Hippocratic Oath?
There is a disturbing new trend in healthcare. I don’t yet know if this is occurring only in Washington County or if it is happening all over the state. I have learned that it is now necessary to submit an application for review prior to being accepted, or rejected, for medical care by a general practitioner. This process consists of contacting the doctor’s office to see if he or she is accepting new patients (as many are not), submitting all prior medical records, filling out an application and waiting, waiting, waiting for a response.
I am now on my second application process after having been rejected, without reason, from my initial selection. I am ill and in pain and am not at all happy about having to wait for weeks to obtain acceptance by this new fraternity of health care, only to be turned down in the end.
Is this the newest outrage in the ever-dwindling care of the elderly and disabled? What has become of the Hippocratic Oath?
Cora Snyder
Whiting
Working detectors
Don’t go to sleep tonight until you are sure you have working smoke detectors in your home. Detectors — in the plural. Don’t trust your life to just one. Then be sure your community has a real fire education program in your schools so that people know their way out in the event of a fire.
A visit to your local school from Sparkie the Fire Dog and a person in a firefighter outfit is not a real public education program. Real fire safety programs are tested and require multiple classes per year in the lower grades. There is a national program that has been in place for years, Learn Not to Burn; it works. That program has been taught in Brewer for more than 30 years. If your town needs to get connected to it, call Assistant Fire Chief Chris Dore at the Brewer Fire Department.
Fire prevention works better than fire suppression and it costs less. And again, don’t go to sleep tonight until you know you have working smoke detectors.
Rick Bronson
Former Brewer Fire Chief
Bangor
Hope for the future
The elections of 2012 have turned red Maine blue again. I only hope the Maine Legislature can find its balance and center after two years of what can only be described as right-wing extremism by Gov. Paul LePage and the Maine GOP.
But the state and national picture remains bleak for those on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and entitlements. Paul Ryan lost his bid as vice president, but, together with a GOP majority in the U.S. House and the bipartisan back-room “Gang of Eight,” he will remain a driving force for austerity plans that will be like those of the European Union and United Kingdom (resulting in civil unrest and further economic decline). Under the smokescreen of deficit reductions, America’s home-grown “troika” — Wall Street/corporate America/Pentagon — will continue to mount an oligarchy — an anathema to democracy.
President Barack Obama and Democrats now in Congress have not served to stop the forward movement of this threat, and I fear they will fail again in protecting seniors, the disabled, the poor and the unemployed, while shielding Wall Street from prosecution, enriching billionaires, expanding wars and enlarging the security state at home.
What does the future hold? For Maine: hopefully a return to rational and civilized government. For the nation: more of the same triply amplified, triply contentious, triply chaotic and triply combative.
To maintain sanity find a foxhole or fallout shelter for the duration. Or pray.
Michael T. Bucci
Damariscotta
Thank you, Maine
“Marriage is in trouble.” So says one of Maine’s prominent opponents of gay marriage. Indeed it is. But thankfully the people of Maine have taken one step to reclaim marriage’s true definition: A
life-long commitment to fidelity, respect and support between two mature adults.
Unfortunately, so-called Christians, indifferent to marriages poisoned by neglect, abuse and betrayal, invest ungodly effort to define marriage first and foremost as possessing the equipment necessary to generate a fetus — dragging it down to the level of horse breeding. These are not my sort of Christians. As a pastor, I am now privileged to to wed all who meet the true definition of marriage.
Praise God, and thank you, Maine.
Clyde Baker
Bangor
Not impressed with calls
Really not impressed with getting a campaign call two days after the election from the Brian Duprey (R-Hampden) campaign. Why on earth would the winning candidate feel the need to annoy his constituents again after he won the election? Yes, I got a call from him before the
election, too.
I am not a supporter, but if I were, I would not be happy at this waste of my donations. As far as I’m concerned, this is right up there with not taking down your campaign signs.
Katherine Crosby
Hampden
Check fire alarms
Tragedy struck Orrington on Nov. 10 when a house fire nearly took the lives of an entire family, making this incident the deadliest fire to occur in Maine in 20 years. The early-morning blaze killed a 30-year-old man and his three children, ages 9, 8, and 4, and hospitalized his 31-year-old wife.
Despite courageous efforts of both first responders and neighbors, the home was immediately engulfed with smoke and quick-moving flames. This devastating fire was caused by empty cardboard boxes stored near a wood-burning stove, and may have been enhanced by a container of lighter fluid that was found nearby.
Although this was the deadliest fire in Maine since 1992, tragic fires are not uncommon, with a
fire claiming an average of nine lives every day in the United States, according to the National Fire Prevention Association. However, these tragedies and catastrophic property losses can be prevented by the installation of fire sprinklers and properly working fire alarms.
Properly installed and maintained fire sprinklers control and typically extinguish a fire before the fire department even arrives on the scene. More importantly, the presence of fire sprinklers mitigates the risk to individuals affected by the blaze, including firefighters who battle the fire and are the only proactive form of fire protection.
I urge you to check the batteries in your fire alarms and educate yourself on the current mandate in your own city and state.
My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their family during this tragedy.
Russell Fleming
President of the National Fire Sprinkler Association
Patterson, N.Y.
Cora Snyder:
If you lived in Canada, all you would have to do is get out the phone book, call a few doctor’s offices and be seen by one that day.
Once there, the secretary would swipe your Health Canada card and you would see the doctor – on time – at no out-of-pocket cost to you.
This was my experience when I lived and worked in the Maritimes.
The Canadian Single-Payer system is far far far superior in all respects than the US healthcare system.
Been there – done that.
Yessah
I have heard that, and I have heard, from Canadians in Quebec, that there are sometimes waits and miscommunication and long delays for appointments. I am not sure that the Canadian system is as perfect as we are led to believe.
I never had a wait for anything – even a company-required cardiac stress test.that I had done 2 days after I was told I needed to get it.
Try to schedule a non-emergency stress test here in Maine.- it will take forever.
Prescription drugs are dirt cheap in Canada because they can negotiate prices with drug companies – something that republicans refuse to allow Medicare or Medicaid to do in the US.
Oh yeah – my Health Canada premiums were dirt cheap too.
Do not believe the right-wing lies they tell you about Canadian Health care.
Do you believe that Canadian citizens lie about wait times and having to travel to Toronto from Atlantic Canada for certain procedures that aren’t available to them or the Canadian citizens that travel to Bangor for “elective” procedures, pay in cash and then go back to Canada and submit the bill to the Provincial government for reimbursement?
I know I believe them when they relate these stories to me.
Health Canada pays those people to come to Maine for those treatments/procedures.
They also pay their motel rooms too.
This prevents Health Canada from duplicating services and reduces the overall cost of the program.
It’s called “good business sense”
Yessah
No it’s called limiting access to health care and/or treatment and/or procedures to control costs.
Pray tell, how is requiring someone to travel to a foreign country, paying travel expenses plus the cost of the procedure “good business sense”?
Thousands of people die in the US because they do not have health insurance – that does not happen in Canada.
There is no such thing as “medical bankruptcy” in Canada – massive uninsured medical bills are a prime cause of bankruptcy in the US>
I told you – by not duplicating services they keep costs down.
Good business sense.
Please try to keep up.
Yessah
So no one ever dies in Canada for lack of care? Really.
I personally know a family from Canada who’s aunt died waiting for cancer treatment that was available but she had to wait.
An Open MRI for a claustrophobic or obese person is not “duplicating services” but the closest one for patients living in Atlantic Canada is in Toronto. The wait time last time I checked was 6 months.
Call it what you want but making people wait for necessary health care procedures is not “Good business sense”.
How many people from Maine travel out-of-state for treatment/surgery etc.
Lots.
and your point is????
Do people travel to Boston from Bangor for treatment and care? Sure some do and the travel time is 5 hours from Bangor.
How far is it from Halifax to Toronto?
I hear what you are saying, but these are stories from Montrealers in Quebec province. Not Americans living there, but true French-Canadian Canadian citizens having to deal with headaches in the Canadian healthcare system.
I’m not saying that all the good things you hear are lies; rather, I am saying that it’s not as wonderfully perfect as the left-wing says it is.
And this now makes me wonder how much access the Canadian government has to the personal health records of its citizens and what it can do with that information…
The vast majority – more than 75% – of Canadians are satisfied with their health care system.
0% want the American system – which they consider barbaric.
My Canadian friends and colleagues never ever complained about their health care system.
GOP lies and Fairy tales about the Canadian health care system are just that – lies and Fairy Tales…
Yessah
Okay, again, these people in Montreal are not GOP liars. And again, there are issues with that system as well.
Your friends are lucky: http://www.examiner.com/article/canada-s-health-care-system-has-its-problems
The 10th annual Health Care in Canada survey confirms that wait times and the shortage of doctors top the list pf concerns voiced by Canadians in 2008. Other issues of concern were timeliness and access to care and environmental health issues such as air and water pollution.
One example from the PDF found in the article here (http://www.cha.ca/index.php?option=com_weblinks&view=category&id=72&Itemid=71) found in the link listed above: For each of the following, please indicate whether timely access over the past 2 years has improved, worsened or remained the same: … Family doctors. who says worsened:
Public: 49% Doctors: 81% Pharmacists: 78% Nurses: 81% Managers: 71%
It really seems that you are the one telling fairy tales.
Just how many years ago was your experiance?
Seems just a bit different from the many places in Canada where there is a lottery just to get an appointment at a doctor’s office.
1990’s
How about those clinics popping up in Canada that are only taking cash and cutting out the “Canadian Single-Payer” system.
Clyde Baker
Amen!
It would be sweet if the Leviticus preaching bible thumpers could get over marriage equality the way they seem to have gotten over eating shellfish.
Maybe now they can put their efforts into fighting usury as the good book says–something that will benefit our society instead of polarize it.
Marriage from the Latin stem Matri meaning mother, hence matrimony is marriage. Marriage is not to be redefined no matter what type of license is issued. What is next redefining adult.
So only lesbians can engage in SSM?
So you’re ok with usury?
If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.
ex.22-25
Adult HAS been redefined many many times.
You realize words have different meanings in different contexts, right? Like, there is a difference between the legal meaning of adult and the social meaning of it. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp in terms of marriage — you just have to get passed your disdain for gay people.
Marriage was not redefined November 6th anymore then it was redefined in 1967 when the SCOTUS issued their ruling on Loving v. Virginia.
But you don’t need to agree with it….you can take solace that Alabama was the last state to remove bans on interracial marriage in 2000 even though the ban was meaningless after Loving v. Virginia.
Clyde Baker, as a gay woman with a strong faith in God it has been very hurtful when churches put signs outside against me. Jesus never sent anyone away. A local church even put a huge sign out front after the vote that said Mans law is not God’s law. Sin is sin.” I will bet he doesn’t know that it is also a sin, per the Bible, to not obey man’s law and to speak out against the president. But, he only follows the law that makes him feel better about himself. Thank you Mr. Baker, the world needs more of God’s children like you.
Jesus did send people away. And when he did so, he told them, “Go, and sin no more.” Jesus forgives, but he expects us to try our best to follow his laws after we have been forgiven. It’s not a sin to have a same-sex attraction, but it is a sin to act on that attraction. Jesus will give us many graces to avoid sin, and his graces work, if we’re willing to lean on what he has to offer.
But you forgot the most important part of that story….Jesus prefaced “go and sin no more” with “let you who is without sin cast the first stone”.
Curious! It’s man’s law when they don’t prevail, but it’s God’s will when they do! I though God answered all prayers; appears they didn’t get the answer they wanted.
Reminds me of Webster claiming fraud when they lose, but puts off fraud investigation when they win.
I think many have thought the same thing as what you express here. It gets curiouser and curiouser. They do not make a strong case at all.
Mr. Bucci, I could not agree more with you about the triple threat. If we push hard we can give the Democratic Party the support it will need to preserve Social Security and Medicare.
Cora-that has happened to me in Bangor.
Cora Snyder
Welcome to Obamacare.
That has nothing to do with Obamacare –
It has everything to do with a dysfunctional, inefficient, for-profit, privately-insured healthcare system that no other civilized industrial nation uses.
Yessah
How many innovations in the medical field come from national health-care based industries and how many from private for-profit based industries?
While I don’t think that this new application process is a result of the Affordable Healthcare Act, I do think that the fairy tale you’re perpetuating is really doing everyone a disservice. Our system, while not perfect and could be more efficient, is not barbaric. The Canadian system is also not as ideal and perfect as you make it out to be.
Yes sir.
All my foreign colleagues and friends think that America’s healthcare system is barbaric.
Not just my Canadian friends.
One of my former US co-workers now lives in Chile and married a local woman.
When they had their twins, he was flabbergasted when he got the bill.
$300 for everything – hospital stay and the whole 9 yards.
He was even more shocked when the pediatrician made HOUSE CALLS – to check up on his girls after they came home.
Most of the world enjoys a cheaper, more efficient, more effective healthcare system than the US.
Oh yeah – to answer your question – check the country of origin of the instruments in a typical Maine medical lab. Most were developed and made in Japan – that has “socialist” medicine – lol.
Yessah
Yes, that’s great. But you are neglecting to address the problems that those foreign systems have while you continue to put down our system. Ironic that you accuse the right of fairy tales while you continue to spread your own.
Our medical system fails our citizens – the US severely lags in important medical metrics like life expectancy, infant mortality etc.
Those are not Fairy Tales – they are facts.
People in Canada do not die because they lack health insurance – thousands of US citizens do every year.
People in Canada do not lose their homes due to medical bankruptcy – yet it is the prime factor in bankruptcies here in the US.
Barabarism
Yessah
And how many inovations and practices came with government funding? Lots.
Go on with your delusions.
Yes sir.