LilyMB

I'm starting in the fall, and wondering what clinicals you are hoping to get into? UT? Texas Women's? I'm wondering what my options are. Thanks!

"yes it is... ANY VERSION of "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need" is a form of socialism whether you want to call it that or not. Any time that you take the dollars that I have worked my tail off for and distribute them via programs such as this... in whatever form... it is socialism/communism." I would like to point out that we live in a mixed economy. You ride on public roads, kids go to public schools, the FAA monitors air traiffic, you depend on public police departments, public judicial systems, public fire departments, public libraries. etc. We depend on government regulations to ensure the safety of the planes we fly and the cars we drive. Need I go on? Nothing works perfectly, but I really wouldn't like to live without any of the above. I once held your views, because we've all been scared by the big boogie of communism, and rightly so. I've been to a communist country years ago, and a former communist country a couple of years ago, and we do NOT want that system of government. However, be that as it may, we DO have a mixed economy right now, and part of the reason our economy is doing so badly is that our companies have to compete GLOBALLY with other companies that do not have to play healthcare costs for their employees. One reason - yes - but a fact, nevertheless. We are the ONLY industrialized nation in the world without a sane healthcare plan for its citizens. The FACT is that citizens in other countries pay much less than their American counterparts for healthcare. Each country does it differently; some are worse than others. I wouldn't want the UK plan - which is socialized medicine - because the government actually employs the health personnel. I would prefer a system like France, where everyone pools their money in order to have giant healthcare/risk management pools. Most clinics, hospitals, doctors, nurses, etc. DON'T work for the government, but they are reimbursed by what amounts to a large insurance company - the healthcare division of their government. In that way, competition is still a factor in driving one of the world's best healthcare systems. In fact, the WHO rates France as having the best healthcare system in the world. Here in the U.S. we see one insurance CEO making the same amount of money as thousands of hospital employees, and that includes all staff, including those big money-making surgeons! No wonder our health care is so expensive! Then there's the layers and layers of beurocracy within the insurance companys, hospitals and doctors' offices. And then there's the stockholders of the insurance companies. Imagine if this money was actually spent on healthCARE. What a concept! Furthermore, I don't think you know how vulnerable you are, even when you do have healthcare. My mother had cancer, and here are some of the tricks used to deny payment: 1) Simply deny the claim. Deny the claims for so long, that the patient starts to worry about her credit rating and pays the darn bill herself. 2) Deny that the procedure was ever pre-certified with the insurance company. My mother is fighting thousands of dollars worth of bills because the insurance company insists that the lab wasn't pre-certified. The surgeon was pre-certified, the hospital was pre-certified, but the insurance company insists that the lab was not pre-certified. (Surgeon insists lab was pre-certified.) I'm talking about thousands of dollars of money that the insurance company is refusing to pay, and that my parents are legally responsible for. (This includes several procedures including needle guided biopsies, and surgical biopsies of cancerous tissue removal and nodes.) I could go on and on, but either people understand that stuff like this happens every day, or they don't. You may think you have taken care of you and yours, but think again. You can get screwed by your insurance company when you have coverage, dropped by your insurance company, or denied coverage by any insurance company. Got IBS? Tough luck. Had cancer? Tough luck. Your spouse has diabetes? Tough luck. Your kid has juvenile RA? Tough luck. You know what really sucks? My dad is stuck at his present job because my mom now has a pre-existing cancer condition. And how about this: my sister was very ill during college, but if she dropped out of college, my parents would have lost her insurance coverage. DOES this method of healthcare insurance make any sense when you REALLY think about it? Just when you need it, you don't have it? You pay for insurance for years, and then you can be dropped just when you need it? It makes no sense if we're talking about healthcare, but it makes perfect sense if we're talking about insurance company profits. (Insurance companies exist for one reason - profit for their stockholders.) Hey, I'm not against profit. I'm all for profit, but when profit stands in the way of your health after you've paid into an insurance company for decades, there is a problem. A big problem. A problem that you have no control over. Have you ever watched a friend go to work day after day because they will lose their insurance coverage if they quit their job? Would you like to watch one of your parents work until they are almost dead because they can't afford the COBRA payments to pay for their cancer treatments? Think carefully what we have done in this country: we have tied healthcare to employment for most people. This doesn't make any sense. It just seems to make sense to you because you are accustomed to it. And about those waits in Canada. Canada insures its citizens by province. Some provinces have little to no wait time for "certain" procedures, while others do. The great thing about this is that wait lists are published, so that those in charge of the provinces are motivated to do something about it. When my mother had cancer here in a large urban area, she had very short wait times - days to maybe three weeks for certain procedures. When my grandmother had cancer, she waited much, much longer. Why? Because she's in a rural area with less technology and fewer specialists. The situation is similar in Canada. Watch SICKO if you haven't seen it. I'm not a fan of Michael Moore, and it's pretty easy to recognize the propoganda in the film, but at the same time, there's a lot of truth in it that Americans need to face.

Thanks. I appreciate it. :)

I'm new around here. This is a great place with lots to read and learn! Anyway, does anyone know of a parttime lvn or adn program in the Houston area? Thanks so much! Lily