Comments by FairbanksCitizen
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Posted on April 2 at 11:26 a.m. (Suggest removal)
That's funny, I thought FMH was trying to get at least one cardiologist since they don't have any. Imagine that! The hospital that believes it can serve the entire interior doesn't even have a cardiologist! Oh but everything is just fine....
I also noticed that Arctic Stranger skipped over the abuses of the current CON system, like allowing the hospitals to litigate endlessly against anyone who actually tries to obtain a CON and even after the state approves it!
As to higher costs, the hospital has an enormous cost and even if docs WANT to do pro-bono work there they CAN'T. The hospital's billing department will send collection agencies, PFD-garnishers and just about everyone they can send after you to get your money no matter how poor you are. The nice thing about those "selfish rich people opening up private clinics and surgery centers" is that they can and DO give more pro-bono care that is truly pro-bono. Ie: when the doc says it's OK you don't have to pay he means it and there won't be a disconnect between him and the billing department because of Banner Health's corporate bottom line.
True competition will decrease prices. We DON'T have true competition right now and as long as everyone buys the scare tactics of the hospital who claims that with additional facilities everyone will be at half capacity and lose money, we will continue to be suckered. Wake up! Fairbanks is growing exponentially and with the gas pipeline it is going to simply explode! Does FMH really hunger for money so much that they will endanger our health by ensuring that they are the only medical care in town when our population is nearly double what it is now? Does FMH think they can simply expand and expand no matter how big Fairbanks gets and still "serve" the community?
Posted on March 13 at 8:58 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Maybe she realized that because the commission was made up almost 100% by hospital execs that they had a biased interest in keeping CON...
On Palin should listen to experts who advised administration on health care law
Posted on March 12 at 3:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I was going to testify at the Senate hearing but was turned down the day before and I was told it would be invitation only and just for select patients.
Then I found out later that right before the hearing the chairwoman, who works at an Anchorage hospital, changed it to be full public testimony. And apparently the place was packed with the heads of every hospital in Alaska. Somehow they knew to be there when everyone else was told not to attend.
So when Ms. Wilson makes derogatory comments that nearly all the testimony was from providers, she, who also works at an Anchorage hospital, obscures the reason for this.
Face it, the legislature has been bought and paid for.
Posted on March 12 at 2:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Perhaps Dr. Starr will look at the way that the CON system has been used. When people have applied through the CON system for proper permits, what has happened? In Wasilla the hospital there did not object to a group of doctors obtaining a CON by the proper date, but continued to litigate anyway simply because they had the money and could outspend the doctors there in legal fees.
In Fairbanks, the hospital has appealed and re-appealed countless times, all the way up to the Supreme Court, in a similar attempt to bankrupt possible competitors who try and use the proper channels.
CON insulates these hospitals and grants them control over the health-care market. Is it any wonder that the average cost at FMH for a patient is over $6,000 per day?
Is it any wonder that the hospital has amassed so much profit over the years that it uses its reserves to artificially lower the cost of high-priced procedures recently in order to make competition look bad?
Dr. Starr also dismisses the effect that CON has on making doctors leave Alaska and the inability to recruit more to replace them. He blows smoke and says it is complex and a combination of factors. The fact of the matter is, that when you have a monopoly that monopoly gets to dictate the terms of employment to its workers. When doctors come to Fairbanks they have 2 choices for work: work per the hospital's terms and conditions or do generic medicine with no specialties, surgeries, and no technological support. Is it so surprising that considering Alaska's already daunting arctic appeal, that this tips the balance the makes doctors leave or not want to come at all?
Look how far it has gone. Can we stand by and allow the rich to continue to abuse our laws, abuse our economy, and worst of all abuse our health?
Even if the hospital had not abused doctors or patients in any way, CON makes it so they could hurt us, at any time, just to increase their profits. Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely. Why should we trust the hospital with this supreme position of authority over our very lives?
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Posted on April 18 at 2 p.m. (Suggest removal)
All you of global warming deniers and mitigators need to realize something:
It's true that the earth's magnetic field and ozone have both fluctuated before and have both caused natural warming and cooling over the milennia. What is NOT natural is ozone depletion. Never before in earth's natural history has natural produced chlorofluorocarbons which has cut giant holes in the ozone. As we throw tons of greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere we have to remember that when that effect has happened in the distant past due to volcanic outgassing, the ozone was always there to protect the earth.
On Controversial environmentalist takes on global warming