Nothing works.
That’s right. Nothing. Let me explain.
The economy doesn’t work. It never really did very well but it was growing so fast and there was so much money that we didn’t notice. We were ahead of the problem. Then our greed caught up with us and we hit a wall and we weren’t ahead of the problem any longer. Then it became evident, that the economy didn’t work at all. It was all a ruse.
Government doesn’t work. It’s trying right now for the first time in a good long while but the parties are so busy fighting for their own party agendas that we are at a gridlock on a lot of good ideas and passing a lot of bad ideas. It’s not about US or even U.S. but about what they (the Republicans and the Democrats) want FOR us.
Sadly, that is only one example of how our government doesn’t work. We could move on to Welfare. It doesn’t work and is being abused by millions. What started out as a good thing has created a portion of society that are now fifth generation welfare recipients. That helping hand for people in trouble has become a way of life. FEMA. It doesn’t work. Do I really have to even mention Katrina? Take a drive through the 9th Ward today and tell me what you think. Our entire infrastructure doesn’t work. Bridges are falling down and roads are crumbling while people build (or don’t build) bridges to nowhere. Social Security doesn’t work. There won’t be any left for you or your kids because it’s practically bankrupt now: but don’t worry, we will go deeper in debt to “save it.”
The healthcare system doesn’t work. People are dying and being denied care because they don’t have any money. The richest, best country in the world? And we are letting our citizens die because they can’t afford their insurance or medicine? Insurance certainly doesn’t work. You fight to get them to pay what they promised they would pay for and then if you win, they cancel you after the claim. And that doesn’t begin to explain all that is wrong with healthcare and insurance and we all know it.
The public school system doesn’t work. Our kids are so far down the list in the areas of math and science by comparison to other countries that we should truly be ashamed. We have kids who walk out of their high school with a diploma in their hand they can’t read. Teachers are allowed to keep their jobs even after making racist remarks and sexual advances on our children. Remember the report of the elementary teacher who during the elections was teaching his students that CHANGE actually was an acronym for Can You Help A N-word Get Elected? Was he fired? No. We was transferred to “Adult Education.” He was too stupid to understand that what he spelled was actually CYHANGE I guess. He should have been fired and prosecuted for exposing our children to that kind of stupidity and racism.
How does something like that happen? There are lots of reasons but tenure plays a big part of it for sure. Competency isn’t as important as time on the job. Being a teacher just doesn’t mean what it used to. There was a time it was a “calling.” And for some it still is. And please understand that this is not an indictment of all teachers but instead an indictment of a system that condones incompetency. I am a huge supporter of teachers but I want them to earn their money by being judged for their performance – meaning that the kids they teach actually know something. And if you can’t teach your class the fundamentals of the subject, you are incompetent. I know, I know, this one is edgy and will bother some of you. Again, I respect the profession and I know that the system sucks and that teachers are not paid much and that they can’t always control what their school system does. In other words: the system doesn’t work.
Let’s keep going. Products don’t work. Clothes don’t last. And the more you pay for them, the lower the quality it seems. Computers, phones, TVs . . . basically, any type of electronics is manufactured with “planned obsolescence.” That means that the manufacturer builds the product knowing it will at some point break down. They know it will cost $400 to fix it and you can buy a new one for $500. So you buy the new one because it makes sense. They keep you coming back for more after they have intentionally built the product to break down. I have 4 laptops in a drawer that worked really well for about 2 years and when they broke down, it only cost about 25% more for a brand new one than to fix the old one. That’s why I have four old ones.
People don’t work either. For the most part, people work just hard enough so they won’t get fired and companies pay them just enough so they won’t quit!
I am sick of listening to the politicians blow smoke up my skirt saying that Americans are the hardest working people on the planet. They are simply pandering to our emotions and our sense of patriotism about what great people we are. That’s a load of crap. American workers are NOT the hardest working people on the planet. Read a little. Watch some educational television. Travel some. You will quickly find out that the American worker is about the laziest worker on the planet. For the most part, workers do JUST enough to squeeze by. Tell them that you have a problem with how little effort they put out and the crappy job they are doing and they will contact their union rep and file a grievance. Yep, I am taking on labor unions too. Originally, they were a GREAT idea. They were formed to protect the American worker from abuse. But folks, this ain’t a hundred years ago. Working conditions are not what they used to be. Your rights aren’t being violated by expecting you to actually do what you were hired to do and are being paid to do. Now labor unions exist not to make sure that workers are treated fairly and to stop abuse but to put the squeeze on companies for every dollar they can to the point that the company can no longer be profitable or compete globally. Want to know why we ship so many jobs overseas? One of the reasons is labor unions. Highly skilled people, who are willing to work HARDer than people in our country are and don’t belong to a union that has management by the short hairs. In few cases does America produce the highest quality product and almost never is it done at the lowest price.
Am I anti-American? Some of you will read this and think so. Nothing could be more wrong. I am very PRO-American. But I’m not so wild about what we have let happen to our great country. GREED. A lack of INTEGRITY. LIES & DISHONESTY. STUPIDITY. INCOMPETENCE. IMMORALITY. And NOT the kind of immorality that the fundamentalists talk about. I’m talking about the morality that is based in doing the RIGHT thing. The thing that has nothing to do with religion or politics. Instead, it’s the thing you know in your heart is right because it just IS. You don’t have to ask, you don’t have to think about who will win and who will lose, you don’t have to wonder about the repercussions or consequences, you just KNOW it’s the right thing. And because you know it is the right thing, you do it. That is real morality.
When individuals get back to doing the right thing every time regardless of who is offended or who is the beneficiary and when Americans live their lives based in integrity and stop lying and put greed aside, then we can have our great country back. When you pay your bills on time, show up on time, give a full day’s work for a full day’s wage, when you give your best every time because you know you should, then you will be making America the country you really want it to be. The country it used to be. A country you can be proud of. And when you teach your kids to be this way, you will know you have had a hand in changing our future.
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Bravo!
I think things work for those people that make the effort (work) to make them work. In other words, I don’t think the things you mention create some barrier to success for most people. By in large, people fail b/c they choose to.
I went through the public school system in LA (likely worst in the Nation) and I’m successful.
I buy clothes and stuff and they last b/c I take care of them.
My bro and sis-in-law are successful FEMA beneficiaries. They are doing well.
And I work. I work my ars off at a full time job, and run several side businesses in my spare time, all while taking care of my wife and kid.
I dare someone to come tell me I don’t work hard or that I don’t make America work for me. It’s up to the individual to make it work for themselves.
I think you’re essentially saying that in your last paragraph, but the first couple of paragraphs seem to be blaming Govt for people’s failures. It’s the dependence on Govt. that creates failure.
Great thoughts, Larry.
Larry great stuff as always. I am already a member of Larry Winget Unofficial Fan Club in Facebook but wasn’t sure if you would want an unknown friends add, I will add you asap then. 🙂
You are my favorite author, you speak from your mind, with honesty and truth. You say what you believe and you get paid for it as well, awesome! I speak my mind and spend two weeks in HR explaining to them that I am not going to shoot the place up I just had a complaint about what they were doing and was trying to change things. It didn’t go over so well, I think it was in my delivery. That was before I read all your books.
I am starting to get my stuff together, I only wish I read your books 20 years ago. (yes I realize they weren’t published then, just saying it would have been nice.)
Someday I hope to meet you and shake your hand for helping me realize everything really is my fault, just ask my wife for confirmation on that.
Larry I have a serious business idea for you. Would you consider establishing a dating website for your readers. If a women is reading your books then I would like a way to meet a like minded person who is also taking responsibility for their life. I have already contributed to the divorce statistics once and I am not going to do it again and one way to ensure that I don’t is by meeting a like minded person. I just hope you have a lot of readers up here in Canada.
Thanks,
Kent in Canada
Kent – thanks for the idea. I am a lot of things but matchmaker isn’t one of them. Funny though, I have been approached about doing a dating television show. There are lots of ways to find like-minded people. Get you a list of good “disqualifying” questions. I covered this in my last book, People Are Idiots and I Can Prove It.
All the best
Larry
I was just talking with a co-worker about “planned obsolescence” on Friday. What I said was this:
When I was a kid, my dad brought home an old Boston brand desktop pencil sharpener. He got it at a yard sale. It had a plate that pulled out of the main body, with pincers that were designed to hold a pencil in place while you sharpened it. That, and it was extremely heavy (it was either a steel or lead base), so it . When finished, you had the sharpest pencil you could possibly find anywhere. When I went to college, it was sold at a garage sale without me knowing about it. Mainly, I was angry I didn’t bring it with me to campus in the first place (as a then aspiring graphic artist/cartoonist, I loved using it for precise linework). In the next ten years or so, I went through about five or six pencil sharpeners, either breaking them, or finding out they were junk (for my purposes, anyway). On a whim, I searched eBay for something similar to what I grew up with, and I lucked out. I paid $10 for it. I still have it, and use it regularly. Over ten years, I shelled out probably $30 for inferior product. Not backbreaking money, but money that could have been spent on other things, nonetheless. The point is this: I paid $10 for a pencil sharpener that’s probably older than my father, and that is in perfect working order and a superior product to anything I can findd on the market now, and will continue to be by the time I have fully grown children.
The odd point my colleague and I thought about was how much monetary inflation and physical waste over the past fifty years has been due to the irresponsible concept of planned obsolescence – because anything from cars and computers to pencil sharpeners have been planned to either fail down the road, or, even worse, not work as efficiently as possible.
What bothers me most is this: if I were to design a website or a brochure for a company that makes products in this manner, and that website or brochure had spelling errors or missing elements, I would be out of a job, and I might even be expected to forfeit any payment that’s come to me, but a car company can knowingly sell vehicles with dangerously poor crash test ratings, known issues with odd parts (say, an electric window switch that tends to short out, or an easy-failing thermostat), or what have you, and generally get away with it. Granted, the Big Three are in trouble now financially, but I’d argue it’s more due to the economic climate than for anything else.
One thing to add to the above:
If I were to make a mistake on an ad campaign and were penalized for it, I acknowledge that that is what should happen – no excuses. My beef is that planning to make a product fail or simply allowing a defective product into the marketplace because its too expnsive to recall should equally be punished.
Larry, I just heard of you in our local newspaper, went down to the library and check out one of your books and bought 3 more. What a trip! I love your thinking!!! I unfortunately never saw your show on A&E but hopefully it will be coming back? Your books make me feel better. They are the plain truth, finally. And they make me laugh out loud. I am going to do the things you recommend and watch what happens. I’m sick and tired of the same old.
Will you ever be in Fresno, California? I would pay good money to listen to you………
The only reason you think social security doesn’t work, is because you have never had to take care of elderly parents who are dependent on it and to keep them away from a nursing home where they store bodies four to a room and let them develop bedsores. When the selfish individualism that fuels this crisis finds its cause in cultural hard heartedness, when that hits the wall, maybe you will think otherwise. But most likely not. “Get up by your own bootstraps” works as long as there are plenty of bootstraps to go around….. When there is no more, many will have no more choice but to share what they have with the less fortunate, or the equally unfortunate. Of course, the hard heartedness and pride will keep them from seeing this until it is really late, and pride will keep from admitting it. Government and institutions are simply the attempt to share so as to not let our human brothers suffer more than they have to. If that’ s seem like poppycock, it’s because you are too comfortable or too ideological.
Thanks for your books and straight talk. It’s a great boost and much truth and enthusiasm is shared thereby.
Dear Y – a bit unfair making assumptions about my family and my parents. Actually, you could not be more wrong. And if there is anything Larry Winget doesn’t have, it is a hard heart.
I was taught by my parents (and actually my mother does rely on Social Security and Medicare) that there were always plenty of bootstraps to go around. I still believe that. It is not a lacking of bootstraps, it the failure to pull yourself up. That is the problem. The willingness to do what it takes regardless of the situation or any conditions.
Social Security isn’t going to be around for our grandchildren. That is my point. The faster we teach that to our kids, and at the same time, teach them to prepare to take care of themselves and save for retirement, the better off that generation will be. Our parents, mine included were TAUGHT that it would be there to take care of them and failed to plan on taking care of themselves. That is the cold hard truth coming from a person with a very soft heart.
This may seem remarkable to many but I am a big believer in helping those who need help. I am a fiscal conservative, but a social liberal who very much supports helping people who actually need help. I think we have done our elderly and our military families a huge disservice through our lack of service and support of those in need.
Thanks for your comments.
Larry
Y –
Though I need not defend Larry here, if you have read his books you know that he strongly believes in giving what you can to others and it all comes back to you. One of the best examples he used was in his book, “You’re Broke Because You Want To Be” when he said that he had gone bankrupt and that his wife and he were barely scraping by, but for some reason he felt the need to write a check for $100 to charity – and did so. That was a turning point for me as a young adult trying to get ahead. I don’t have a lot of money, but every paycheck I give something to the Dana Faber Cancer Institute (as cancer has been in my family.)
As always Larry, great stuff. I am going to email this to all of my friends and family and hopefully be the snowflake that starts and avalanche.
One specific area: Health care
We do not have the “best” health care system. We have the one with the most technology in some places. For various reasons (including stupidity, fraud, greed, legitimate disagreements re morality), the spending is not targeted very well. Two examples:
On the last day of my father’s life, we were told he was in an irreversible coma. Per his request, he was not put on a respirator, etc. As we were sitting there a couple of hours later, in comes a couple of orderlys who start to wheel him out. What for, I ask. An MRI, they reply. Hang on, I say, and call the attending doc. I ask, is this to find a cure or to identify something you know in advance you can’t do anything about? The latter, of course. No MRI. That would have cost around $1,000, paid by Medicare.
And my mom – she has a respiratory ailment which is irreversible. She called the university medical center yesterday and cancelled a breathing test. Why? She says she knows her breathing is getting worse, she can feel it because she’s the one breathing, they’ve told her they’re out of treatment options, so why put herself through that inconvenience and anyone else through the cost?
We would have plenty of health care capacity if it were being used for sick people in ways that will help them.
R
I’m not sure when the American value system began to erode, or where this “entitlement” mentality is coming from in America today, but I agree with Larry that most systems in the U.S. are broken, including Government.
I cannot just sit around and hope that the next generation learns from our mistakes. It’s times like this that call for leadership, true leadership. And just like teachers, incompetent politicians who are more aligned to their party’s agenda as opposed to standing up for their constituents should be fired as well. Why not layoff ½ of Congress and the Senate and see how the remaining elected officials react? I’d bet we’d have their attention then.
People who believe they can or can’t do something are usually right. It starts with attitude, drive and determination. I still believe that this is the greatest country in the world, but if anyone feels that they are owed anything other than an opportunity, please abandon ship now and let the rest of us get on with “righting” the course.
That was one hell of a rant, my shiny headed brother. One might ask “who the hell took a dump in your corn flakes?”, but all of our bowls have been squatted in and it’s GOT TO STOP!
I couldn’t agree more with you about unions. They have been a particular killer to the auto industry. There are many non-union people out there willing to do the same job for half the money and twice the service. Instead of protecting workers from abuse, they protect many fat, lazy-ass bastids from working hard and giving their all.
Can we all please give a collective b!$ch-slap to the bonus babies at AIG, Bernie Madoff, the Mortgage company CEO’s, greedy bankers, Wall Street shysters, and the evil, lying politicians who run our country with their own personal agendas in mind?
Remember the movie, Network? Are we all sick and tired and not going to take it anymore?
Accountability. Anybody have a clue what this means?
ac?count?a?bil?i?ty
? ?[uh-koun-tuh-bil-i-tee]
–noun
1.
the state of being accountable, liable, or answerable.
2.
Education. a policy of holding schools and teachers accountable for students’ academic progress by linking such progress with funding for salaries, maintenance, etc.
Damn, I’m tired of these crappy corn flakes.
Wake up, America, Larry Winget has spoken.
– Tommy Z.
publisher @ planetzman.com
Larry you said “save for retirement” – What bothers me most is that I’ve talked to several people who were retired and who are now going back to the workforce or were about to retire, but will keep working. They did the RIGHT THING by saving all their lives and investing their money so they would be taking care of themselves at this time of their lives. They paid off their mortgages and have no large debts (mostly a car payment, and none of them have credit card debt.) Now their investments are worth next to nothing. The reward for doing the right thing was a slap in the face. Forget social security- investments and a 401k aren’t worth anything either. I plan on having to work until the day I’m in the morgue.
Finally, somebody gets it! I’ve been saying some of this stuff to friends and family for a while now. You’re so right about our school system. I can’t believe how little students know compared to other countries and how expensive it is to go to college. This makes college virtually unattainable to a large portion of the population. And if you do enroll and graduate, you’re in debt for the rest of your life.
I have cousins that raised their children in a third world country and even though they were working class families, all their children were able to graduate from college with no debt and have had the opportunity to intern for companies all around the world. They were able to defeat the odds and become young professionals with a future. Isn’t that what “the American Dream” was all about?
One more thing; Americans definitely aren’t the hardest working bunch but cut us some slack here. I mean, why give your all to a company that’s just going to chuck you out as soon as they start to hurt? Loyalty is a two way street.
Thanks for the fun article, Larry!
Larry, I support Kent’s proposal for a dating show. People are selecting mates based on “chemistry” or “what my heart tells me.” Great for romance, not necessarily wonderful for a LTR or a solid marriage. Another example of how nothing works. Case in point: the recent THE BACHELOR. I’ll leave it at that. Surely, however, you could do a much better matchmaking job, if you were so inclined.
Determination is a big part of making something work. For instance, this AM I’m learning how to use the MS Publisher program. In the demo video, a keyboard shortcut I’d never heard of (or at least didn’t remember it) was shown. Looked all over the place, including the Microsoft website. Not to be found.
Finally, after another several minutes of searching, I came to a self-professed “geeks” blog who talked about some of his fave shortcuts. Guess what? I had my answer. Turns out, it’s a little known one. Well, it’s one I won’t forget now.
Was that hard work? Not really, but many would probably wouldn’t even bother, just skip over it, then wonder why the program wouldn’t work for them properly, especially under a deadline. Determination paid off, again.
So, yes I agree that many times, getting things to work depends on how much you want to have it work. Now if we can get the government to agree on this….
Larry,
As a former teacher, I want to point out there is a danger in judging teachers by the performance of their students. In the old days, 25 years ago and beyond, the vast majority of students behaved in school and the worst offenses were gum chewing and smoking in the bathroom. Today, the public schools are filled with juvenile felons and your common garden variety type of sociopaths sitting there next to your well-scrubbed rule-obeying Eagle Scout.
Even if the kids don’t have criminal records, the “average” kid in public school has little or no regard for education. If they are motivated, they want grades, not education – there is a huge difference! Unfortunately, the vast majority of American parents are only interested in schools as babysitting services and a place where there had better get great grades or else!
Parents and kids have all the power in the public schools today. The school system has turned into a social experiment laboratory where all the ills of society are supposed to be fixed. We put kids of all abilities, including those with known behavior and learning challenges, in the same classrooms with “regular” kids and expect one teacher to teach everyone at their own level in a 45-minute period. During that 45 minutes, the teacher will spend several minutes taking roll, answering phone calls from the Dean of Discipline to send Soandso to ISS (in school suspension), or to the office, etc. The teacher will be breaking up verbal and sometimes physical fights, and spend about 1/2 of the time on behavior issues. Then, there is the time spent on handing out materials for education on condoms, domestic violence, supporting the heart fund, the polio fund, the Ronald McDonald House, the Scouts, the NAACP Negro College Fund, the Hispanic Students organization, the Christian prayer group, the Islamic society, etc.
Go shadow a teacher at each level of education, elementary, middle and high school for a week and see what the day in the life of a teacher is really like.
You would never make it as a teacher because the first time you raised your voice at a student, no matter what the darling was doing, you would be out the door.
Just wanted to say thanks for another thought-invoking blog. Although I live in Canada (and sorry Kent, I’m happily married!), your comments ring just as true here as in the States.
Sometimes I think the biggest problem with politics is the politicians.
Dear Larry,
I love your books I can’e get enough of them. I agree with your toughts here. I was not born on raised in the USA, but I love this country as if it were my own. I am legel here but I am not yet a resident or a citizen. It is really a shame becuase I really make ever effort to follow the teachings, values and morals of our founding fathers. And it upsets me that getting my permanent residence and ultimately citizenship has been nothing but a nightmare. I feel that the system is punishing me while a lot of illegal immigrants and US citizens abuse the system. I pay my taxes and bills on time. I belive this is still the greatest counrty on earth. After all, we have not been the only ones to send 12 men to the moon for nothing. My sitiations seems unfair at times. I know is not a perfect system, but why get punished for doing things the right way when all these crooks are getting away with murder?
I love this country and continue to love it for as long as I live here (hopefully permanently).
Great thoughts, keep up the great work, I love your style.
Santiago.
Maggie, thanks for your comments regarding teachers. I understand the problems that teachers have in schools both public and private and the challenges they face. However, not to hold teachers responsible for the performance of their students is like not holding a salesperson responsible for a lack of sales. It’s like not holding a coach responsible for whether his team wins or loses consistently. If a coach loses enough games, they will get fired. What about a swim teacher? If all of the swimming teacher’s students drown, is it not the teacher’s fault?
Sorry, but all of us face challenges in getting results. But results and performance are what counts, and what we are judged on, and is the condition of our employment, regardless of the challenges we face.
Everyone needs to remember the old adage: When you miss the target, never in history has it been the target’s fault.
Larry
Larry, I am a fan. I like your ethics and passion. I have but one request – when you rant about ‘nothing working’ and cite welfare, etc., you are more convincing if you have empirical data to back it. You like to say Americans are lazy – I agree. We refuse to learn ANYTHING about how things like the economy really work, because they are complicated and involve math sometimes. It is easy to tear at something that just seems wrong, but in order to fix a big, complex beast, we have to understand the problem first. Your ‘first principles’ are excellent. We as a nation need to be willing to wade into the weeds, do our homework, read the bills that our elected reps are voting on (they are all published and available!) including the federal budget then hold the reps accountable. Don’t like pork / earmarks? Read the bills, highlight the offending items, write (with paper, not email) your congressperson telling them exactly why you object to bill # XXX and the pork therein.
Don’t be afraid of complex things. People are not stupid, unless they choose to be. The mainstream meadia disagree – but you and NPR don’t. Larry’s brawn + NPR brains = unstoppable.
Best regards,
Steve R.
First off – I have to say that the vision of you in a skirt brought a smile to my face. As a health care professional for ~100 years, I can tell you that this marvelous country of ours spends more than any developed country in the world, and we rank around 46th in healthcare outcomes. Part of our problem was mentioned above by a couple of astute readers. When I started in this business, we didn’t have the “entitlement” mentality that we have now. And yes, there were idiots for physicians then, just like there is now…but, by and large, these folks weren’t making a bundle of bucks, they practiced their profession using the science available at the time, but there was also an “art” to medicine. Between insurance companies (can we say AIG?) and lawyers, we over order every bloody test known to man (even when a doc might know without a test), find false positives, do fifteen other invasive procedures that can be risky, the patient gets an infection, we have to treat that, and blah, blah.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I DO know that most all of our systems ARE broken…and it saddens me. We were in the category of saving, living below our means, paying everything off, and our savings have tanked. We are fortunate to have good health, and we can work as long as needed…but it still stinks to have done the right thing and gotten punished.
Always enjoy your stuff. Thanks.
Top comments as usual ,trouble is you are preaching to the converted !!! Doesn’t matter great to read keep it up !!
Damn straight! It is about time someone calls it as it is. We have all become complacent. We all sit around talking about how bad it is, but then no one will stand up for anything. They all say, “Well I’m just one person…” Well so were Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Einstein, and many other brilliant people! Thank you for speaking the truth. Now let’s get back to work on our country and I believe it would be good to put God back in the equation.
Paul
go on larry!!bravo!!!
To Y: It’s not the government’s job to take care of people; that’s for private charities, and there are plenty of those. Remember, no matter things are, there is always a way.
to Larry: You must have a soft heart, because only a softie would write a book telling people how to straighten their lives out, much less multiple books. That takes real heart. You could be making money doing other things. I’m glad you’re not.
Larry, I have read some of your stuff and had you pegged as just another blah-blah ‘pay me to talk’ lecture circuit wannabee. I apologize for my former thoughts. You hit every nail squarely on the head with Nothing Works and I will be joining the fan club in about 60 seconds. Thanks for saying what most people won’t say in public.
Everythting evryone has said as a comment is right on the money. We have become a society filled with “entitled” people in all walks of like. From the White all the way down to us po’ folk
it should read from the White house all the down to us po’ folk
I have to particularly agree with some of the comments regarding our healthcare system. I work for a Level 1 Trauma Center. I just wrapped up a case of a 51 yr old chronic alcoholic transient who stumbled into a busy street. He was our Trauma Center’s guest for 64 days, and was discharged to a nursing home as a quadriplegic, unable to breath unless on a ventilator. Upon discharge, his mental faculties are mostly intact and he can speak. His entire hospital stay cost nearly $600,000 – all paid by John Q Taxpayer, as will be his continued care at the nursing home.
I wish I could say that this is an unusual case, but it’s not. And as much as I believe in the Hippocratic Oath, one must ask: When is it enough!? When the likely outcome of a severe head injury, or severe spinal cord injury, will mean life spent severely debilitated in a wheelchair, completely dependent on others to eat and breath – is it even RIGHT to prolong life just because we have the technology to do so!?
I’ve often seen patients with simple injuries receive a battery of expensive cat scans, MRIs, and xrays because the hospital must protect itself from any possible litigation. Conversely, I have seen patients who should have been held one or two nights instead discharged to the street because they lacked health insurance and were deemed well enough to at least get by. Did you know that you are 20% more likely to die without health insurance?
And how about that new mother of the quadruplets – the woman who now has, what was it, 16 kids and no means to support them? She admitted that she PLANNED on using welfare to support her addiction to childbearing. What in H*LL were her doctors thinking!?? I’d like to see THEM foot the bill for raising her children!
Mr. Winget, your a breath of fresh air.
Just finished your book “It’s called work for a reason” and 33 pages into your book “Shut up stop whining, and get a life”
Anyways, as someone who constantly strives to learn. I figured I’d pass on a great website to you.
http://mises.org/ Great website dealing with Austrian economics and common sense things you seem to like.
Have a good day!