Chadwick's Corner

Last evening I had an experience at Greenwich Hospital that made me realize I don’t want ANY Government interference in the service provided by the wonderful, caring people who work at Greenwich Hospital. 

My 15 year old son very suddenly experienced an earache that was excruciatingly painful.  After unsuccessfully trying to reach our ENT doctor after 6 o’clock in the evening, I decided to take him to the Emergency Room (ER) at the hospital. 

Every single person who assisted us in the ER was compassionate and remarkably professional – from the gentlemen who parked our car to the cheerful receptionist who took our information at the desk, to the nurse who took my son’s blood pressure, to the wonderfully humorous young man who paraded around with his portable computer getting all our details, to the PA (physician assistant) who was so gentle and knowledgeable and who diagnosed my son’s pain as an ear infection from surfing in the ocean, and then so reassured him that all would be well once he took the prescription she ordered. 

And then the most wonderful and kind lady checked us out, as though we were the most important guests at a glamorous spa.  She made us feel special.  Outside, the attendants made light of the fact that I could not find my parking voucher – they simply figured out what car was mine.  Believe it or not, we were in and out of the ER within an hour.

After we got home, at around 11 o’clock, our ENT doctor called to find out how my son was doing.  I told him of our wonderful experience and the medication prescribed, and he totally agreed with the treatment plan.

As if that were not enough to make us grateful forever, today around 4 o’clock in the afternoon, I received a follow up call from a nurse in the Emergency Room who was checking up on my son’s wellbeing.  I was so blown away by the consideration and thoughtfulness of all the staff at Greenwich Hospital Emergency Room.

What I have learned from this experience is that there is a team of dedicated professionals, whose names and faces are anonymous, but who care about each and every patient who comes in for treatment. They are what makes Greenwich Hospital (and hospitals all over this country) so very special.  They may not get the public recognition, but they are the lifeblood of our healthcare system. 

I thank each and every one of the staff at the Emergency Room at Greenwich Hospital for your caring and your professionalism.  You are exeptionally wonderful people.

I encourage you to read the op-ed piece by Governor Bobby Jindal (R-Louisiana) in today’s Wall Street Journal.  Just go to www.online.wsj.com and click on Opinions and it will be there (FREE).

It is a thoughtful and absolutely spot-on commentary.  It reads like a speech from a possible Presidential candidate in 2012.

Just two days ago, the New York Times heralded on its front page “Health Care Bill Passes First Test on Capital Hill”, a title that belied the fact that the health care bill as currently structured has almost no likelihood of becoming law.  Moderate Democrat Senators have no stomach for it, because their constituencies have no stomach for it.

This morning’s Wall Street Journal’s front page headline signals the more likely path for the bill “Budget Blow for Health Plan”, a story that the New York Times has relegated to page 12 (page 3 of the National news section of the paper).  When the Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) contradicts the statements of Congressmen/women and Senators, trouble is brewing, and that is exactly what Douglas Elmendorf has done.

This is so reminiscent of 1993, the last time a massive attempt was made by the Executive branch of the Government to foist a national health care plan on the country.  Back then also, it was the CBO director who informed Congress that the bill would cost far more than the pollyanish estimates espoused by Democrats in Congress and the White House.

Maybe with this most recent news, it is not so brave of me to predict that the current health care bill will not pass both Houses of Congress and will not be signed into law.  Of course the cost is a key variable, but behind the inability of the Government to control costs is a very significant fact – the Government is unwilling to confront tort reform head on.  The plaintiffs’ lawyers lobby must be the most powerful in the country – perhaps not surprising, given the fact that over half of the Senators are lawyers, more than one third of Congressmen are lawyers and the President himself is a lawyer. 

It is true that medical technology has done much to both increase productivity in medicine, but it also has acted to increase costs.  Much of the testing, imaging, retesting, and second and even third opinion requirements are done in order to provide defense backup in the event of a lawsuit against a doctor.   Time was when the priest/minister/rabbi was the most revered person in the town, with the local house-calling doctor right on his heels as number two.  Gone are those days. 

Today doctors are obliged to pay exorbitant insurance premiums to protect themselves from ambulance chasing, greedy plaintiffs’ attorneys who advertise shamelessly on radio, billboard and television.  Until and unless our Government – on the national level – passes a seriously effective tort reform legislation and the President signs it into law, there is no way Congress should even broach the subject of a national health care plan.  It is their moral obligation.

With Governor Sanford in political Siberia and Governor Palin perhaps following him, Governor Mitt Romney should be smiling.   Lots of things are going his way. 

As the Federal Government increasingly grabs oversight of giant sectors of the economic pie – banking, insurance, automobiles, health care, and energy – we are heading towards the destruction of the economic structure and the free spirit that have for the last few hundred years been the source of growth and prosperity in this country.  The Government by its very nature is a not-for-profit organization, and an economy that is run on a not-for-profit basis will be a failure.

But in a Government managed economy, there are no profits to use for reinvestment which means that the Government must resort to taxes as its resource.  Raising taxes, particularly in a deep recession, will only impede recovery, leaving our economy with

high unemployment and anemic growth.   

By the spring of next year, the political focus will be on the House and Senate races that will say a lot about how people really feel about the economy.  And following on the heels of the November outcomes will be the start of the 2012 Presidential race. 

If the economy is still in limbo a year from now, Mitt Romney will have the opportunity of a lifetime.  He understands economics; he knows how industry and business should work to thrive; he has had both private and public experience; he even studied and signed into law a health care system, and he will be able to talk to its strengths and weaknesses, what it can do and what it cannot do.

In all the political kerfuffle unfolding today, Mitt Romney is one of the few potential candidates who has gravitas – no sexual scandals, a few grey hairs, a total lack of demagoguery, confidence but not arrogance, an ability to lead successfully and an understanding of the sanctity of the private sector in this country.  Those attributes should stand him in good stead when the 2012 Presidential campaign starts to unfold in barely more than a year from now.