Health Care?

Or just another stupid idea?

This past week I have been scanning a lot of documents. With the scanner I use, it was quite a drag. So time consuming! So, this week I have thought a lot about a conversation in the office of my doctor - my primary care physician.

First, please understand that I consider my doctor an extraordinary person. Recently, after my annual physical, I unfolded a list of questions I had saved up to ask. I used up a lot of the doctor's time. The doctor never hurried me, but answered every question to my total satisfaction. Finally, realizing I had taken so much time, I thanked the doctor and apologized for taking so much time. The doctor replied, with a smile, that I should not apologize for asking questions... it is the doctor's job to answer my questions. When I again expressed my appreciation, the doctor said, "It really is okay. But, if one day you have to wait a few minutes longer in my waiting room, please be patient as I may be answering extra questions for another patient.

Honestly... what more could you ask?

But, back to my earlier referenced conversation with the office manager. My off-hand remark was "How are things going?" The frustrated person said she was trying to figure out where they were going to get $18,000 to pay for computer programming required by the new health care law to get their patients records digitized... then, she added, we have to scan all of this. She motioned to shelves of folders, each holding the detailed medical records of one patient.

Obviously, the cost of the software would be only a down payment. The real cost would come in opening each folder, scanning each document, and then checking to see that each document was clearly readable. You can't risk a patient's life by posting medical records that are not crystal clear and accurate in every detail. Obviously, this office staff could not handle that - they would have to hire people to do the job.

I shuddered! The stuff I had been scanning was not life threatening. If one of the documents turned out to be hard to read, no one would suffer. But with my doctor's files, some one could suffer. Then I thought of the documents in my own medical files. There were reports from labs on blood work. Notes from specialists who had performed tests. All on different kinds of paper - some with scribbled notes by a technician. My doctor, who knows me so well, could decipher them. Could another medical professional, far away, looking at a computer screen?

It seemed so simple: put the patient's records on line, improve care, improve accuracy, save lives. Now, I realize it is just another hair-brained idea from someone who has no idea what is involved... a hair-brained politician or bureaucrat. A hair-brained idea that is going to increase the cost of medical care - and could well endanger some patient's health.

Veterans

Recently you may have seen pictures of World War II veterans floating around the internet. Most look something like this guy:


And, today's young people find it difficult to connect. It's somewhat like looking at the picture of George Washington on a dollar bill. Nearly impossible to animate that person, to comprehend what they were like as a living, breathing human, the ones who took up arms for America.

Too bad you couldn't know some of these guys as I knew my Army buddies. Like Bill Martinek:

Cpl. Martinek (from Topeka, KS) was a good looking guy. He would have caused heart throbs among all the girls at a high school prom. But Bill wasn't at a High School Prom. He was in the Western Pacific, in the service of his country.

And, how about Chester Liszka? Maybe today Chester looks like the old pictures of Vets we now see. But this is what he looked like back on Leyte:


We used to hear a lot about our "boys" in uniform. The Army never called them "boys" - the Army always called them men! But, they were boys. Good, wholesome American boys who loved their country enough to interrupt their lives and enlist in the Army.

So, the next time you see an old, stooped guy with a VFW hat, close your eyes for a moment, and see Bill Martinek or Chester Liszka as they were 65 years ago.

Maybe, though, you can avoid imagining those few, devil may care, undisciplined types who had fun no matter what... like this guy. Uh... oh, never mind... that was me!

Yardsticks: Good and bad.

We use a lot of standards to compare things. Sometimes I think those standards are out of whack.

We see a guest appear on a TV news program and immediately the screen shows a sidebar listing the educational accomplishments of the guest. B.A. at such and such school in some year; M.S. at some other school in a later year; Ph.D., perhaps; then political offices held. Ho Hum!

I am reminded of the old joke about the country boy who went off to school and climbed the ladder of academia. Eventually he could write his name followed by BS, MS, PhD. Another country boy asked his pa what the letters stood for. The old man explained, "We know what BS is; MS means more of the same; Ph.D. means Piled Hip Deep".

Recently, when Barack Obama appointed Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, some commentator remarked that she had gone to "all the right schools." Really? By what or by whose standards were those schools "right"? Was it the price of the tuition? Was it the number of Senators and other famous politicians who graduated from the school? Was that because of a better education provided, or just because that was the school chosen by wealthy, influential parents? And what difference does that make to a student, anyway?

Years ago, when my youngest son was attending a Community College, he had a conversation with a lawyer who had graduated from one of the prestigious Ivy League schools. My son asked what difference it might make to attend such a school, compared to, say, a state university. The lawyer answered that, in a given course, both schools may use the same text book. But, at the Ivy League school, the professor may well be the guy who wrote the book.

Fair enough. But which student is better? The kid who listens to the lecture by the guy who wrote the book, then goes out to party and cruise around in the luxury car his parents bought for him... or the poor kid who leaves the state university classroom, goes back to his dorm room and reads and re-reads that textbook, absorbing all the information, truly learning what the author had written?

In preparing advertising for a certain trade school, I once asked the school administrator if her students really excelled after completing her course of study. She said that some students graduate, then fade into oblivion. Other students, once exposed to the information, exploded with confidence and enthusiasm, found ways to be better and accomplished significant things. In other words, the school introduces the student to knowledge but it is up to the student to do something with that introduction. You've heard the old riddle, "What do they call the guy who graduated last in his class in medical school? DOCTOR!"

Yes, there is a difference in schools. Some teach better than others. Some demand more of their students than do others. But the mere fact that a person attended a certain school means nothing to me. Why even list it? We need a better yardstick... how did that student perform in school? What did the student accomplish after graduation?

Years later my son was teaching at Cornell - high above Cayuga's waters. He spent most of his time in his office with students who were begging for a higher grade. He said a student would make 60% on a test, then argue endlessly for a better grade.

Maybe that sorry student is today holding some very important position in government, and proudly proclaims that he graduated from Cornell! He is still a 60% student.

Time to opine!

I have to vent. After a year of outrageous actions on the part of our federal government, one more outrage should not cause your head to explode. However, the piling of the Obama Administration's reaction to the new Arizona immigration law on top of all previous outrages, does the trick.

Barack Obama warns that if you take your child out for ice cream a police officer may demand to see "your papers".

Eric Holder, America's top lawyer, is concerned that the Arizona law will lead to racial profiling and announces that the government is considering filing a lawsuit against the state of Arizona.

Then, under oath in a Congressional hearing, Holder admits he has not read the Arizona law! (Members of Congress were handed a Health Care Bill of over 2,000 pages and expected to read and understand it in 24 hours.)

Doesn't everyone understand that neither Holder nor Obama have read the Arizona law, because neither man gives a damn about the content of the Arizona law? They only want to keep agitating the subject to help assure that the vast majority of Hispanics will vote for Democrats.

Big Girls Don't Cry...

Well, sometime they do, along with big boys. The truth is, some people, boys and girls, big and small, old and young, easily cry. Some do not.

If you easily cry, it is totally beyond your control. You hear a patriotic song; you spot a disabled veteran; you watch a wedding as people make vows they, and you, hope will hold a lifetime; the accomplishment of a child; a random act of kindness... your eyes suddenly burn and tears well. You dare not speak, knowing a choke, a sob, or some other involuntary sound will come from your throat and reveal your emotional overload. They will wonder.

Elvis Presley once recorded a song titled "I Was The One". He sang, the sight of her tears drives you out of your mind. As a matter of fact, the sight of tears drives a lot of people out of their mind, and not in an empathetic way. People who do not cry look at people who do cry as weak, or worse. At best, they turn their eyes away. Sometimes they make a remark that hurts.

A senior friend once admitted that he cried at the drop of a hat. That made me think that crying easily was just another unpleasant side effect of aging. As though, by the time you are old, your nerves have been rubbed so raw, your emotions easily erupt in tears. Then, I see younger people cry... at times when they should not!

So, it remains that some big girls, and others, do cry, whether they like it or not. I've noticed that if a person has a visible disability, like a limp, people sympathize. If the disability is not so visible, as in the case of mental disability, people just dismiss you as stupid. Crying, involuntarily, is visible. But don't expect sympathy.