Public Health Malpractice

Congrats to me. As of today, I have three more letters after my name, MPH as well as MD. Being the lifelong resident cynic, I am now equpped to recognize disease on a macro scale as well as on an individual level.

One does not really need an advanced degree to figure out most of what ails this country. Fifty million of us have no health insurance. Those who do have health insurance are getting end of life palliative care at exorbitant costs and great personal suffering for diseases that could have been prevented for pennies of preventive care--if there was any money for the so called free market system to make off preventive medicine. Or if the government had a vested interest in keeping us healthy, like a cradle to grave obligation to pay our medical bills. Or if Congress and the political parties were not bought lock, stock and barrels by health insurers who make a killing supplying health insurance to the subsegment of the population that does not need it. And by the pharmaceutical industry that makes a killing with indefinte patents on drugs that buy cancer sufferers six more months of life as they waste away from their tobacco induced malignacies.

Most of us know that the air we breathe is rich with pollutants that trigger asthma and pneumonia attacks in our children and heart attacks in our parents. We know that the air can not be cleaned up, because even designating a community a "problem area" would entail the loss of highway funds, and how would road builders make ends meet without that money? How could home builders tear up the country and build houses in the suburbs so that more people can get in their cars and drive to work, adding more smog? How can we tell an employer to stop polluting? They might shut down and move to Mexico. And what other business, like a bank or restaurant chain, wants to move to an area that might be in danger of losing its industrial business grant to STUDY the issue.

The numbers make it easy for even a lay person to tell that infant mortality is too high. In some places it is sky high. Once again, the preferred method is to bury the public head in the sand and attribute the problem to "lfestyle" factors. In other words, "no one cares about your demographic, and it would cost too much to fix any problem we might find". So, when the affected group is African-american babies born to women in a part of the city sitting on a toxic waste dump next to a lake where African-Americans like to fish, by all means dismiss out of hand the possibility that environmental contaminants play a roll, even though the contaminants are all known to cause an increase in prematurity and infant mortality. It would cost a hell of a lot to clean up all the toxic waste, and the real estate in that area is so low, it just is not worth it.

These are all malpractice by omission. More ominous are the malicious acts that are done deliberately. Family planning and pregnancy check up clinics for low income women in Dallas county that have existed for decades are now in jeopardy, because Tom Delay's illegal GOP Texas Legislature voted to cut funding for any clinic associated with any facility that does abortions. I guess Parkland Hospital, the county hospital, must do abortions for women with medical need, as required by law. In order to obtain a few more votes for themselves in this fall's election, a bunch of legislators are willing to deny a whole bunch of pregnant women prenatal care and whole bunch of other women routine wellness care. Minor women bear more than their share. They have been stripped of the right to decide whether or not to have a baby, by these same legislators, who care more about the support of the Catholic Church during the next election cycle than the fact that a young woman may be kicked out of home, forced to quit school, have a baby and get a job as a teenager. And the ironic thing is that the GOP's recent immigrant insanity has now cost them the support of the Catholic Church, but that young woman will still spend the next ten years in poverty. When a doctor lets a person suffer medical harm because he was more focused on money that is malpractice. When a legislator lets a person suffer so she can mine a few votes that is public health malpractice.

Then there is the potential massive breach of privacy being committed by the NSA. People keep going on about reporters being wiretapped. Has anyone asked the insurance industry whether or not they have been approached by the administration for their data base? Has the NSA requested a list of anyone who has had a flight physical? A vaccine required for foreign travel? Treatment for a mental illness or substance abuse that could signal criminal activity? (We know that the FBI has been abusing its extra powers to go after none terrorist criminals). Hell, simply wiretapping a doctor's office would net you a gold mine in confidential medical data, since all kinds of medical information is shared between doctors in the form of faxes and over the phone as consultations. The NSA could find out about Joe's cancer and Maud's chlamydia and Jane's bipolar disorder and Jack's recent relapse into heroin addiction.

The USA is wealthy as sin...and we rank at the bottom of the first world nations when it comes to health indicators. If you have ever wondered why, take a good look at our public health. Most countries with our wealth have a plan to keep people healthy. We operate like the Ferringis on Star Trek. Forget health. In the US, it is all a question of profit--money, labor and power.

You covered everything.

No health insurance, poverty, pollution, denial of reproductive rights for women, even the inclusion of the requisite Star Trek reference.


I am in awe, McCamy Taylor MD and MPH.

With people like you in our corner, how can I lose hope?


Congratulations.

And thank you.










Recommended.

:dem:

Perhaps something good might come about. You obviously have a grip on what is ailing this country. :thumbsup:

and that in itself is an astonishing achievement.

K&R.

According to the data I've seen, our indicators of societal health (such as infant mortality, homicide rates, STD infection rates, etc.) are among the absolute worst of 'first' world democracies - and yet we spend more than any other nation on earth, per capita, on health care.

Something is not working right, but that's just stating the obvious. You managed to beautifully articulate a big part, if not all, of what the proverbial wrench in the works is.

K&R.

"The numbers make it easy for even a lay person to tell that infant mortality is too high. In some places it is sky high. Once again, the preferred method is to bury the public head in the sand and attribute the problem to "lfestyle" factors. In other words, "no one cares about your demographic, and it would cost too much to fix any problem we might find". So, when the affected group is African-american babies born to women in a part of the city sitting on a toxic waste dump next to a lake where African-Americans like to fish, by all means dismiss out of hand the possibility that environmental contaminants play a roll, even though the contaminants are all known to cause an increase in prematurity and infant mortality. It would cost a hell of a lot to clean up all the toxic waste, and the real estate in that area is so low, it just is not worth it."

You definitely 'get it.' Thanks....

except we are no longer the bottom of the first world...read my SIG line.