Medical Malpractice

Do you think this attributes to the high cost of Health care? Will any of the Health care plans change this?

Shortly after Obama took office, his wife, Michelle, received a promotion from her employer, the not-for-profit University of Chicago Hospitals, nearly tripling her earnings to $316,962 from $121,910 the previous year. Obama's earmarks from 2005 and 2006: Here's one highlight: Obama sought money for the University of Chicago Hospitals. Wife Michelle works for the University of Chicago Hospitals, appointed in spring 2005 as vice president for community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-earmarks-obama,1,7838316.story http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_opinion_letters/2006/10/mrs_obamas_sala.html http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/03/sweet_scoop_obama_after_initia.html

Public Comments

1. Obama is hopelessly corrupt that's why he gets you all to attack Hillary all the time, to get the focus off him... this is a cakewalk compared to what McCain will do.
2. Gosh.....all this digging around when you could just tell us why we should vote for old man McCain? How hard can it be to give us a least a couple of reasons to vote for the same old same old? Duh.....Obama was a state senator who's district included the City of Chicago....why shouldn't he have got a few bucks for the folks in his district? Isn't that what elect our representatives for...to represent us? My advice is to dock the swift-boat, go ashore and take some time to dwell on the really pressing issues.....doncha' know there's a war on?
3. Of course ridiculously high salaries for people in the field contribute to costs. None of the pols have any intention of doing a thing about those kinds of extravagant salaries NOR do they intend to make insurers follow contract or antitrust laws, which violations cost us millions if not billions. That's why we need a sensible plan like: QUALITY, ACCESSIBLE, AFFORDABLE health care for all. That means preventative care (physical with follow up). Real medication (no Medicare "donut holes" the really ill are ripped off again.) No bogus ridiculously low "caps" on needed medical procedures. No abuse of the ER. No paying for the silly with the sniffles to go to the doc for free. No more bankruptcies over medical bills. I want THIS plan that ends abuse of the taxpayer, takes the burden off employers, provides price transparency, and ends the rip-off of the US taxpayer at the hands of greedy insurance CEOs (which has been repeatedly documented). http://www.booklocker.com/books/3068.html Read the PDF, not the blurb, for the bulk of the plan. Book is searchable on Amazon.com Cassandra Nathan's Save America, Save the World Hillarycare doesn't address ANY of this: When 75% of the people who declare bankruptcy over medical bills ARE INSURED, then insurance is CLEARLY not the answer. "Aldrich’s situation is "asinine" but increasingly common, said Dr. Deborah Thorne of Ohio University. Thorne, co-author of a widely quoted 2005 study that found medical bills contributed to nearly half of the 1.5 million personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. each year, said that ratio has likely worsened since the data was gathered. ... Like Aldrich, Thorne said, three-quarters of the individuals in the study who declared bankruptcy because of health problems were insured. " http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20201807/ Linda Peeno, MD testified that SHE had often denied treatment JUST to save the insurance company money http://www.thenationalcoalition.org/DrPeenotestimony.html Furthermore: "the vast majority of health insurance policies are through for-profit stock companies. They are in the process of “shedding lives” as some term it when “undesirable” customers are lost through various means, including raising premiums and co-pays and decreasing benefits (Britt, “Health insurers getting bigger cut of medical dollars,” 15 October 2004, investors.com). That same Investors Business Daily article from 2004 noted the example of Anthem, another insurance company. They said the top five executives (not just the CEO) received an average of an 817 percent increase in compensation between 2000 and 2003. The CEO, for example, had his compensation go from $2.5 million to $25 million during that time period. About $21 million of that was in stock payouts, the article noted. A 2006 article, “U.S. Health Insurance: More Market Domination, More CEO Compensation” (hcrenewal.blogspot.com) notes that in 56 percent of 294 metropolitan areas one insurer “controls more than half the business in health maintenance organization and preferred provider networks underwriting." In addition to having the most enrollees, they also are the biggest purchasers of health care and set the price and coverage terms. “’The results is double-digit premium increases from 2001 and 2004—peaking with a 13.9 percent jump in 2003—soaring well above inflation and wages increases.’" Where is all that money going? The article quotes a Wall Street Journal article looking at the compensation of the CEO of UnitedHealth Group. His salary and bonus is $8 million annually. He has benefits such as the use of a private jet. He has stock-option fortunes worth $1.6 billion." --Save America, Save the World by Cassandra Nathan pp. 127-128 "Insurance Companies Robbing Patients Robbing patients to pay CEOs leads to unprecedented medical insurance corporation greed. Thursday, January 3, 2008 8:52 AM By: Michael Arnold Glueck & Robert J. Cihak, The Medicine Men" http://www.newsmax.com/medicine_men/medical_insurance/2008/01/03/61543.html
4. His earmarks all seemed legitimate to me. I didn't see any bridges to nowhere. He built a pavilion for a hospital in Chicago. What's wrong with that? People in Chicago need hospitals. After all, thats where his consituents live. That's an investment in health care. He had some earmarks for Genome sequencing and safe foods. I think his earmarks were all very useful. OMG so you are one of those that blames Obama for everything that went wrong with health care when he just took office four years ago....lol