NON CONTROVERSIAL POTPOURRI

This should be the last blog for several days; the “OH HELLERS” will be arriving starting about noon today and leaving Monday.

Monday is Memorial Day, and we should honor but have forgotten those from Plainfield including many who were my high school friends who gave their lives in WWII as well as others in the subsequent wars.  I wonder if anyone has an idea of how many WWII combat veterans are still in the Plainfield area?

On a different subject than the Holliday or Plainfield’s politics; of present national interest is the scandal that is emerging in the VA’s medical system.

The apparent rationing of care by delaying visits and treatments to veterans for an unreasonable time which may have resulted in death is a practice that will, not may, become more prevalent in our everyday life as so called universal care and limited resources have a greater impact on health care.

That is long convoluted sentence but the lesson is there. Health care costs money. When it is lacking the resources needed both human and facilities become limited. This leads to waiting periods that will stretch out more and more until that in its self becomes a threat to life.

I have talked about this frequently and I am sure we have all already felt some of the effects. The worst is that human nature being what it is; there are those who will find a way to game the system for their own personal benefit. This is true of both patients and providers.

I cannot offer any solution since experience in other countries has shown that there will develop a two tier system; one an affluent one out of the universal care system with its inadequate compensations to providers and dwindling physical resources. We here in Plainfield have felt the financial effect in the loss of the hospital due to operating deficits. And that was before ACA. However the dependency was on payments from Medicaid, which was very inadequate, Medicare which was restricted and below operating costs, and the HMO insurance carriers who negotiated  competitive selective  low reimbursement rates with hospitals.

Like everything else we must find ways to finance what we promise. We also have to save funds by reducing the bureaucracy that overloads this type system.