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Katrina and the waves
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08/27/09 07:19 AM ET
Katrina Vanden Heuvel, the noted left-winger, writes a provocative piece in The Nation where she makes the case that Democrats should use any means necessary to pass a healthcare bill.
Why I find this article fascinating is because she talks about how her father was a close friend of the Kennedys, and he sailed with Ted Kennedy all the time.
I wish I could have sailed with Ted Kennedy. I wish I could sail with anybody, but I don’t have the money. And that is why I get a kick out of this article.
Katrina Vanden Heuvel is the perfect embodiment of the term “limousine liberal.” Her brand of activism smacks of a guilty conscience. Perhaps Ms. Vanden Heuvel had too much money growing up, but I didn’t. My father didn’t go sailing with the Kennedys. He did fine, but we didn’t have an extra house on the Cape. My grandfather didn’t make millions from bootlegging. We don’t have a family fortune to live off of.
Vanden Heuvel thinks she knows what will make America great. And that is more government, taking care of all of the problems of the little people, the people who don’t have the opportunity to sail with the Kennedys.
Ted Kennedy may have been a liberal lion, but he lost touch with the middle class. He lost touch with the neighborhood folks who helped elect his grandfather mayor of Boston. There was probably no greater example of that than when he supported the forced busing of kids from one neighborhood to another. Nothing destroyed public schools quicker than that little liberal mandate.
Kennedy also lost touch when he changed his position on abortion. He used to be pro-life. His brothers were pro-life, his father was pro-life, his mother was pro-life. Like many liberal “lions,” Kennedy changed his position on abortion for political expediency. And it was further evidence that he had lost touch with his “people,” the folks who first elected Honey Fitz two generations before.
It is easy to lose touch with middle-class concerns when you come from great wealth. And it is easy to despise the life of leisure when that is what you are most accustomed to.
But for the rest of us, those who don’t have daddys who sail with the Kennedys, life ain’t that simple. And we don’t see the government as the solution. We often see it as the imperfect, corrupt, inefficient, maddening bureaucracy that it usually turns out to be.
We don’t want to be pushed into a government-run health system when we have worked so hard to get healthcare that we like. We distrust those who have grand solutions that will end up screwing us and making the situation worse. Especially if those solutions come from those refugees of the leisure class.
Katrina Vanden Heuvel wants to foist socialized medicine on the rest of us, by any means necessary, because that is something her daddy wanted. He seems to have dreamed up that scheme when he was sailing with the Kennedys.
She thinks that this will help the little people. But socialized medicine won’t help the little people. Poor Americans already have Medicaid, and older Americans already have Medicare. That is all the government-run healthcare we need at the moment, thank you very much.
Sure, we need some common-sense reforms. We need to stop frivolous lawsuits that drive up medical malpractice insurance rates. We need to stop the state-by-state monopolies that the insurance companies currently enjoy. And there are some other things we can do to get everybody who wants insurance access to it.
But we don’t need a socialized medicine scheme that will force millions of Americans into a so-called public option. And it would be criminal if Democrats use the death of Ted Kennedy as an excuse to use any means necessary to pass healthcare socialism.
Katrina, I have a better idea for you. Why don’t you go sailing among the waves and leave the American people’s health insurance alone?
Visit www.thefeeherytheory.com.
Why I find this article fascinating is because she talks about how her father was a close friend of the Kennedys, and he sailed with Ted Kennedy all the time.
I wish I could have sailed with Ted Kennedy. I wish I could sail with anybody, but I don’t have the money. And that is why I get a kick out of this article.
Katrina Vanden Heuvel is the perfect embodiment of the term “limousine liberal.” Her brand of activism smacks of a guilty conscience. Perhaps Ms. Vanden Heuvel had too much money growing up, but I didn’t. My father didn’t go sailing with the Kennedys. He did fine, but we didn’t have an extra house on the Cape. My grandfather didn’t make millions from bootlegging. We don’t have a family fortune to live off of.
Vanden Heuvel thinks she knows what will make America great. And that is more government, taking care of all of the problems of the little people, the people who don’t have the opportunity to sail with the Kennedys.
Ted Kennedy may have been a liberal lion, but he lost touch with the middle class. He lost touch with the neighborhood folks who helped elect his grandfather mayor of Boston. There was probably no greater example of that than when he supported the forced busing of kids from one neighborhood to another. Nothing destroyed public schools quicker than that little liberal mandate.
Kennedy also lost touch when he changed his position on abortion. He used to be pro-life. His brothers were pro-life, his father was pro-life, his mother was pro-life. Like many liberal “lions,” Kennedy changed his position on abortion for political expediency. And it was further evidence that he had lost touch with his “people,” the folks who first elected Honey Fitz two generations before.
It is easy to lose touch with middle-class concerns when you come from great wealth. And it is easy to despise the life of leisure when that is what you are most accustomed to.
But for the rest of us, those who don’t have daddys who sail with the Kennedys, life ain’t that simple. And we don’t see the government as the solution. We often see it as the imperfect, corrupt, inefficient, maddening bureaucracy that it usually turns out to be.
We don’t want to be pushed into a government-run health system when we have worked so hard to get healthcare that we like. We distrust those who have grand solutions that will end up screwing us and making the situation worse. Especially if those solutions come from those refugees of the leisure class.
Katrina Vanden Heuvel wants to foist socialized medicine on the rest of us, by any means necessary, because that is something her daddy wanted. He seems to have dreamed up that scheme when he was sailing with the Kennedys.
She thinks that this will help the little people. But socialized medicine won’t help the little people. Poor Americans already have Medicaid, and older Americans already have Medicare. That is all the government-run healthcare we need at the moment, thank you very much.
Sure, we need some common-sense reforms. We need to stop frivolous lawsuits that drive up medical malpractice insurance rates. We need to stop the state-by-state monopolies that the insurance companies currently enjoy. And there are some other things we can do to get everybody who wants insurance access to it.
But we don’t need a socialized medicine scheme that will force millions of Americans into a so-called public option. And it would be criminal if Democrats use the death of Ted Kennedy as an excuse to use any means necessary to pass healthcare socialism.
Katrina, I have a better idea for you. Why don’t you go sailing among the waves and leave the American people’s health insurance alone?
Visit www.thefeeherytheory.com.
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Comments (8)
Perhaps Ms. Vanden Heuvel can find time to remove the silver spoon from her mouth and give notice to the fact that many of these so called uninusred are the same people that use food stamps to buy dinner and then use their own money to buy cigarettes and alcohol while they talk on the their cell phones as they watch their cable tv.
Ms. Vanden Heuvel mind your own business and spend your guilt on something worthy like the unborn who are aborted in this country every day. These other people are making a choice and we have subsidies them enough.BY Dave Hamlin on 08/27/2009 at 13:35
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6092658/Cruel-and-neglectful-care-of-one-million-NHS-patients-exposed.html
In the last six years, the Patients Association claims hundreds of thousands have suffered from poor standards of nursing, often with 'neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel' treatment.
The charity has disclosed a horrifying catalogue of elderly people left in pain, in soiled bed clothes, denied adequate food and drink, and suffering from repeatedly cancelled operations, missed diagnoses and dismissive staff.
The Patients Association said the dossier proves that while the scale of the scandal at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust - where up to 1,200 people died through failings in urgent care - was a one off, there are repeated examples they have uncovered of the same appalling standards throughout the NHS.
While the criticisms cover all aspects of hospital care, the treatment and attitude of nurses stands out as a repeated theme across almost all of the cases.
They have called on Government and the Care Quality Commission to conduct an urgent review of standards of basic hospital care and to enforce stricter supervision and regulation.
Claire Rayner, President of the Patients Association and a former nurse, said:“For far too long now, the Patients Association has been receiving calls on our helpline from people wanting to talk about the dreadful, neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel treatment their elderly relatives had experienced at the hands of NHS nurses.
“I am sickened by what has happened to some part of my profession of which I was so proud.
"These bad, cruel nurses may be - probably are - a tiny proportion of the nursing work force, but even if they are only one or two percent of the whole they should be identified and struck off the Register.”
The charity has published a selection of personal accounts from hundreds of relatives of patients, most of whom died, following their care in NHS hospitals.
They cite patient surveys which show the vast majority of patients highly rate their NHS care - but, with some ten million treated a year, even a small percentage means hundreds of thousands have suffered.
Ms Rayner said it was by "sad coincidence" that she trained as a nurse with one of the patients who had "suffered so much".
She went on: "I know that she, like me, was horrified by the appalling care she had before she died.
"We both came from a generation of nurses who were trained at the bedside and in whom the core values of nursing were deeply inculcated."
Katherine Murphy, Director of the Patients Association, said “Whilst Mid Staffordshire may have been an anomaly in terms of scale the PA knew the kinds of appalling treatment given there could be found across the NHS. This report removes any doubt and makes this clear to all. Two of the accounts come from Stafford, and they sadly fail to stand out from the others.
“These accounts tell the story of the two percent of patients that consistently rate their care as poor (in NHS patient surveys).
"If this was extrapolated to the whole of the NHS from 2002 to 2008 it would equate to over one million patients. Very often these are the most vulnerable elderly and terminally ill patients. It’s a sad indictment of the care they receive.”
The Patients Association said one hospital had threatened it with legal action if it chose to publish the material.
Pamela Goddard, a piano teacher from Bletchingley, in Surrey, was 82 and suffering with cancer but was left in her own excrement and her condition deteriorated due to her bed sores.
Florence Weston, from Sedgley in the West Midlands, died aged 85 and had to remain without food or water for several days as her hip operation was repeated cancelled.
The charity released the dossier to highlight the poor care which a minority of patients in the NHS are subjected to.
Ms Murphy said the numbers rating care as poor came despite investment in the NHS doubling and the number of frontline nurses increasing by more than a quarter since 1996.
The personal stories were revealed to prevent their cases being ignored as only representing a small portion of patients.
The report said: "These are patients, not numbers. These are people, not statistics."
Dr Peter Carter, Chief Executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said he was concerned that public confidence in the NHS could be undermined by the examples cited and it would affect morale in hardworking staff.
He said: “The level of care described by these families is completely unacceptable, and we will not condone nurses who behave in ways that are contrary to the principles and ethics of the profession.
"However we believe that the vast majority of nurses are decent, highly skilled individuals.
“This report is based on the two per cent of patients who feel that their care was unacceptable. Two per cent is too many but we are concerned that this might undermine the public’s confidence in the world-class care they can expect to receive from the NHS."
Barbara Young, Chairman of the Care Quality Commission, the super-regulator, said: “It is absolutely right to highlight that standards of hospital care can vary from very good to poor.
“Many people are happy with the care they receive, but we also know that there are problems.
“I am in no doubt that many hospitals need to raise their game in this area.
“Where NHS trusts fail to meet the mark, we have tough new enforcement powers, ranging from warnings and fines to closure in extreme cases. We will not hesitate to use these powers when necessary to bring improvement.
"We will be asking NHS trusts and primary care trusts how they are ensuring that the needs of patients and their safety and dignity are kept at the heart of care.”
Chris Beasley, Chief Nursing Officer at the Department of Health said the care in the cases highlighted by the PA was “simply unacceptable”.
She added: "It is important to note this is not representative of the picture across the NHS.
"The NHS treats millions of people every day and the vast majority of patients experience good quality, safe and effective care - the Care Quality Commission's recent patient experience survey shows that 93 percent of patients rate their overall care as good or excellent.
"We will shortly be publishing complaints data on the NHS Choices website and expect trusts to publish the number of complaints they receive, setting out how these are successfully resolved."BY Robert Rosencrans on 08/27/2009 at 17:03
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am a UK National and have lived in USA for the last 6 years.
One great sadness about these coments, is that they will be used in USA against any proposed health legislation. At the moment the air in USA is rife with rumour, lies and mis-information about the UK (and other countries') National Health Service.
I tell people here that if US had a National Health Service tomorrow, they would suffer the same problems as are seen in UK. I know of people who are waiting for their 65th birthday to qualify for Medicare so that they can have their long-awaited medical problems paid for by that system.
As for the UK., I understood that the hospitals were largely over-filled with aged people who had no-one in their family prepared to take care of them in their old age, and therefore the hospitals could not discharge them.
Surely, the system was not devised to be a sort of Ho[***]e for the aged.
As for the cleaning problem, I was told my nurses, while in UK., that the problem started when hospitals were been forced by a previous Government to put the cleaning work out to competitive tender. The new cleaners would not take instructions from nursing staff, but referred all comments to the Company they worked for, and to whom they were responsible. In pre-tendering days the matrons and sisters had authority over the cleaning staff, and the hospitals were so very much cleaner.
Competitive tendering may reduce expenses, but at what cost.
I have no complaints at all about the treatment I received at the hands of the UK NHS.
I have no complaints about the way I have been treated by the US system, but I do accept that I am very lucky in having the benefit of excellent insurance.
I could not have come to this country without adequate medical insurance.
If the Patient's Association is so sure of the facts that it has, why does it refrain from publishing just because a major Hospital has threatened to sue for Libel. Perhaps such a court case would bring the problems out into the open air, and this might result in solutions being found.
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The reason I like that one is that I had to wait for Medicare coverage after being laid off in my mid 50s. Individual insurance was completely out of the question due to cost. Of course, I should have saved up and provided for myself. But one medical issue cleaned me out.
I'm hopeful that after a while, our country (USA) will realize that our Christian attitude of helping others doesn't mean "I will help others as long as it doesn't cost me anything."
Oh, one more thing. Did you notice in the comment copied from the telegraph web site discussed the reason for poor cleaning of hospitals was due to the outsourcing to industry. Ring a bell?BY Bob Green on 08/28/2009 at 05:09
The American healthcare plan, unlike England's, does not take over control of hospitals or Drs. The Government will not OWN healthcare facilities like they do in England.
Many of our Private Nursing Homes are no better than some in England and many have been closed for neglect in patient care or worse. Most are Under staffed.
By Clayton Hasbrook on May 23, 2009 8:59 AM | Permalink
Care Living Center in Edmond has lost its certification and federal funding leaving more than two dozen of it's residents searching for a new home. The date for federal funding to stop is May 27, 2009. The residents will have 30 days to find new homes.
The Oklahoma State Department of Health cited the nursing home for 'immediate jeopardies'; believing that "there is an imminent danger to the health, safety, and welfare of the residents."
The Health Department's inspectors found one resident with 17 pressure ulcers who was not receiving appropriate treatment ordered by a physician.
Other examples of nursing home abuse at the Center:
•Some of the residents were not being turned or cleaned
•Some of the residents were not always fed (Some had severe weight loss)
•Some residents had not received assistance to eat properly
•No one to answer residents' call lights
•Nursing home staff members were not trained appropriately
•Two patients had wandered from the facility before being found blocks away
•Nursing home employees were not following doctor's orders to care for medical problemsBY Donaldd on 08/28/2009 at 10:55
"at any cost" rationale she talks about , which is being bandied about by the Fascist/So[***]t Democrats.
But Health Care reform , like Humpty Dumpty, fell of a wall. All the Kings horses, and all the kings men, can't put Humptey back together again.
They may try to re-paint, re-upholster, or lower the price, but Humpty Dumpty will still be a rotten egg inside.
An egg that is inedible to the American people.
See ya in 2010, for what we think about all these 1930's type failures these Dems are trying to impose on us…BY Larry on 08/28/2009 at 17:47
We should not take on another program when we already have several programs and they are all bankrupt so why add another program that will go bankrupt. These politicians should be al thrown out of office by term limits without any retirement except for social security and no free health care and new elected officials should only have one term of four years and out they go! That will get rid of the crooks and politicians that have fatten their wallets on the backs of the tax payers!BY William on 08/29/2009 at 01:01
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