well here's another lovely story of intentional inefficiency to make more money.

My mother, a diabetic, was diagnosed with a nasty autoimmune disease that attacks a layer of the skin. The disease is called Bullous Pemphigoid. The cure is time and steroids. she eventually had blisters on her feet which because she's diabetic and on Steroids quickly developed an infection. This was around July 4th.

She eventually became so weak and unable to stand from the infection and her inability to eat properly that the Paramedics took her to the hospital where the on call Podiatrist got her into surgery. After a week of recovery at the local hospital she was being moved to a "recovery" hospital across the street from the Main hospital.

This is where the fun begins. First off this so called recovery hospital is associated and owned by the main hospital. Because she's on medicare she got a nice ride in an ambulance for the 100 yard that it took to move her. This recovery hospital never mentioned that they were NOT equipped with a wound care specialist.

After about a week at this new hospital she had an appt with her new Podiatrist, which required her to be driven about 1/4 mile to the Doctors office. The Dr. was less than pleased with the care she had been given. Seeing as how the wound had actually gotten worse. She was immediately discharged from the "associated" hospital, returned to the main hospital, and had surgery again the next day to remove the infection again.

My brother for whatever reason had some extra time on his hands when she was in the main hospital. He noticed and entire wing of the Main hospital was closed. It had everything in it that a nurse and doctor could use to care for patients but was completely vacant.
Now call me crazy but it seems to me that the Hospital was making extra money and wasting tax payers and insurance companies money by transporting people across a parking lot when they could have just as easily named a wing of the hospital the "recovery" wing and been done with it.

Needless to say she is now doing very well in a non aligned recovery center that actually has a wound care specialist. She has now had 3 days of physical Therapy which tells me that she is doing very well.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

I'm sorry to hear about the care your mom has been given, and I'm pleased to hear she's doing better. I hope she continues down the path to recovery.

The sad truth that is... hospitals are not a safe place to be if you can not look out for your own well being. Of course if you could you probably would not be there to begin with...

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Janice

my problem is the intential inefficiency that these warehouse hospitals create so that they can charge medicare again and again and again

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Well the market seems to be pricing in a credit downgrade for the USA. I guess not enough got cut in the budget to satisfy wall street. Euro style austerity awaits the USA.

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what is odd is gold, oil and other commodities were all cheaper at the end of trading today by a large margin.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Did the debt deal include another 2.8B?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2015824903_apusearnsfanniemae.html
Total bailout for liars loans to just Fannie $104.8B
When is the government going to put the liars in prison? Or are there simply so many liars there aren't enough cells?

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what is odd is gold, oil and other commodities were all cheaper at the end of trading today by a large margin.

Commodities will go down in price if manufacturing is falling off, less demand by industry. As for gold then someones been selling hard since so many pundits consider gold to be a safe haven against all this world turmoil you wonder then why the selling. Perhaps with this big drop in the financial markets, that's going on, some people are having to sell gold to cover short term positions.

It looks like there was some improvement in the jobs market. Not a glowing report but it's looking better

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

I for one would rather see Oil and other Big business pay it's fair share before Soc. Sec. takes a hit so in this one I believe I blame the Republicans the most. I don't really understand the whole thing so I won't take a stand quite yet...Like to hear what others with more knowledge think.

While I am no fan of either Party, insofar as the whole Social Security Issue stands, it's not actually 100% correct to blame the Republicans on that particular issue -- the other side of the aisle's hands have a lot more stains on them when it comes to Social Security. Here's a bit of quoted information on all of the changes in Social Security since the early days that I pulled up. It's all below. Personally, I have to point out that any time you have a big pool of money and a shortage of cash, people are going to try and put their hands into that pool. It's human nature. And while I'm no fan of either the Democratic or Republican party, I think we should not let political favoritism get in the way of the facts.

Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. He promised:

1.) That participation in the Program would be Completely voluntary.
-- It is no longer Voluntary


2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual Incomes into the Program.
-- Now participants must pay 7.65% on the first $90,000


3.) That the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year.
-- It is no longer tax deductible


4.) That the money the participants put into the independent 'Trust Fund' rather than into the general operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program.
-- Under Johnson the money was moved to The General Fund and Spent


5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.
-- Under Clinton & Gore, up to 85% of your Social Security can be Taxed

--------- --------- --------- ---------

Many people have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month -- and then finding that they are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government to 'put away'.

A lot of the media is pointing fingers at the Republican Party, but the history books are pretty clear on who enacted all of this:

--------- --------- --------- ---------

Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the
independent 'Trust Fund' and put it into the
general fund so that Congress could spend it?

A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically
controlled House and Senate.

--------- --------- --------- ---------

Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax
deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

A: The Democratic Party.

--------- --------- --------- ---------

Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social
Security annuities?

A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the
'tie-breaking' deciding vote as President of the
Senate, while he was Vice President of the US

--------- --------- --------- ---------

Q: Which Political Party decided to start
giving annuity payments to immigrants?

A: Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party.
Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65,
began to receive Social Security payments! The
Democratic Party gave these payments to them,
even though they never paid a dime into Social Security.

Which of course is very much what the Norquistian/Tea Party cabal running the Republicans in Congress definitely wants to see.

Euro style austerity awaits the USA.

Which of course is very much what the Norquistian/Tea Party cabal running the Republicans in Congress definitely wants to see.

In my humble opinion (but not to get up on a soapbox of any kind), what is needed is a complete overhaul of the tax code plus wide-sweeping austerity measures that result in a large, constant and ongoing Federal Budget surplus each year that will be required to be used to repay the National Debt. Once it has been fully repaid, that extra surplus each year can be taken out of circulation, so as to steadily increase the value of the US Dollar -- OR, loaned out to other nations, so as to generate additional income over time. Wouldn't it be nice to be the one issuing loans for a change, rather than constantly borrowing from others?

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A fair sized chunk of the revenues are very much dependent on the health of the American economy. If you shrink governments enough, you will shrink the US economy and then you will need to shrink governments (federal, state and local) further - which will shrink the economy further -- you get the drift here right.

I'd love to see all sorts of entitlement reform -- INCLUDING 'rich corporation and rich people' entitlement reform.

I'd love to see the health care industry in the US go from a for profit, screw the people business to a non-profit structure like that of the other developed countries of the world -- 20% GDP for health care -- which is NOT as good as that of most developed countries -- is a travesty. Squeeze about 5% of GDP from the health care for profit industry, sink it into deficit reduction and bingo, the deficit gets smaller nicely.

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US Credit rating Downgraded.
I told you so ...
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=64799&nowrap=true#1136081

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If you shrink governments enough, you will shrink the US economy and then you will need to shrink governments (federal, state and local) further - which will shrink the economy further -- you get the drift here right.

Hmmm, I'm not sure that I agree with the concept that making a nation's government smaller through austerity measures will reduce the size of that nation's economy (save in Communist nations where all industry is owned by the government), since it is privately-owned Business & Industry that drives a Capitalist nation's economy, but we can happily agree to disagree.

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I'd love to see all sorts of entitlement reform -- INCLUDING 'rich corporation and rich people' entitlement reform.

Although again I don't want to get up on any kind of a soapbox, when I say I am in favor of a total overhaul of the tax code, I would go so far as to say that what I would be in favor of would include a flat tax across the board, and the elimination of most subsidies and entitlements. When other countries in the world can't afford such entitlements, they simply don't have them -- and while painful to cut after they have been in place for such a long time, the alternative is far worse -- and could well spell eventual economic collapse.

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1.) That participation in the Program would be Completely voluntary.
-- It is no longer Voluntary

Actually it still is voluntary but takes a great deal of work to get out of Social Security. By doing so you'd also forsake unemployment benefits, medicaid, medicare and of course Social security if you happen to ever need any of those things

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Which of course is very much what the Norquistian/Tea Party cabal running the Republicans in Congress definitely wants to see.

In my humble opinion (but not to get up on a soapbox of any kind), what is needed is a complete overhaul of the tax code plus wide-sweeping austerity measures that result in a large, constant and ongoing Federal Budget surplus each year that will be required to be used to repay the National Debt. Once it has been fully repaid, that extra surplus each year can be taken out of circulation, so as to steadily increase the value of the US Dollar -- OR, loaned out to other nations, so as to generate additional income over time. Wouldn't it be nice to be the one issuing loans for a change, rather than constantly borrowing from others?

Wish someone would have told that to W instead if him spreading the surplus in a meager attempt to garner praise(votes) to himself

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

If you shrink governments enough, you will shrink the US economy and then you will need to shrink governments (federal, state and local) further - which will shrink the economy further -- you get the drift here right.

Hmmm, I'm not sure that I agree with the concept that making a nation's government smaller through austerity measures will reduce the size of that nation's economy (save in Communist nations where all industry is owned by the government), since it is privately-owned Business & Industry that drives a Capitalist nation's economy, but we can happily agree to disagree.

Gov't spending leads to economic growth. IF the fed were to stop spending we'd have economic turmoil in no time

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

I'd love to see all sorts of entitlement reform -- INCLUDING 'rich corporation and rich people' entitlement reform.

Although again I don't want to get up on any kind of a soapbox, when I say I am in favor of a total overhaul of the tax code, I would go so far as to say that what I would be in favor of would include a flat tax across the board, and the elimination of most subsidies and entitlements. When other countries in the world can't afford such entitlements, they simply don't have them -- and while painful to cut after they have been in place for such a long time, the alternative is far worse -- and could well spell eventual economic collapse.

Lets be clear a flat tax helps the rich and never the poor. A flat tax that starts after the first $100k might work but the wealthy would be very unhappy with the absence of deductions and tax shelters and the actual rate that would be needed to balance a budget.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope