too big to fail...they actually did fail, but the rest of us bailed them out. Why didn't we ask them to move out of their posh digs, sell their businesses at a loss?
What part of "has not been able to find affordable coverage for his family" did you not understand?
We are already tapping your wallet for TWO universal health care programs, Clean water and Sewers. Those two items together are responsible for more good health and more long lives than all the hospitals in the country combined, and they are (and should remain) public. That is social, something for the community. Bad water and no sewers cause massive public disease and death.
But I am sure you would prefer a world in which the rich buy bottles of water labeled "feces-free" and make the peasants carry away the body wastes of the rich in chamber pots. In the meantime the rest of us are left to rot away in "free-feces" environments.
Sounds like you are less frugal and sensible than you think but are really just a paranoid tight ass. You just wait for it. Wait for the sound of all your plans and belt tightening come crashing around your knees when a medical emergency does you in in ways you had not planned for. The game is rigged, against you. You can't rig the game as an individual, that is why you need the commons where we work for each other. So far you've gotten away with it. So far.
Go visit Finland.
"the Richmonds should be able to find coverage at an affordable price."
Have any estimates on what that cost will be? Can you name an insurer that will be willing to cover them? Or are you assuming they will be covered under the subsidized federal program?
Is that why this reform has to go through? So that the only way our government can cover people that really need medical care is to ensure a captive market for big insurance through a mandate? Have they promised to pay taxes on their profits in return? Or will the insurance companies continue to shelter their profits offshore? Afterall they have no mandate, and only minimal oversight and regulation.
You Mr. Potter are still nothing but an industry shill. That became clear when you like Kucinch bailed on the single payer option.
Still PROUD to be an American??
Not so much. We can't treat our sick kids, but we can bail out Wall St.. We bomb Libya, but we can't stop our police from pepper spraying non-violent protestors. Our brave heros in uniform think pissing on bodies of civilians is good fun while they spread democracy, and presidential candidates don't carry anything less than hundred dollar bills in their wallets. Been really looking for something to be proud of and having a really hard time finding it. Even the Martin Luther King Memorial was designed and constructed by Chinese artists with Chinese marble.
RandomOO you are dead right that this country was not founded on the principle
of social solidarity. As I recall from history lessons, the country was founded on slavery, indentured servitude, genocide, ecocide, land speculation, land grabbing and colonial aggression. The "America" of real history was too often a brutal, savage place where self interest crowded out all claims of common humanity. It seems that you would like to keep THAT America alive, by denying social medicine to those who were too "irresponsible" to buy their own care in the wonderful private market.
I hope you and yours are never placed in a situation where you would have to rely on
"the kindness of strangers" to sustain your lives. What makes you certain that "charity" would always be forthcoming?
I don't believe Jeremy Rifkin's book "The Empathetic Civilization" is correct. We really can't empathize with hurt people, even if they're our own relatives lying in bed, hooked up to life-support. Empathy is only a small part of survival. Denial also has a hand. Denial that we are not superior or demi-Gods, denial of the possibility that there is no god or of how much suffering is possible in this world. Like Nancy Reagan, we don't get behind causes until our "Ronnie" gets Alzheimer's disease. Otherwise, we stay in our bubbles.
It isn't true that our health care system is good in any sense. The outcomes place the U.S. 40th or so in most important measures of health.
There are more problems than just access. Fee for service is a big reason why health care in the U.S. is at least twice as expensive as elsewhere. And it has been shown through careful research that in places where certain specialties in medicine are more prevalent, the services and procedures are prescribed and carried out more often. And a lot of people are dying because the research also shows that deaths and other complications due to those procedures are also higher in those areas where there is a greater number of physicians and clinics of a given specialty.
In other words, doctors are not immune to greed. We need to completely separate profit and money from health care. Doctors and other health care workers should be salaried. To have a situation where the more procedures prescribed the more profits are made is to invite the worst kind of corruption.
A famous cardiologist was interviewed on Democracy Now! a few weeks ago, and he has a clinic in Cleveland, OH with a sterling reputation which has done just that. The physicians on his staff are well paid, but salaried, so what they prescribe is not connected to their financial situation.
Of course that is the situation in the VA hospitals and the public health systems of Great Britain or Australia.
We need real reform here in the U.S. to bring our health care in line with what exists in Great Britain.
At the risk of opening a (related) Pandora's Box that's been troubling me since the holiday season. . .
Is anyone else offended by the onslaught of advertising for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, which is located in Memphis, TN but fundraises nationally? I live in a region that has two healthcare organizations that treat children with cancer; one (like St. Jude's) is also known for performing cancer research and developing innovative treatments. Yet the city where I live sometimes has more billboards for St. Jude's than for both local children's hospitals combined. If I were the parent of a child being treated at either local pediatric cancer center, I'd be furious. Although I don't believe we should only care about children in our own geographic areas, St. Jude's is apparently wealthy enough to advertise as much as a for-profit corporation. Do they really need more money? Clearly children like Caroline Richmond do.
I performed some internet research on St. Jude's, and found a blog written by parents whose children who have cancer. One parent estimated that St. Jude's only treats 5% of the nation's children with cancer, but raises 95% of the money directed toward childhood cancer.
Before you donate to St. Jude's, considering giving to a local pediatric cancer program instead. Chances are they need your money more than St. Jude's.