PRESENT Residency Insight

"You've got to get mad! You've got to say, "I'm a human being, goddamn it! My life has value!"

I want you to go to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" I want you to get mad. I don't want you to protest, I don't want you to riot, I don't want you to write to your congress man, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression, the inflation, the Russians, or the crime in the streets. All I know is that first...You've got to get mad! "

Network (1976)
Starring Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall. Written by Paddy Chayefsky, and directed by Sidney Lumet.

We refer to the status of healthcare in this country as a crisis. Yet this crisis has lasted over 20 years. Heck, World War Two was over in less than eight years. I believe that what we have been calling a crisis is now becoming the status quo. New, ineffective legislation, which never seems to stem the tide, comes out year after year. For every promising piece of legislation that comes out, new laws are enacted, making it more and more difficult for all of us. The senior population looks to Canada for affordable medication, but access to this alternative source will eventually be blocked. The answer: Buy stock in Pfizer. Current stock price $31.72 per share.

Compensation for physicians and hospitals continues to dwindle. This makes it necessary to see more patients in a shorter period of time with smaller staffing ratios. This opens the door for more medical mistakes to occur. The answer: Turn to personal injury attorneys. They compensate the physicians who work for them and their expert witnesses better than any managed care organization.

In Florida, the legislators are suggesting new statutes that say "three strikes and you are out". This makes perfect sense as we haven't had a worthy piece of legislation to limit attorneys fees, cap excessive rewards, or stop frivolous law suits, but we are going to oust physicians who have been involved in three malpractice suits. The answer: Practice medicine defensively, order more tests, bring in as many consultants as possible, avoid high risk patients, particularly if they have no insurance. And whatever you do, give up that target on your lab coat called malpractice insurance. Damn it, go bare and protect your assets. For patients who may be harmed, sorry!

There are millions of uninsured Americans who have no access to healthcare at all. Politicians have bantered around the idea of a Canadian style universal healthcare program for years. If you want something run well and cost effectively, "turn to the government". Look forward to three hundred dollar disposable syringes along with a crumbling healthcare infrastructure. You too will be able to wait months to get an MRI evaluation or that much needed cardiac procedure. The answer: Despite the pending insolvency of the Medicare program and continued prospect of millions of uninsured Americans, offer the populous a one trillion dollar tax cut. In lieu of proper healthcare, direct the uninsured to tax supported hospitals once their paronychia becomes a necrotizing fasciitis. Through the emergency room they will be directly admitted to the hospital and get their yearly physical to boot!

BUSH said he would end frivolous lawsuits and claims to have made prescription medicine affordable. I must have been out of the country for the last four years. KERRY promises affordable healthcare, yet his running mate made his fortune suing doctors. You choose!! Good luck!! Don't sit on your hands. Let's hear what you have to say. Write in to us and let us know how angry YOU are...