McCain Envisions Wal-Mart Run Health Clinics

Exposed Story

Instead of universal health care, Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain envisions Wal-Mart health care.

While both Democrat presidential candidates Sens. Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton endorse universal health as a solution to cover the nation's 45 million uninsured, McCain instead favors a strictly private sector fix.

"If Wal-Mart wants to set up a clinic with doctor, pharmacist, fine, let's do it. need to have outcome-based approaches," McCain told a group of about 300 at a Town Hall meeting Friday, according to the Rocky Mountain News.

Link to rest: http://www.exposedstory.com/my_weblog/2008/05/mccain-favors-w.html

A short PSA on re:puke: speak.

Just shoot me now, before I get old and sick and have to go to Wal-Mart for substandard medical care involving imported Chinese drugs produced with no quality control and medical school dropouts working for minimum wage.

Unbelievable. Big media needs to pick up on this. So does the DNC!!!!!

if the clinic is staffed by a Nurse Practitioner instead of a Physician's Assistant. The former represents 6 years of medical education and the latter only 2 years.

What people won't get at these clinics is decent continuity of care. People who are sick won't always mention all their drug allergies or, especially if they're elderly, all their illnesses and all the medications they're on for them.

Any scrip handed out can be turned in at any pharmacy, but all are using drugs made offshore and poorly checked these days, thanks to lax oversight due to chronic underfunding and understaffing at the FDA.

sounds like a good idea

conveniently located next to Walmart Funeral Home

:woohoo:

It's called Kaiser-Permanente. For anyone who was ever a patient or a health care giver in that HMO, you will know what I'm talking about. It's an HMO that enrolls much of the union and government people in their system as well because membership is cheaper than most other private health care providers. I'm not saying that I didn't get good doctors at times and prodecures but it was definitely a lottery and you landed where you did. It took months to get an appointment and you couldn't select your doctor even if they claimed you could. You couldn't go outside the system except for extreme emergency cases and if you called in. If you were unconscience at the time well tough luck. Operations could be scheduled years in advance. In the meantime too bad. Your basic physical was done GI style in a group assembly line where everyone knew your medical business once it was over with because questions and exams were conducted in curtained booths that everyone could hear.

are the long waits. If you have HMO, there are already long waits. Here in Apex, NC. there are 3 whole Dentists in Cigna's HMO dental plan. Two of them are not taking patients, and the one I have been with for five years, just canceled my appointment and then told me they could reschedule me for January for teeth cleaning for my kids.

like Canada and Britain, the waits aren't anywhere near what the waits are for HMOs. The only long wait it seems is for elective surgery. Otherwise the NHC nations have more efficiency in emergency room waits and doctor visit waits than we do and we have to pay for it in insurance and co-pays.

A job I used to have used them for medical. I called up to get a primary care physician, and was told the information was on the website. I looked, and all the website had was the doctor's name, location, department, and alma mater. Not so much as a word about their philosophy of care, their history in that department, their favorite color, nothing. So I called back up, and asked where I could get that. Nowhere. Could I meet with a doctor prior to naming them by primary care physician? No, but I could change at any time. So basically I was expected to pick a doctor at random, and if the random doctor wasn't my cup of tea, keep switching randomly until I found one I liked. Of course, each visit would cost me a copay and a few hours, so that wasn't going to happen, and I just happened to luck into an okay doctor. :wtf:

"Long line on aisle 8 for pap smears."

...we're leaving.

And if we are not going to have national health care, I'd rather see people have access at Walmart than no access at all.

None of them, Obama or Hillary included is addressing the access issue, they are only talking about "coverage", which does NOT mean access.

Access is a real problem that should be addressed. I agree.

"McCain also said under his vision of health care reform, "a doctor, caregiver who adheres to the clinical guidelines laid out should be protected from suits."

Lovely. What does he mean by "clinical guidelines", I wonder?

I personally know a OBGYBN who's never hurt anyone, is a really great doctor and has saved more than one mother and child that a lesser doctor may not have because she listened to that hunch in the back of her head. And yet she's been sued 27 times in 8 years. Technically she lost all but one because it's cheaper to settle than fight. The one she fought was on pure principle. The mother was suing because when doctor did an emergency C section that saved both mother and child dear Mom was all bent out of shape because "if you look really close you can still see a little scar". It was thrown out. Some of the doctors in her practice have it even worse. There are some good doctors that are choosing to leave high risk fields, or medicine all together and go into some other thing, like administration or research or sales.

I think a good combination of drumming out the bad doctors (which they don't do soon enough) and giving some protection to doctors that are practicing good medicine is a fair request.

I am more interested in who makes the rules, and in whose interest they're enforced. What we have right now isn't working - that's true. But that doesn't mean we can't get something even worse if we allow the wrong people to get control of the system. That is what concerns me.

had a C Section and there is a risk of a scar. There should be legal documentation stating that the patient accepts the risk.

There is a problem with practitioners moving from state to state with questionable medical histories. The Health industry can help itself by having a national db of dr's that have bad records, they should not be allowed to practice.

And by doing so, not risk injuring patients?

And I agree, what are these "clinical guidelines"? They would have to be set in good faith too.

"Not adhering to clinical guidelines"? Not to say every malpractice suit involves violations, but isn't that what the lawsuit is supposed to determine?

but if that is the case, then McCain's statement is rather redundant, isn't it?

McSame is proposing removing employer based insurance tax credits and replacing them with individual credits. That would mean that everyone would be negotiating with insurance companies instead of as a larger group. The result will be that those with preexisting conditions will have to pay higher rates if they can even find insurance coverage.

We have twin 3 yr old sons that were born with a profound hearing loss. Cochlear implants have allowed them to hear but they were extremely expensive. They'll require regular doctor visits throughout their lives to maintain the implants. My wife also has some health problems. We'd be completely screwed under McSame's proposal.

They can stop insurers from screwing people on the pre-existing thing. State by state or from the federal level, I don't care. They can also do with healthcare the same thing they do with National Flood Insurance.

that said, I'd rather see single payer universal medical care.

Sure it's possible but I can't see McSame proposing a effective regulatory law. I also would rather have a universal single payer system. However, I definitely would take Clinton's or Obama's plan over McSame. McSame would end up bowing to the insurance companies on that issue. As far as the state doing it, unlike flood insurance, health insurance won't significantly affect the wealthy. I live in Florida so I know our Repug state government will not pass those regulations if McSame is elected and pushes that proposal through.

I'm just saying CONGRESS could do it if they wanted to. (or state governments)

People will do their part, but these plans being discussed are not cost effective when it is dependent on consumers to keep any economy going.

If you haven't read his interview in Rolling Stone: here's part of it.



"Bush has fucked up so bad," he will posit to any and all congregants in braying loops of oratory, "that he's made it hard for a white man to run for president. 'Gimme anything but another white man, please! Black man, white woman, giraffe, anything!' A white man's had that job for hundreds of years — and one guy fucked it up for all of ya!"


And: "Each candidate tells you how humble they are. No, you're not humble! Do you know how big your ego has to be to say you wanna be president of the United States? Do you know how much Puff Daddy juice you have to drink? How many Kanye injections you have to take?"


And: "I actually think America is ready for a woman president. But does it have to be that woman? . . . She's gonna work in the office where her husband got blow jobs?! There ain't enough redecorating in the world she can do to change that! . . . There's one thing Hillary Clinton's better at than everybody else, and one thing only — and that's forgiveness!

Hillary Clinton is the greatest forgiver in the history of the world. Even Jesus knows: 'You really good at fo'giveness. I mean, I talk the talk, but you walk the walk!'

And: "I actually think America is ready for a woman president. But does it have to be that woman? . . . She's gonna work in the office where her husband got blow jobs?! There ain't enough redecorating in the world she can do to change that! . . .

" And: "Barack Obama — he's a black man with two black names! Barack. Obama. He doesn't let his blackness sneak up on you. As soon as you hear Barack Obama you wonder, 'Does he have a spear?' . . . He's so cool, too, man. I don't think he realizes he's a black candidate!

When you're the only black guy doing something, people expect you to take it up a notch. If you're the only black playing basketball with a bunch of white guys — they expect you to dunk! . . . Barack has a handicap the other candidates don't have: Barack Obama has a black wife. And I don't think a black woman can be first lady of the United States. Yeah, I said it! A black woman can be president, no problem.

>>>>>snip
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/19551925/chris_rock_isnt_laughing



McCain is gonna be the worst GOP candidate in the history of the country
once this thing gets going and our nomination process is over.
He will dissolve like butter on skillet.

he has a gift.

In several different chains, Walmart and Rite-Aid, for starters.

kids' sports physicals. They've got the clinics already in a lot of places.

Wal-Mart currently has vision care centers in its stores. They lease the space to an optometrist, and he runs it as his own little fiefdom. (My wife used to work at Wal-Mart, and she tells me the jewelry department is run the same way.) An MD with some nurse practitioners or physician's assistants on staff could run a clinic, no problem, and there'd be no real problem with their maintaining records for continuity of care.

I think we all know the biggest problem with McCainCare, and it's not the fact you can't find a doctor when you need one. In Fayetteville we've got too fucking many doctors, if anything. We've got a guy who stays open until 9pm. The hospital's got two Urgent Care Clinics where you can go instead of the ER to get seen quickly. You can get all the care you can afford in this town, but that's the catch: you need money, and McCain's "outcome-based approaches" line doesn't help with that. Okay, a lot of places DON'T have the overabundance of doctors we have (mainly because a lot of places don't have the 100,000 dependents packing Tricare cards that we have--when you practice medicine in Fayettenam, North Carolina, you KNOW you're going to get paid) but still...people don't go to the doctor because they can't afford a doctor in most cases, not because they can't find one.

:shrug:

Can they import x-ray equipment and imaging equipment from China? Will they be safe to use? Oh, thats right, it doesn't matter.

Great idea McSame.

If I had a health clinic at the local Walmart where I could get a script for a $5 anti-biotic it would be great and that really is fucking sad. But still not nearly enough reason to vote for McSame even though I know I will be long dead before there is universal health care in this country.

The problem with the heath care system is that it is a greed based system. Lets just go ahead and include the most greedy corporation of all. That will really help.

..... and I didn't think that was possible. :scared:

You know a month before they come(The Joint Commission).And I think there payed for by the Hospitals ?
http://www.jointcommission.org/
There's nobody watching the store!!!!!!

Medicare For Everyone Is!

aka Single Payer