Post 4: Health Care

First, I'll bring up the NY Times article linked below that discusses how the “Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010” snubbed nonprofits in future health reform. The Act provides tax credits for small businesses, but because nonprofit health care providers do not pay income taxes, the result would give for-profit business as advantage. After reading a quick summary of the health care reform act it doesn’t seem like any amendments were made that counteracted this glitch in the system, so it’s an interesting topic to consider.

Link: Nonprofit Groups Upset at Exclusion from Health Bills

Chapter 5: Health Care
Funny, I found the NY Times are title article above before I read any of the articles for this week and the concluding sentence of the chapter reads, "...the shape of American health care, and the role of nonprofits in that effort, is far from settled" (O'Neill 106). This book was written a almost a decade before health care reform became a hot topic in American politics. I can't say I learned too much from this chapter, though. Health care is a very touchy subject. Do American's have the right to proper health care or are the best doctors and best practices reserved for the wealthy elite? Is it the government's responsibility to provide health care for all 310 million Americans? I can't say that I have an answer to these questions and it might be because I've never had to worry about health care because I've always been able to claim myself as a dependent on my parents' plan. I'm sure I'll pick a side in the next few years as I graduate, find a job (knock of wood), and become a contributing member of society. Until then I'll just remain neutral.


Non-Profit Packers
I consider myself a pretty big sports fan, and I had no idea the Packers were a publicly owned non-profit. Fan owned since 1923, the NFL’s “Green Bay Rule,” GM Ted Thompson being the luckiest guy in football….all news to me. My first thought is, I have no idea how this relates to health care. That skepticism aside, I think this model is quintessential Green Bay. If there’s one thing I know about football, it’s that Green Bay is steeped in NFL tradition. Vince Lombardi, the Lambeau Leap, and the fact that you practically have to be born into a family with season tickets if you ever want a chance to watch the Packers play at home. It makes sense that Packers are publicly owned and I’d love to see this idea spread through the NFL.

Non- Profits Valuable for Health Care
The most interesting quote from this article is, “The nonprofit sector is where we go for solving our most troubling social problems. It is where we go to protect our values and culture. The nonprofit sector is society’s safety net.” I’d like to address each of those sentences individually.

Why is it that our most ‘troubling social problems’ have to be solved by nonprofits? Does that mean that social problems are best solved by grassroots organizations? Is it that for-profit organizations just don’t care to solve difficult social problems? It seems odd that nonprofits that are arguably understaffed and underfunded compared to private businesses (not in all cases, but in many) are left to solve the most important social issues in America. Does that mean that profit is more important than society in modern America? That might be slightly exaggerated, but as I’ve expressed in previous posts I believe that community is losing value in American society, and that’s a HUMUNGOUS PROBLEM.

Speaking of values… why do we leave the protection of value and culture to nonprofits? That sounds about as simple as solving America’s social problems!!

And if the nonprofit sector is society’s safety net, then I sure hope we - as in we the people and communities of America, not just the government – are doing everything we can to support these nonprofits. I guess it just boils down to my thoughts on America’s social system. We have a whole lot of problems in America – homelessness, obesity, underfunded education, addiction to cigarettes, drugs, and oil – and we somehow think that someone else is going to pull us out of this hole we’ve dug ourselves into.

Last Monday I was able to hear Van Jones, founder of several non-governmental organizations such as Color for Change and Green for All, speak on the UO Campus. His father, who lived a sort of rags-to-riches life, had a motto by which he lived. “There’s nothing anyone could give an individual that will bring them out of poverty. That person needs to climb out of poverty themselves. They need to be able to climb that ladder out of poverty.” Then Jones added his own wisdom and modern context by saying that “society has the duty to build that ladder.”

Merger in Michigan
The point about the difference in health care services provided by non-profits and for-profit hospital was particularly interesting. At the end of the article the author noted that "for-profit hospitals are more likely to offer lucrative services, such as cardiac and diagnostic services, while their non-profit counterparts often provide more less-profitable services such as trauma centers, burn centers and alcohol- and drug-treatment programs.” When Nurse Lori Brown was asked if she thinks Detroit Medical Center will change after being purchased by Vanguard, she replied, “We'll continue to be the hospital that takes care of everyone. We don't turn anyone away."


I’ll give Nurse Brown the benefit of the doubt on this one, but I can’t believe that this merger will happen without any change to the DMC’s regular activities. With more money they’ll practically be considered irresponsible if they don’t ramp up their services. There are certainly advantages to for-profit corporations, most notably the availability of MONEY, but the future of the DMC is not in the hands of its CEO, whereas before the merger it was more in the hands of the community it served.


Disease Mongering
First of all I want to note that the story about David Neeleman, the guy who scored low on the English section of the ACT exam and later discovered he had ADD, is exactly how I found out that I’m dyslexic. It was the same low score on the English section of the ACT that raised a red flag for my parents and me. Funny. The only other comment is that this article brings up another problem in American society, addiction. In this case the article points out our addiction to “lifestyle” drugs, which is basically any prescription drug we take to remain “normal.” Whatever that means.


Final Thoughts
As you can see I'm in a questioning mood today. Feel free to answer any questions you find intriguing in your comments, and by all means answer my questions with questions of you own. It would be hypocritical of me to disallow that.

Thanks for reading!