I think America is really in denial about the degree to which residents, particularly foreign medical graduates, man the county hospitals of this country, and but for their services, I'm not sure how exactly we could manage.
The royal family's existence is a constant reminder of the hollowness of John Major's rhetoric, and idiotic statements by its leading members a constant boost to the republican cause. They're fine opening hospitals. It's when they open their mouths they get into trouble.
My grandfather created a big family in Italy. He protected the family; he helped them in hospitals and stuff like that.
In the U.S., hospitals are rewarded for keeping hospital beds full. That's the market at work. The question is: should we work for the market, or should the market work for us?
Here's where the insurance companies really fail us. They over-pay hospitals, specialists and drug companies and then raise premiums to cover the costs. Further, when they pay hospitals 115% of what it should cost to care for a patient, they are paying for inefficiency that can be dangerous.
In southern and central Africa, tragedy roared at us, and we roared back. We shared dramas publicly, bled them on the corridors of hospitals, laid our corpses on the beds of neighbors, held our sorrows up in full light. We were volume ten about our madness and disorder, even if we were also resilient and enduring and tough.
When Department of Health and Human Services administrators decided to base 30 percent of hospitals' Medicare reimbursement on patient satisfaction survey scores, they likely figured that transparency and accountability would improve healthcare.
When healthcare is at its best, hospitals are four-star hotels, and nurses, personal butlers at the ready - at least, that's how many hospitals seem to interpret a government mandate.
I don't like hospitals, and the idea of being in labor somewhere I don't like at all - wasn't how I wanted to bring my kids into the world.
Whatever your race, colour or creed in London, you still want your children to get on the housing ladder. You still want spaces in hospitals or GP surgeries, you want school places and you want space on the trains in the mornings.
