The bill is in for Orly Taitz, the California lawyer leading the “Birther” litigation: $20,000 for sanctionable conduct. U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land previously issued a stern warning to attorney Orly Taitz and others in the so-called “birther” campaign: do not file another such “frivolous” lawsuit or you will face sanctions. Land threw out the lawsuit filed on behalf of Capt. Connie Rhodes who is an Army surgeon challenging her deployment orders due to President Barack Obama’s alleged ineligibility to serve as President. Land (a Bush appointee) noted that “[u]nlike in ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ simply saying something is so does not make it so.” In the most recent order, Land said that Taitz’s conduct “borders on delusional.”
Rhodes previously accused Taitz of filing new papers in Rhodes v. MacDonald without her approval and after she agreed to be deployed by the military. Taitz declared in one filing: “This case is now a quasi-criminal prosecution of the undersigned attorney.” She is already facing a California bar complaint and Rhodes is promising to file a new complaint against her for “reprehensible” representation.
When Rhodes learned that Taitz had filed a motion to stay deployment after she had decided to forego further litigation, she proceeded to fire Taitz by sending a remarkable letter from Office Max on the advice of “Tim who works in the District Clerk’s office.” She stated in the fax:
September 18th, 2009
To the Honorable Judge Land:
Currently, I am shipping out to Iraq for my deployment. I became aware on last night’s local news that a Motion to Stay my deployment had been entered on my behalf. I did not authorize this motion to be filed. I thank you for hearing my case and respect the ruling given on September 16th, 2009. It is evident that the original filing for the TRO and such was full of political conjecture which was not my interest. I had no intention of refusing orders nor will I. I simply wanted to verify the lawfulness of my orders. I am honored to serve my country and thank you for doing the same.
With that I said, please withdraw the Motion to Stay that Ms. Taitz filed this past Thursday. I did not authorize it and do not wish to proceed. Ms. Taitz never requested my permission nor did I give it. I would not have been aware of this if I did not see it on the late news on Thursday night before going to board my plane to Iraq on Friday, September 18, 2009.
Furthermore, I do not wish for Ms. Taitz to file any future motion or represent me in any way in this court. It is my plan to file a complaint with the California State Bar to her reprehensible and unprofessional actions.
I am faxing this as was advised by Tim, who works in the District Clerk’s office. I will mail the original copy of this letter once I have arrived in Iraq.
Respectfully,
CPT Connie M. Rhodes, MD
In her Motion for Leave to Withdrawal as Counsel, Taitz suggested that her client is lying to the Court.
She states that she not only has a (rather obvious) conflict with her former client but may present evidence that is embarrassing to her:
The undersigned attorney comes before this Court to respectfully ask for leave to withdraw as counsel for the Plaintiff Captain Connie Rhodes. The immediate need for this withdrawal is the filing of two documents of September 18, 2009, one by the Court, Document 17, and one apparently by Plaintiff Connie Rhodes, which together have the effect of creating a serious conflict of interest between Plaintiff and her counsel. In order to defend herself, the undersigned counsel will have to contest and potentially appeal any sanctions order in her own name alone, separately from the Plaintiff, by offering and divulging what would normally constitute inadmissible and privileged attorney-client communications, and take a position contrary to her client’s most recently stated position in this litigation. The undersigned attorney will also offer evidence and call witnesses whose testimony will be adverse to her (former) client’s most recently stated position in this case. A copy of this Motion was served five days ago on the undersigned’s former client, Captain Connie Rhodes, prior to filing this with the Court and the undersigned acknowledges her client’s ability to object to this motion, despite her previously stated disaffection for the attorney-client
relationship existing between them. This Motion to Withdraw as Counsel will in no way delay the proceedings, in that the Plaintiff has separately indicated that she no longer wishes to continue to contest any issue in this case. In essence, this case is now a quasi-criminal prosecution of the undersigned attorney, for the purpose of punishment, and the Court should recognize and acknowledge the essential ethical importance of releasing this counsel from her obligations of confidentiality and loyalty under these extraordinary circumstances.Respectfully submitted,
By:_________________________
Orly Taitz, DDS, Esq.
California Bar ID No. 223433
FOR THE PLAINTIFF
Captain Connie Rhodes, M.D. F.S.
SATURDAY, September 26, 2009
“Quasi-criminal prosecution”? The judge had ordered Taitz to “show cause” why a sanction should not be imposed in the case. He had previously told Taitz that he would consider sanctions if she filed similar claims in the future. After the denial of the Motion to Stay deployment, Land said that the latest filing was “deja vu all over again” including “her political diatribe.” He noted:
Instead of seriously addressing the substance of the Court’s order, counsel repeats her political diatribe against the President, complains that she did not have time to address dismissal of the action (although she sought expedited consideration), accuses the undersigned of treason, and maintains that “the United States District Courts in the 11th Circuit are subject to political pressure, external control, and . . . subservience to the same illegitimate chain of command which Plaintiff has previously protested.”
Then the kicker:
The Court finds Plaintiff’s Motion for Stay of Deployment (Doc. 15) to be frivolous. Therefore, it is denied. The Court notifies Plaintiff’s counsel, Orly Taitz, that it is contemplating a monetary penalty of $10,000.00 to be imposed upon her, as a sanction for her misconduct. Ms. Taitz shall file her response within fourteen days of today’s order showing why this sanction should not be imposed.
I am frankly not convinced that sanctions would be appropriate for filing for a motion to stay deployment per se. At the time of his order, Land did not presumably know that the filing was made against the wishes of the client. If Rhodes was interested in appealing Land’s decision, which is her right, a stay is a standard request. However, the fact that the filing may have been made after Taitz was terminated as counsel and after she was told that Rhodes was abandoning the case is more cause for possible sanctions. Moreover, the low quality and over-heated rhetoric of the filing can support such sanctions. Her filings appear more visceral than legal. In demanding reconsideration of the Court’s earlier order, she used language that does cross the line:
This Court has threatened the undersigned counsel with sanctions for advocating that a legally conscious, procedurally sophisticated, and constitutionally aware army officers corps is the best protection against the encroachment of anti-democratic, authoritarian, neo-Fascistic or Palaeo-Communistic dictatorship in this country, without pointing to any specific language, facts, or allegations of fact in the Complaint or TRO as frivolous. Rule 11 demands more of the Court than use of its provisions as a means of suppressing the First Amendment Right to Petition regarding questions of truly historical, in fact epic and epochal, importance in the history of this nation.
She also (as noted by Land in his later order) essentially accused Land of treason, as she has in public statements:
Plaintiff submits that to advocate a breach of constitutional oaths to uphold the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, is in fact a very practical form of “adhering” to those enemies, foreign and domestic, and thus is tantamount to treason, as Defined in Article III, Section 3, even when pronounced in Court. The People of the United States deserve better service and loyalty from the most powerful, and only life-tenured, officers of their government.
Taitz is also facing a California Bar complaint, here. Ohio lawyer (and inactive California bar member) Subodh Chandra wrote the bar, stating “I respectfully request that you investigate Ms. Taitz’s conduct and impose an appropriate sanction. She is an embarrassment to the profession.” For that complaint, click here.
A complaint by a former client would likely attract more attention by the Bar. These are now serious allegations including misrepresentation, false statements to the Court, and other claims that will have to be addressed by a Bar investigation. This could take years to resolve — perhaps just in time for Obama’s second inauguration.
The court ruled that Taitz violated Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in filing frivolous papers. Declaring the filings as made in “bad faith,” the court concluded that Taitz’s legal conduct was “willful and not merely negligent.” Sanctions were warranted, he held, because “Counsel’s frivolous and sanctionable conduct wasted the Defendants’ time and valuable judicial resources that could have been devoted to legitimate cases pending with the Court.”
“When a lawyer files complaints and motions without a reasonable basis for believing that they are supported by existing law or a modification or extension of existing law, that lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law,” Land writes. “When a lawyer uses the courts as a platform for a political agenda disconnected from any legitimate legal cause of action, that lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law. When a lawyer personally attacks opposing parties and disrespects the integrity of the judiciary, that lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law. When a lawyer recklessly accuses a judge of violating the judicial code of conduct with no supporting evidence beyond her dissatisfaction with the judge’s rulings, that lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law. When a lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law, that lawyer ceases to advance her cause or the ends of justice. . .
Regrettably, the conduct of counsel Orly Taitz has crossed these lines, and Ms. Taitz must be sanctioned for her misconduct. After a full review of the sanctionable conduct, counsel’s conduct leading up to that conduct, and counsel’s response to the Court’s show cause order, the Court finds that a monetary penalty of $20,000.00 shall be imposed upon counsel Orly Taitz as punishment for her misconduct, as a deterrent to prevent future misconduct, and to protect the integrity of the Court. Payment shall be made to the United States, through the Middle District of Georgia Clerk’s Office, within thirty days of today’s Order. If counsel fails to pay the sanction due, the U.S. Attorney will be authorized to commence collection proceedings.
I expect that Taitz will appeal the decision, given her past statements. The opinion goes into considerable detail on her conduct and interaction with the court, as shown below.
For the decision, click here.
For the story, click here
Because feeding and pointing too in ridicule are two separate activities, bdapuppet. You are still free to leave any time you don’t like people attacking your credibility based upon your past actions. See? Not an order. A choice. Choices and consequences. Your choices. That’s what led you to this end.
I am but an agent of karma.
I like being a clown Drill SARgent
“I didn’t tell you to do squat”
How bout push-ups, want me to do some push-ups Drill SARgent
Why don’t you listen to dear leader and don’t feed the troll.
Byron,
What Buddha said in spades. The mistake of all political philosophers and all economic prophets, pushing idealized systems is that they fail to take into account human nature as it currently exists. Buddha gets right to the heart of the matter. Unrestricted capitalism allows the worst intentioned of us free rein to plunder.
The easiest examples are the billionaires among us that being rich beyond all measure keep trying to add to their riches; the corporations like big tobacco that continue to market products that hurt people and do so like drug pushers; the drug companies that spend more on marketing than they do on research; the defense industry that uses money to influence the overpurchase of unneeded weaponry which they overcharge for; the private prison industry which pays off Pennsylvania Juvenile Court Judges to send inmates their way.
These are just a few examples of far too many. If we as humans all lived by the “Golden Rule” than perhaps your way would work. We don’t and you seem aware of it yourself when you speak of “young Tyrannasuaresses.” These are merciless predators whose only goals were filling their hunger, is this an entrepeneurial model to encourage, or a workable social model?
I didn’t tell you to do squat, half-wit. Again, you’re making a clown out of yourself. I just point and laugh.
you cant just make this stuff up, who is in denial now?
Most Americans (52%) believe that there continues to be significant disagreement within the scientific community over global warming.
While many advocates of aggressive policy responses to global warming say a consensus exists, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 25% of adults think most scientists agree on the topic. Twenty-three percent (23%) are not sure.
But just in the last few days, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs seemed to reject any such disagreement in a response to a question about global warming, “I don’t think … [global warming] is quite, frankly, among most people, in dispute anymore.”
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/americans_skeptical_of_science_behind_global_warming
my bad I left DRILL out
yes SARgent
cause you told me to SARgent
With an established track record for being scientifically ignorant and a troll, your analysis of CO2 emissions and their impact has far, far less credibility than those you criticize, bdabigot.
No data was falsified by these guys.
You, on the other hand, are known to make shit up and march to a master’s drum beat.
It’s simple math, but you’re a simple troll and simple people believe all sorts of nonsense.
Thanks Elaine for giving me the side that says, move along nothing to see here.
But IMO, and now many many others, the e-mails have rocked the foundation of Climatechange. We are certainly free as a people to believe as we wish. I’ve NEVER believed in the doom and gloom version of it and certainly do not believe that CO2 is the driver of Temps. The earth has warmed and cooled many times and will do so again and again. Like a friend told me Global warming is for real, I’ve seen it with my own eye’s in my lifetime, to which I said, your lifetime is all but a small fragment to the earths history.
I’m still curious to find out were they hacked or were they leaked. We have no official confirmation from a law enforcement source. Only the CRU saying it and some in the media.
Met Office to re-examine 160 years of climate data
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6945445.ece
bdaman–
More on Global Warming
It’s a good thing there are folks like Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California and Rep. John Boehner of Ohio around to help shed light on who the worst producers of greenhouse gases may be. Who knew it was the flatulence of dinosaurs and cows that may have caused climatic changes on planet Earth?
Dana Rohrabacher: “We don’t know what those other cycles were caused by in the past. Could be dinosaur flatulence, you know, or who knows?”
John Boehner on Cow Farts & Climate Change
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eSyO1bVVP0&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Here’s a poem I wrote about bovine methane producers back in April. I thank Dana and John for inspiring my poetic take on global warming.
On the Flatulence of Cows and Global Warming
The dinosaurs farted.
And now it’s the cows—
Whose anal emissions
Waft into the air
Increasing the greenhouse
Gases “up there.”
In blissful abandon
Cows graze on green grass,
Mooing and chewing
And chewing and pooing—
All the while strewing
Brown pies everywhere.
These flatulent bovines…
These cud masticators…
Digestive polluters …
Toxic gas generators…
These methane producers
Seem harmless and charming.
But I’ve got the scoop—
On the cows and their poop:
They’re the primary cause
Of Earth’s global warming.
Maybe Boehner’s solution to global warming would be to kill all the cows.
bdaman–
Here are two more perspectives on Climategate:
Scientists Respond to “Climategate” E-Mail Controversy (Scientific American, 12/4/2009)
Stolen e-mails and computer code do nothing to change average temperature trends, but they could damage climate researchers’ credibility just when polls are showing public belief that greenhouse gases are warming the planet is ebbing
By David Biello
Excerpts from article:
With all the “hot air” surrounding climate change discussions, none has been hotter in recent weeks than that spewed over a trove of stolen e-mails and computer code from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in England. Longstanding contrarians, such as Sen. James Inhofe (R–Okla.), who famously dubbed climate change a “hoax” in a 2003 speech, has pointed to the stolen e-mails as information that overturns the scientific evidence for global warming and called on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson to halt any development of regulation of greenhouse gases pending his investigation into the e-mails. And recent polls have found that fewer Americans today than just two years ago believe that greenhouse gases will cause average temperatures to increase—a drop from 71 percent to 51 percent.
**********
In fact, nothing in the stolen e-mails or computer code undermines in any way the scientific consensus—which exists among scientific publications as well as scientists—that climate change is happening and humans are the cause. “There is a robust consensus that humans are altering the atmosphere and warming the planet,” said meteorologist Michael Mann of The Pennsylvania State University, who also participated in the conference call and was among the scientists whose e-mails have been leaked. “Further increases in greenhouse gases will lead to increasingly greater disruption.”
Some of the kerfuffle rests on a misreading of the e-mails’ wording. For example, the word “trick” in one message, which has been cited as evidence that a conspiracy is afoot, is actually being used to describe a mathematical approach to reconciling observed temperatures with stand-in data inferred from tree ring measurements.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=scientists-respond-to-climategate-controversy
************
Editorial: What Americans can learn from Climategate (MercuryNews.com, 12/4/2009)
The uproar over Climategate doesn’t change anything fundamental in the debate over global warming. But it should lead to better communication and greater transparency among scientists, especially when research is driving public policy decisions.
On the eve of the climate change conference in Copenhagen, the scientific community is outraged that researchers’ e-mail archives were stolen last month and leaked to the public — but naysayers on climate change are even more outraged that those e-mails seem to imply a cover-up.
The messages themselves reveal something far less damaging, however. The exchanges, thought to be private, did not lead to withholding information. The studies the scientists talked about keeping back are in the public realm. We’ll all be better off if the brouhaha leads politicians to pore over these in-depth analyses of peer-reviewed studies to better inform their policy decisions. Upon close examination, the scientific basis for climate change theory is still strong.
For eight long years, scientists chafed while President George W. Bush pursued an ideological agenda, essentially dismissing climate change research. Now the White House and Congress can create a new era in which science and policymaking walk hand in hand.
The climate scientists at Britain’s University of East Anglia exchanged e-mails questioning some of their most basic theories. That’s what scientists do. They discussed the possibility of suppressing two studies that question global warming and climate change models — but both of those studies were eventually included in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 report. The process worked.
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_13930886
I didn’t say it these guys did.
Will Happer, Professor of Physics, Princeton
Larry Gould, Professor of Physics, Hartford
Roger Cohen, former Manager, Strategic Planning, ExxonMobil
Byron,
There’s only one problem with that “T-rex” version of capitalism you seek. It doesn’t exist and never will. You are making a mistake that was a key fault in communism. The reason communism failed is it failed to take into account human nature. The reason this imaginary version capitalism won’t work is that it exploits and appeals to the VERY worst in human nature. Your T-rex capitalism won’t work in the future for that reason and it is not working NOW for that reason.
No rules = exploitation by sociopaths and psychotics.
There is no way around that. What you want leads to more fascism and more oppression than we are seeing today. It’s on the rise too. And what we are seeing today is simply not acceptable. Our Federal Government is out of control because of it’s no longer responsible to We The People, but instead takes it’s venal criminal marching orders from K St. Or worse. C St. Criminals. Insane zealots. Insane criminal zealots. What difference does it make who pulls the trigger on America and Liberty?
Dead is still dead.
After awhile though, the unrestricted capitalism argument starts to sound like spoiled children who don’t want any supervision. “I don’t wanna, I Don’t Wanna, I DON’T WANNA! WAAHHHHHHH!”
Pure childishness.
In a child, it makes you want to send them to their room. In an adult, it makes you want to slap the shit out of them, doesn’t it? You dream of a capitalist paradise of unrestricted action where the market is only controlled by desire – no matter if that desire is destructive to others or society as a whole from either the buyers or the sellers perspective. Again, what matter who pulls the trigger? The key word in this statement being “dream”. As Buddha said, the root of all suffering is desire. As Elaine said, if all actors were of equal motive and socially conscious it might work, but the simple fact is that some people are evil and insane assholes who want to hurt you – either take your stuff or take your life, sometimes both.
You dream of a world without evil desires.
Not happening. Ever. I can guarantee it. It’s a lovely dream. Totally fiction.
What you seek isn’t a paradise. It’s anarchy. And anarchy is ruled by Col. Colt no matter how much money you have. Again, dead is dead and rich people can and do die everyday. Guns are cheap. But when the social fabric here starts to really unravel, it’s going to make the Old West look like a bunch of amateurs. They didn’t have full automatics, chemical weapons, electronics, garage genetics and high explosives.
There is an upside though. Until corporations are put back on the short leash and the Constitution restored, you’re going to get your wish Byron. You have it right now. The rules are out the window. If they weren’t, Cheney would be in prison awaiting trial for treason this very instant and those pricks at AIG and GoldmanSacks (the misspelling intentional) would be in the cell next to him. Reduced to a life of green bologna sandwiches and industrial grade toilet paper for their crimes against society – crimes which are all rooted in their malformed, sick and twisted little egos and the resultant greed. Overcompensation for a small penis or that mommy never hugged them enough as kids. Or, as in the case of Cheney, just straight up evil bastards right out of the womb. But to appreciate the decay in toto, one must add time to the equation. The longer the rules are gone, the worse the decay and death will be.
But you want less rules.
As the Chinese say, “May you live in interesting times.” It’s a curse, but a corollary is “Careful for what you wish for.” They can be one and the same.
You said socialism forces maturity. It does. Capitalism encourages immaturity and selfishness in addition to attracting the dregs of society. I didn’t abandon pure capitalism lightly or without much thought. You keep pointing to the reasons why I abandoned it though. It’s an empty and ultimately destructive approach that doesn’t address fatally serious flaws in human nature. Some things are simply too important to survival as a culture and a species to let some dipstick’s amoral greed motive determine outcome.
Business needs more regulation, not less. And if they don’t want to play by the rules, they can stay home or take their business back where it belongs: underground and on the run like dangerous criminals should be. Others willing to play by the rules will arise and take their place in the market.
bdaman–
Another take on Climategate:
Fox & Friends coverage of CRU emails disregards facts, context (MediaMatters for America, 12/3/2009)
“Fox & Friends hosts Brian Kilmeade, Steve Doocy, and Gretchen Carlson have repeatedly advanced the right wing’s distortion of emails reportedly stolen from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (CRU) by hyping a litany of falsehoods that climate skeptics have propagated about the emails without any regard for facts or context. In fact, despite the hosts’ claims, the content of the emails do not “prove” the scientists doctored or destroyed data, nor do they undermine the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activities are causing global climate change.”
http://mediamatters.org/research/200912030030
************
Let’s find out all the facts before we go calling the theory of global warming a fraud. I like to get more than one side of a story. I’m really not sure what to make of all this yet.
************
“A little learning is a dangerous thing;
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.”
–Alexander Pope
Monroe County man seeks indictments on President Obama for treason
Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III
United States Naval Academy, Class of 1975
“Mr. Obama is an infiltrator. Mr. Obama is my sworn enemy. Mr. Obama is not the legitimate commander in chief,” says Fitzpatrick.
I am sworn to do an obedience to the constitution and do everything I can do to remove him from office, by force of war. And if not, then by force,” says Fitzpatrick.
http://www.volunteertv .com/home/headlines/78267717.html#
Mike/Slarti/Buddha/Elaine:
you got me, we certainly don’t have true capitalism in this country what with corporate subsidies and bailouts and lack of competition. I agree with Mike on most of his points, especially the current system set up to limit entry to markets and production which protects the current crop of rich people. They have a vested interest in a less dynamic market, it allows them to be able to keep their wealth with little effort. They are afraid of competition.
Maybe it would be nice to try real laissez faire for a period of time just to see what would happen. I’ll bet the first thing would be a bunch of trust fund babies would loose their shirts and have to start working for a living.
You guys seem to think I want to protect the status quo, I don’t. I want a vigorous dynamic market that rewards hard work and innovation and punishes the old dinosaurs that have to run to government to protect them from the young T-Rex’s.
That way you don’t have rotten stinking carcases lying about protected by fat dumb politicians feeding on the remains and keeping the young T-Rexs away. Darwinian capitalism, let the strong companies survive and the weak ones be fertilizer for them.
By now everyone has heard of what has come to be known as ClimateGate, which was and is an international scientific fraud, the worst any of us have seen in our cumulative 223 years of APS membership.
In 2007 the APS Council adopted a Statement on global warming that was based largely on the scientific work that is now revealed to have been corrupted. The principals in this escapade have not denied what they did, but have sought to dismiss it by saying that it is normal practice among scientists. You know and we know that that is simply untrue. Physicists are not expected to cheat.
None of us would use corrupted science in our own work, nor would we sign off on a thesis by a student who did so. This is not only a matter of science, it is a matter of integrity, and the integrity of the APS is now at stake. That is why we are taking the unusual step of communicating directly with at least a fraction of the membership.
If you believe that the APS should withdraw a Policy Statement that is based on admittedly corrupted science, and should then undertake to clarify the real state of the art in the best tradition of a learned society, please send a note to the incoming President of the APS ccallan@princeton.edu, with the single word YES in the subject line. That will make it easier for him to count.
Bob Austin, Professor of Physics, Princeton
Hal Lewis, emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara
Will Happer, Professor of Physics, Princeton
Larry Gould, Professor of Physics, Hartford
Roger Cohen, former Manager, Strategic Planning, ExxonMobil
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/post.aspx?bid=354&bpid=24483
It’s not about me and just because I wear a wife beater doesn’t mean I beat my wife.
On a serious note, I briefly saw an infomercial last night before my wife changed the channel. It was about a ministry that distributes a Hanukkah Box to elderly Jews in Russia that are otherwise deprived of the celebration. I thought I could google it to get the information but I can’t find it. For twenty five dollars the box contains several items to celebrate Hanukkah.
Mike do you have any information on that. The closet thing I found was a christian ministry out of Atlanta that does it locally.
Byron–
A true free market economy without any government regulation might be the best option–IF everyone was honest and no one was greedy. Unfortunately, Diogenes has been having extreme difficulty in finding what he’s been looking for lately on Wall Street and in corporate boardrooms.
Our health care system is a mess now–and one of the biggest reasons why is that it’s now a for-profit industry. Many doctors are being run ragged, required to see many more patients and spend less time with each of them, and are making a lot less money than the CEOs of huge medical insurance companies and hospitals whose primary concern is the bottom line.
As someone who wouldn’t be alive if not for excellent health insurance I have a stake in this debate. In a recent hospitalization it was insisted that I undergo two expensive procedures, even though one had been done recently and with the other the last four had shown there was nothing to be gained by doing it. However, they wouldn’t let me out of the hospital if I didn’t have them done and if I left on my own without a discharge I would have had to pay the whole tab.
Our health care system has gotten out of control and unfortunately too many doctors are now in it for the money. It is not the doctors who are to blame though, it is the insurance companies who make obscene profits way beyond what they deserve, it is the huge hospital chains which overcharge for their services and many other factors. It is a health care system out of control and unresponsive to the health needs of individuals. Dr. H pleads to a modest lifestyle but I know too many doctors personally to believe him. To be honest I believe they should be well compensated, but I also believe that the entire system should be patient centered, rather than profit centered. We need a national health care, single payer system and the said fact is that not only would it be cheaper to run, but it would be a boon to business across the board.