This is the 2012 Gallop poll that
shows that Nursing is the number one trusted profession in country. Yet somehow
we are told by our employers not to speak to patients about why we are short staffed, why they
end up with certain doctors through emergency room referrals that we wouldn't
send out enemies to, and why medications are so over priced, or why we can’t tell you your doctor is incompetent.
I want to know when did the
Medical profession become a "antithetical business"?
Few trends could so thoroughly
undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by
corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money
for their stockholders as possible.~Milton Friedman, economist~
This quote was written in 1962,
yet it is still held as part of the essential understanding as to why business
does what it does. Authors such as Claire Andre and Manuel Velasquez of the
document “A Healthy Bottom Line :Profits or People?” reflect the concerns of
this nurse for what our country is leaning towards in health care.
Reed Abelson of the New York Times
wrote the article “Health Insurers Making Record Profits as Many Postpone Care”,
where it states California nurses like David Welch, whose policy has a $4,000
deductible has him delaying a much needed visit to the dermatologist, even
though he had a history of skin cancer. “I underestimated how much that cost
would affect my behavior,” he said. Insurance carriers like Blue Cross and Blue
Shield have asked for a 22 percent increase for policies, even though their
reserve coffers are flush with profits and shareholders have been rewarded with
new dividends.
The advocacy group Health Care
for American Now (HCAN) has contention with the record profit that insurance
carriers are making, and states the following "The outsized earnings are a
vivid reminder that without comprehensive national health care reform, the
gatekeepers of our broken health insurance system always will put the
short-term interests of Wall Street before the needs of millions of patients
and a national economy plagued by joblessness."
Nursing (CNA, LPN, RN besides
advanced practice nurses) needs to become a chargeable entity, like Resp
Therapy, Social Services and Physical therapy (which by the way, all practices
stemmed from nursing). If our services were to be charged by the hour, like
these services, we would break the bank, and then and only then, will we ever
get a chance to have real hard look at delivering health care in this country the
way it was intended: as a right, not a privilege.
