Adding Insult To Injury

The ownership society isn't limited to housing, health insurance and retirement, now it includes monitoring your own health care as you receive it. It used to be that nurses did that job (they wore uniforms with hats back then!) but now they have to spend so much time doing paperwork or data entry that they don't have time to interact or get to know the patient. And the consequences of that seem to be fatal.

In growing numbers of hospitals across the country, patients are allowed, even encouraged, to speak up by activating ‘Condition H,’ a code that summons immediate help. Patients call the same emergency number that doctors and nurses use. Worries of false alarms have proved generally groundless, Collier said.

Still Clarke worries about burdening patients and family members with the responsibility of monitoring.

“The onus shouldn’t be on the patient to do our job,” he said.

True enough, Collier said. But if consumers want to be certain they’re not victims of the most common safety error in the country, they’ll take on some of the responsibility themselves.

Right. My doctor gets his knickers in a knot if I question anything and he downplays any reports of pain or discomfort. I remember when we had a good medical system, but that was before it became a business.

It's bad enough that those in the Lower Ninth Ward were left behind during Katrina, now those that came back and tried to rebuild are at increased risk of foreclosure. If they received a grant to rebuild the house and it gets repossessed then they have to pay back the money that has already been spent rebuilding the house that the lender now owns. Ooh, double the debt, that'll help.

If Youngblood loses her home within three years of receiving the Road Home grant, she may be forced to return the money.

"I've worked hard all my life for what I have," said Youngblood, a seamstress. "I paid my bills my whole life. But when Katrina came, it messed everything up."

I'm pretty sure that was the plan.

With troops being killed in the Green Zone, of course Petraeus wants a 45 day extension of the surge that didn't work. Violence is increasing and we didn't have enough troops to do the job in the first place, so keeping them there is his only option to forestall the collapse that is going to come sooner or later. And it doesn't sound like he plans on sending the troops home right after the 45 day extension is up.

At the end of that period, we will commence a process of assessment to examine the conditions on the ground and, over time, determine when we can make recommendations for further reductions," Petraeus said.

No end in sight and no plans for an end. Stay the course and don't worry about the health of your troops, the lack of, and/or, the deterioration of equipment and how not one plan has worked out correctly.

Shouldn't they be worrying about taking care of the troops we have, before spending billion of dollars on theoretical weapons? Our troops aren't even safe in the Green Zone and the military is trying to build some interconnected weapons systems using technology that relies on the technician's ability to play video games. Gee, wouldn't it be nice if today's troops had decent body armor and properly reinforced vehicles? Just wondering. Mainly because the media has forgotten our troops in Iraq, since their sacrifices seem to mean nothing as long as the election is going on and the people they leave behind are quickly forgotten. While the blogosphere counted down up to 4000, one town in America has lost 400 of those 4000.

With so many painful memories, she is now preparing to leave Killeen.

She still questions whether the sacrifice was worth it.

"See a lot of people don't know that five of our soldiers died last week; and before that was three; and before that was six," she says.

"I know this because I go to my husband's grave.

"When he was buried the row ended, but now there's a whole new row in front of him, and there's 16 graves without markers. They can't make headstones fast enough."

That is just plain sad. And if you think the dead don't count, you should see the way the wounded have been forgotten.

A restaurant without waiters. What will the Germans think of next? One question, how do you send your food back if you don't like it?

BBB