The recent Ebola cases have demonstrated  major problems of the “best healthcare system in the world”.  It is not so much the government but for profit hospitals. If you  want an example you have to look no further than Florida governor Rick Scott and his former company Hospital Corporation of America. The United States is not ready for Ebola and the Dallas hospital is only one example. Here is an example:[icopyright one button toolbar]

My wife is an ER nurse at a major urban hospital owned by the Hospital Corporation of America, the hospital chain once run by Rick Scott. It’s the largest for-profit medical system in the world, and is of course also notable for its ‘creative billing’ practices in the largest Medicare fraud settlement in history. Scott was booted from the CEO position following that fraud investigation, so he’s not directly responsible for current conditions in those hospitals.

But what about Ebola in hospitals?

And yet the head of infectious disease at this hospital went on the local news to proclaim the hospital was ready to receive ebola patients safely. They obviously didn’t bother to speak to a single nurse on the front lines. I’m not particularly panic-y about ebola, even though obviously the family members of ER personnel have a lot at stake in ebola preparedness. But I think that this situation will be the weak link in any major national response. So many of our hospitals are run by lunatics like Rick Scott who seek only the highest profit margin. They do not invest in training, they build charting mechanisms that are good for billing but not treating patients, they constantly fight with their unionized employees, they lie to the public, etc, etc. We like to imagine that competent, highly-skilled medical institutions like Emory will save us, but we have way more Dallas Presbyterians in this country than we have Emorys. 

Capitalism is great but it doesn’t work for healthcare when when  Hospital Corporation of America is involved .  Even many so called “non profits” are at fault. In my area the most of the local hospitals were once largely Catholic.  While the walls are still covered with crosses and the halls are filled with nuns it is now a corporation and the CEO makes 100s of thousands of dollars a year.  Even among the nonprofits healthcare is not longer the primary goal for institutions.