Back in October, the Economist endorsed Barrack Obama’s candidacy, saying that America should “take a chance” on the most important job in the free world:
For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose between them. The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead.
Now, it seems, the “newspaper” is beginning to have endorser’s remorse:
(At) home Mr Obama has had a difficult start. His performance has been weaker than those who endorsed his candidacy, including this newspaper, had hoped. Many of his strongest supporters—liberal columnists, prominent donors, Democratic Party stalwarts—have started to question him. As for those not so beholden, polls show that independent voters again prefer Republicans to Democrats, a startling reversal of fortune in just a few weeks. Mr Obama’s once-celestial approval ratings are about where George Bush’s were at this stage in his awful presidency. Despite his resounding electoral victory, his solid majorities in both chambers of Congress and the obvious goodwill of the bulk of the electorate, Mr Obama has seemed curiously feeble.
The Economist blames the president’s out-sourcing of his hallmark stimulus bill to the Democratic college of cardinals, leading to a predictable orgy of pork-laden spending that did much to satisfy a long-suppressed urge to spend other peoples’ money for them, but little – over the short term, anyway – to, you know: Stimulate the actual economy.
So, what was the point? Because if the idea was to grease the policy skids in Congress for the president’s larger agenda and he didn’t realize that the appetite for spending was increased rather than otherwise by heaving pork on the table, he is not as astute a politician as so many Americans took him to be.
The Economist also finds it strangely surprising that a man with no other executive experience than managing a campaign has done such a poor job of being an executive:
The failure to staff the Treasury is a shocking illustration of administrative drift. There are 23 slots at the department that need confirmation by the Senate, and only two have been filled. This is not the Senate’s fault. Mr Obama has made a series of bad picks of people who have chosen or been forced to withdraw; and it was only this week that he announced his candidates for two of the department’s four most senior posts. Filling such jobs is always a tortuous business in America, but Mr Obama has made it harder by insisting on a level of scrutiny far beyond anything previously attempted. Getting the Treasury team in place ought to have been his first priority.
Which is it, I wonder? The number of bad choices he has made, or the unprecedented level of scrutiny he has applied?
Speaking of which, given the fact that pretty much everyone understands how lonely Tim Geithner feels atop his bureaucracy, it is hard to escape the chilling suspicion that there simply are no suitable candidates to help him manage this mess. That anyone with the intellectual and policy chops to help Geithner manage the national fisc has been tarred with tax evasion, nanny problems or one of those moveable feasts at Fannie Mae that keep Democratic Party politicians in DC earning millions in their off years even as the financial world came down around them.
And the Economist actually saw this coming, back in October:
Our main doubts about Mr Obama have to do with the damage a muddle-headed Democratic Congress might try to do to the economy. Despite the protectionist rhetoric that still sometimes seeps into his speeches, Mr Obama would not sponsor a China-bashing bill. But what happens if one appears out of Congress? Worryingly, he has a poor record of defying his party’s baronies, especially the unions. His advisers insist that Mr Obama is too clever to usher in a new age of over-regulation, that he will stop such nonsense getting out of Congress, that he is a political chameleon who would move to the centre in Washington. But the risk remains that on economic matters the centre that Mr Obama moves to would be that of his party, not that of the country as a whole.
Which is what those who opposed his candidacy believed all along, people who – in return for their doubts on thin a resume and the most liberal voting record in the US Senate – were cast as Luddites who didn’t get it, this whole “hope” and “change” thing;
The nuancey boys were wrong on Obama, and the knuckledragging morons were right. There is no post-partisan centrist “grappling” with the economy, only a transformative radical willing to make Americans poorer in the cause of massive government expansion. At some point, The Economist, Messrs Brooks, Buckley & Co are going to have to acknowledge this. If they’re planning on spending the rest of his term tutting that his management style is obstructing the effective implementation of his centrist agenda, it’s going to be a long four years.
Conservatives have always known that hope is not a strategy, and that not all change is for the better. Their fear – and the secret hope of the liberal left wing of the Democratic Party – was that far from the analytic, centrist pragmatic that he won the presidency portraying himself as, Mr. Obama, was indeed as Jennifer Rubin believed him to be:
(He’s) an ultra-liberal at least on domestic policy, not a pragmatic centrist either on policy or in style. His mode of governance — denigrate the opposition, engage in ad hominem attacks, refuse to compromise on substantive policy, disguise radical policy intentions with a haze of meaningless rhetoric — bespeaks someone supremely confident in his ideological views and undaunted by fears (which are slowly creeping up on his Red state colleagues) of having overshot his mandate.
Had candidate Obama run on the platform that President Obama is governing from, John McCain would be president. I don’t know whether that would be better or worse, frankly, but I do know that the tintinnabulation of scales falling from the eyes of the pundit class would be deafening by its absence.
There is still time for Mr. Obama to learn his lesson, govern from the center as he promised to do and restrain his “allies” in Congress, but not much. Weakness is every bit as provocative in Washington as it is in Tehran, Pyongyang and Moscow. When the long knives come out they will come out all at once and with little warning. And then once again, we will be talking of a “national malaise.”
A long four years indeed.
I got my Economist in the mail today. When I saw the cover all I could say was:
It’s about time, though a tad late.
Poor leaders rarely become good leaders – and they can only do so under the tutelage of a truly excellent leader. There is no one to tutor O! on how to become a good leader. And poor leaders are forever destined to make poor decisions, time and again. Combine that with arrogance and you have a dangerous situation, indeed.
It is mind-numbing that our political system is structured in such a way that someone with absolutely zero experience in the management of anything can rise to the top and become leader of the most powerful country on the planet. Usually rising to the top in that manner only happens through nepotism a la the Norks or a place like Haiti. God help us.
HOWEVER — for all of this to mean something or to end up in the plus category, the Republican Party, or whomever is the antidote to what we currently have, must be the party of the adults.
(1) If you don’t have it, you can’t spend it;
(2) If you don’t respect your own borders and laws then nobody else will;
(3) There are right and wrong decisions and actions – and consequences flow from either.
(4) There are bad people (read: terrorist enemies of this country & their supporters) who must be confronted;
(5) Government service should NOT be the direct road to riches – the Clinton model (I truly cannot remember any President before them being so crassly commercial) and the use of big dollar appointments to cronies has to cease. The Presidential Library thing has to be changed – no more big bucks from private donors…it all looks like buying friends to me, and I would include the Bush family and ‘their good friends’ and donors the Saudis in this, too. Make it part of the Library of Congress function.
(6) There’s more. Lots more. Someone in the public eye has to start taking about these things. I believe that it will resonate hugely with everyday working Americans.
A beautiful day here in SoCal….but thinking about this stuff gets my back up. Damn. I’m outta here to enjoy the day.
I voted for Senator McCain but without much enthusiasm. I wasn’t surprised Obama won and frankly had started to buy in to some of the arguments from some on the right of center that had come out in his favor. The “he can lead us back to the center, etc.” I was hoping frankly from someone to govern like Bill Clinton while sparing us the more sordid aspects of this presidency. As much as I loathed Clinton he did manage to get welfare reform through congress and aided by Newt Gingrich generated budget surpluses. His foreign policy was another story but I was hoping (and I didn’t think it was a strategy) that Obama would stand up to the Congress the way Clinton did.
Well the scales came off with the first Stimulus Bill and then the Omnibus Appropriation Bill where Congress plain ran amuck (ending with no debate the hard won and proven useful Welfare Reforms of Clinton (in basically the dark of night). So Obama proved whether complicit in agreeing that this was the way to do business or was so enjoying every camera he could jump in front of and didn’t care what Congress did. Now it is increasingly clear he is getting exactly what he wants from Congress and has no intention of moderating the debate.
So we are headed for fiscal, social, and foreign policy disasters. The real question is how many will die as a result and from what cause? Less well off retirees who run out of resources?, Welfare babies brought into this world for the increased check it merits the unwed mother from neglect and ignorant selfishness? Innocent citizens from another, and perhaps far worse, attack led by a former detainee let loose for “rehabilitation” in a naive belief that everyone thinks as if they live on the Upper West Side? Or countless men and women of our armed forces needlessly placed at risk by ignorant policies of appeasement delivered by slickly produced DVDs and twitters from the White House demonstrating just how “cool” it is to be President with the knowledge that given enough campaign cash and media access one can destroy serious opposition to one’s policies by character assassination while feeding the masses lines of mush as everyone is just swaying to the music and hearing the words while they see nothing that happens around them?
But then maybe enough people say “Enough” and demand an end. And starting with each election begin anew.
Its the only thing to hang on to.
“the scales came off”
First he is the slow learner who believes everything he reads in the newspapers; then he is self admittedly naive–now we find out OLDT6Flyer is “scaley.” ……….. “SCARY!”
Does that mean I’m a Lizard? Or just reptilian in general?
You mean, as in the “Lizard
King?” Are you claiming to be his reincarnation, or are you only copping to just channeling him? As to whether you are just reptilian in general? Hey, your dermatologist won’t let me see your med. records! What are you hiding?
‘Course, on second thought, all I have to do is wait. Once Obama gets everyone’s med. records digitalized I’ll be able to hack in nooo problemo. Did you see that news rpt yesterday about all those patients in AUZ whose records were accidentally posted on the internet for the whole world to see? You think that’s going to be an isolated case? Hell, that was just by otherwise well-intentioned brain-dead clerks. Wait until the hackers get warmed up…
Patients’ medical records leaked online by pathology lab: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,25253036-2,00.html?from=public_rss
Thanx, Spaz, I was too lazy to go back and hunt it down myself.
When all you know how to do, is to run a campaign, then all you can do, instead of lead, is continue to campaign.
Campaign rallies promoted as good governance, enriching your cronies (Rahm E., phone home), nationalization of broad swaths of the financial sector, ex post facto confiscation of earned income, based on nothing more than “outrage”?
This is starting to look like East Germany, with bad beer.
Yeah, I had a real mental picture prior of just how “open” that session was going to be. You know what’s the most ironic thing about that nurse, Scott? My wife, who is an RN and life-long Republican/conservative points out that the stupid nurses national organizations are blind to the fact that their blind backing of Obama is only going to result in themselves being the first to be screwed under an Obama Nationalized health system. What do you think is the single biggest cost in the hospitals? Ans: Nurses salaries. Hospitals are not about Drs–they are all about Nurses. Who do you think staffs the damn things 24/7/365? Not physicians, for sure. And
“cost containment” is the name of the game, is it not? EVERYONE is chanting THAT mantra. So where do you think the beady eyes of the green eye-shade bean counters are going to turn first? Nurses salaries will be the FIRST cost “capped” under ANY kind of national health plan. Hell, hospitals here in Calif are already importing as many Phillipino nurses as they can to keep costs down. Some wards are almost entirely all Phillipino, Nigerian and Iranian nurses–and my wife has worked as an Agency nurse at almost every major hospital in the LA area since 05.
So there is no little savage irony that the Nurses are digging their own financial graves by backing Obama and nationalized health-care big-time in the belief that he and the Demos “care” so much about “patient-care,” and that Nationalized medicine will somehow make it all better. They must not know how to read if they have somehow missed the daily horror stories coming out of GB, Canada and Australia.
My wife just shakes her head when she thinks of the short-sighted idiocy of these National Nurses Organizations. Sigh..
I should hasten to add that hospital Administrators and CEOs are only too glad to give themselves $500,000/yr salaries while holding down nurses salaries and cutting staffing positions–then getting huge bonuses for “cost-cutting”by doing so. And giving people with no medical background whatsoever like Michelle O
baby $300,000/yr no-show “community out-reach” jobs that are so “vital” the job position is eliminated as soon as Obama was elected and Michelle baby was safely settled in the White House.
Scott, you and your children are just going to LUUUV the quality of patient care and the standards of nursing expertise that will had under Obama’s “caring” system–and it will be oh so cheap-yeah.
And speaking of cost, that’s the other irony. If you look at England, Aus, wherever, the systems are going broke with cost out of control even as both Physicians and nurses salaries suffer and patient care deteriorates at geometric rates! ADMINISTRATIVE costs, however……how should I put this? To someone in the flying game does the phrase “onward and upward” ring a bell?
Stewing about the subject even more, consider this: Just check the salary of any Hospital Administrator compared with that of the Director of Nursing at that same hospital. Not even close. And, while the DoN can do the Administrator’s job–the DoN IS an Administrator, after all–the Hosp. Administrator is neither technically nor legally qualified to do the job of the DoN, who earns a far smaller salary. And who, BTW, UNLIKE the Hosp Administrator/CEO can lose her license and means of a lively-hood if certain things go badly wrong on her watch–while her boss remains immune while hauling down far bigger bucks w.o. the legal responsibilities for patient care in terms of being barred by any State Board from ever working again through loss of any kind of license. (Of course, he/she can always be sued civilly or found criminally liable if charged by the DA, but no Administrative board is EVER going to put THEM out of business.)
And notice in the KATRINA affair in New Orleans where the Physician and 2 nurses were charged with murder at Memorial hospital (my wife had nursed there and knew all three) notice that while awaiting trial (all were acquitted ) the Dr. was paid in an Admin. position in the LSU health system by the State–the very entity charging her, no less–while The State Board of Nursing suspended the Nurse’s licenses pending trial and they lost their means of earning a living in the interim. (Again, Nurses are their own worst enemies) Nurses ALWAYS get screwed. And notice also neither the Hosp. nor the owners were sued for failure to make adequate preparations either.
Virgil — I love you like a brother, but you are talking out your ass.
My wife is one of those “administrators” you have so much scorn for. Has sole P&L responsibility for a 300 bed hospital. Annual revenue of around $175M. In the top twenty in our state for size, and she doesn’t make anywhere near $500K, even with her bonus (which she didn’t get this year). The number of “administrators” in almost any state, that make that kind of money, can be counted on one, possibly two, hands.
Second, your observation that a Chief Nurse Exec (that’s what hers is called) can obviously do the CEO’s job since they are both administrators, is like saying a JG can do the CO’s job, because, after all, they are both pilots. Her job is the result of over 35 years experience, starting in the OR as a tech, Physician’s Assistant certification, Masters in Health Care Administration, and years of increasing operational responsibility. If any CNE had that experience, then they’d have the job.
Third, are you really saying that anyone who supervises someone licensed, shouldn’t make more than that person? And as far as the poor CNE making a “far smaller” salary, she has three major direct reports. Director of Ops (former licensed pharmacist) and CNE make the same — about 65% of her salary. Chief Medical Officer (licensed MD) makes about 85% (necessity of getting Docs to take the job!). Making more than the people who work for you is the way my company works, so I don’t see what the problem is.
You are preaching to the choir about the reality of Obama care. I know you believe that good nursing is tied to the pay. I’m not so sure. There are plenty of nurses that have no business in the field. And the “two year” RN thing has proven pretty much a disaster — not enough clinical time to ferret out those who just aren’t cut out. People don’t become military officers to get rich — they just want to live a middle class life. I was always more motivated by the mission, and who was leading me, than I was by my paycheck (even though I accepted every penny of continuation pay they ever offered!). I think nurses are the same. DW, and her CNE, work hard to shine the light on the good ones, to create an environment where they know they are valued and respected. (as an aside, I think the few abusive, arrogant, egotistical maniac docs are a bigger nursing career “problem” than pay caps). No amount of money will make up for feeling not valued.
End of counter rant
Fortunately the highly respected and somewhat conservative Economist is much more sanguine than all ye here, who seem to have abandoned all hope, when it states:
Just how does one justify faith during a campaign even once, much less multiple times?
That sentence might just be the new example in the dictionary for non sequitur.
“A long four years indeed.”
Lex, O Capitão Meu Capitão, don’t be sad, think positively. Ya’ know, like PMA. It really is not four years. It’s just three years and ten months. ONLY?
I am afraid the MSM cannot afford to admit that Obama is a poseur, because they are not just guilty of being gullible – they are guilty of fraud, as they were willing co-conspirators in his deception.
[...] Definitely worth the read. [...]
I weep for my country. I’m sure this isn’t what it was founded for nor what my grandfathers fought for in WWII. We’re devolving into a nation of underachievers lead by people with only their own self interest in mind. We’ve yet again sold our soul for a “chicken in every pot”.
If he keeps this up much longer the only thing that will be able to save the Democratic party from extinction is the Republican party. Sadly, that seems to be the one thing that the Republican party excels at lately.
I don’t know why so many people are just now waking up to Obama’s damaging policies and the Democratic Congress’ orgy of pork. He said he was going to do this during the campaign. Shallow Americans were (and some are still) wrapped up in the STYLE of his speaking, not the CONTENT of his speaking.
The joke was right. He WAS running for Jimmy Carter’s second term.
“The Economist also finds it strangely surprising that a man with *no other executive experience than managing a campaign*…”
If I read, or hear, that phrase just once more, I shall surely throw up. Barry didn’t manage, or run, his campaign. His campaign manager did. Hence the title.
So that leaves him with how much executive experience? However long it’s been since Jan 21st. The 20th doesn’t count since no executive decisions were made during all the parties.
But Republicans were Luddites-because their requirement to placate their own lunatic fringe-forced McCain to run so far to the right that the alternative was simply not digestible by any rationale thinking person with even an ounce of compassion. But for Saint Sarah on the ticket-you guys would have something else to complain about. That still would not have stopped the economy from failing-and in fact the recession would probably have been a lot deeper.
On balance, its amazing how little credit he’s gotten for the things he has done. He’s not folded the tent in Iraq-in fact he’s giving every appearance of drinking Petraeus’s kool-aid and leaving the bulk of the US presence their this year and allowing folks another year to give the Iraqis a free pass on their own shortcomings-and build another set of reasons why we can never leave. He’s plussed up troop strength in Afghanistan-which should have made the “take back the keys” nuts very happy.
At home-he’s passed a stimulus bill. Should he have been more forceful on that, yes-but if anything Krugman is the one that is right that it is not large enough. In that regard the Republicans and their inability to offer any concrete alternatives except “Obama sux” and “tax cuts solve everything”- kept that from happening. He missed a golden opportunity to score points with a lot of people and smack down Nancy Pelosi-by vetoing the Omnibus spending bill-one that won’t come again for a while.
Fliterman’s point is the one you guys are really missing and that the Economist keyed on-that Obama likes to move more slowly than people realize. Not that it would matter to most of the folks here-he could part the Red Sea and it would not matter-he’s been branded as a worthless liberal.
There is NO recent precedent for the current economic crisis we are experiencing and it takes time to undo serious damage that” comes from a cornucopia of deregulatory policies that is, in hindsight, astonishing”:
But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.
The play is still only in the first act-and there is still debris on the stage from the previous performance. Maybe you guys will get your wish and Obama will fail and you will get your “true believer” in the White House in 2012. Problem is, just being right about Obama does not mean that the “true believers” have a story that will sell with the majority of Americans who still don’t agree with their brand of anything.
If you truly believe McCain ran as a rightwinger you are in desperate need of professional help. McCain was a leftwinger, and ran as such.
Krugman is a shameless idiot. He has been wrong so much you would seem to be a prophet by listening to him and predicting the opposite.
We don’t have to wish Obama fails, he’s already there. He’s simply doing what history shows to have been a failure in the past. He’s just doing more of it. Left wingnuts are always saying they didn’t do enough of what failed. They add more and it still fails.
Sorry Skippy, but it has already failed this time to. The only difference is the magnitude and the damage will be tremendous. You’ll be lucky to make it back to Japan because you won’t have the money or a job to go back to. You’ll have the hopenchangy guy to thank for it, along with FDR, LBJ, Carter, Clinton, Bush I & II, and the One, along with the rest of the Dems and RINOS.
You forgot Reagan-he’s got some blame there too.
Krugman has been right a lot lately-and he was right about Enron too. If it makes you feel any better he thinks Obama is wrong too.
But let me ask you a question-how does the Republican party build a governing coalition by clutching itself into a ball and saying that John McCain is not one of them? The demographics of the country are changing-particularly in the South.
Whatever party (perhaps Republicans) that manages to adopt, articulate , and maintain alliegence to basic, sound principles of fiscal responsibility will win resoundingly with the American Public, in my opinion. The american electorate is intelligent in that, other than the partisans on both sides who believe the only way to maintain their power is to demonize and exagerate the positions of the oppostion, they understand you cannot sontinue to spend more than you take in forever. The power structure at teh national level has seen to it to lie to the public for as long as I can rememebr as to the true size and scope of our spending employing all manner of budget sleight of hand to disguise the reality. The solution to all this involves three and only three broad choices: 1) cut spending, 2) increase revenues, 3) some combno of both.
Cutting spending does not equal passing laws that require others to do something you don’t pay for whther that be states or companies. Raising revenues does not always involve increasing tax rates.
As a conservative I am just appalled by the Republican’s indifference to job losses of the middle class that have been encouraged by free trade policies with no recognition that, while being able to buy cheap goods at Walmart is good for the middle class, not having a good job to pay for them needs to be factored into the equation. The workers in the 10 Johnson Control automotive parts plants taht are being closed soon are going to be limited in options that our policies or lack of created an environment that encouraged this wholesale migration overseas.
So we need sensible balance between no regulation and over regulation. The party that can articulate that and execute a legislative and administrative agenda based on keeping the country safe, competitive, and prosperous will prevail.
The Democrats have demonstrated in two months that, given the leys to the kingdom they show no restraint and reasoned application of power and cannot reign in theior most extreme elements.
The Republican’s have demonstrated a complete lack of adherence to any principle other than tax cuts that seem only to benefit the top wagfe earners while ignoring the very real transformation of income distribution that has occured over the last couple of decades
Both parties have demonstrated little leadership on key long term problems facing our nation.
So we are left with two bad choices. Who is truly going to represent the center?
Obama offered and ran on this hope but has acted quite contrary to this in reality. Will he change? No evidence that can stand up to scrutiny has been offered by his record or rhetoric to date.
I can’t argue with any of that. Who is going to represent the center? Until both sides back away from their rhetoric that its bad to be in the center-I suspect no one.
I do think though-its premature to think that Obama’s budget is a done deal yet. The Blue Dog Democrats are a problem that is just not going to go away-any more than John Boehner and Eric Cantor are going away.
I’d add just one other thing to your list. The multi-polar world is not going away either. Somebody has to condition the American public for that fact-and decide what we should undertake in terms of foreign policy and what we should retrench from in order to concentrate on ourselves. No matter how much Fred Kagan and the rest protest-its coming, the opportunity to avoid that has come and gone a long time ago. ( About 1956 to be precise…).
Sorry to inject the facts IRT the Johnson Controls story, but, according to Bloomberg, “most of the plants will be in Europe.” So much for the knee jerk Republican bashing.
Scott/ Stand by for Counter–counter, rant!
LOL My wife’s experience is more or less like that of your wife’s.. She has 38 yrs experience at almost every level in every specialty–from burns, neo-natal peds, ambulatory care, psych, med-surg/ telemetry–you name it. She began life as a BSN in a 5-yr program heavy on the clinical. She did her specialty in Burns at LA County years before they even offered a Master’s in it, then came back to New Orleans at age 25 to set up the first burn center in Louisiana at Charity Hosp in ‘73–ordered all equip, trained all the RN and Residents and Interns, wrote all the proto-calls, etc. She then was evening house supervisor at Touro Inf, then Asst Dir of Nursing at Methodist. Leaving New Orleans she nursed at old Louisville General as Nurse Mgr for Critical Care–SICU, MICU &CCU–and transitioned to new Univ. Hosp in same capacity. Was first ever in the city anywhere to introduce the “Baylor Plan” of nursing staffing/contracting. She was also Dir. of Nursing at a 250 bed skilled care Center across the river in Indiana–lobbied the Ind. State Legislature to set up first ever state standards for Nurses Assists. She was also VP for Health-Care at Park DuValle Ambulatory Care Ctr–a jointly Fed, State, and City funded facility that saw approx 500 patients/day–was nations 6th largest. Had own Er, Dental and Vision clinics as well. As VP was supervisor of Pharmacy, House-keeping and 3 Satellite rural Clinics as well, including DuValle’s visiting Nurse program. Plus she sat on City of Louisville’s Board of Health. In between she nursed as an agency nurse at about every major hospital in the Louisville area, to include Luther Luckett Max Security State pen, Central State Hosp (Kys Chief Psych Hosp) and several rural hospitals as well before she quit and we set up our own Nursing agency. We sold that in 94 and since then she’s worked part time as a flight nurse at places like Univ of Penn Med Ctr in Phila., practically every major hosp in the LA area, Cottage Hosp in Santa Barbara, Redding, CA’s Kaiser-Perm’s hosp and Swedish Hosp in Denver. Also most of the New Orleans area Hospitals pre-Katrina as agency nurse as well. Since we sold our Agency she has stayed away from Admin–been there, done that–to concentrate on pure nursing and patient care far away from organizational politics.
She, too has her Master’s in Health Care Admin, plus a MS in Abnormal Psych as well. (I met her while she was getting the Abnormal-psych degree, and all my friends & fraternity bros said I’d better hold on to her, as only somebody with a degree in Abnormal Psych could tolerate me! LOL!)
Can’t say I’d (or would my wife) disagree with much of what you said about motivation of nurses, respect from Physicians, etc. (And I admit to using some literary hyperbole to make my point about salary differentiation.) But I will stand by the view that my wife holds dearly that there was never a hospital administrator whose job she couldn’t do as well or better, but at the same time the reverse would not be true.
Your wife is the exception. She has come up through the ranks with a clinical/medical background and I’m sure deserves every penny she gets. But she is the rare exception. Most Hosp. administrators have NO, NONE, ZERO clinical/medical backgrounds. Hell, you can be a light-bulb salesman with GE or sell farm implements for John Deere and do a 2yr Master’s program in Hosp. Admin, spend a couple years ojt as an Assist. in some organization, and voila, you are eligible to be a full-fledged Hosp. administrator capable of overriding the medical judgment of the DON regarding staffing, etc.–whatever. And don’t tell me that many Hosp. Administrators/CEOs don’t get bonuses for containing costs–the brunt of which falls on the Nursing Dept and Nurses. And no, I’m not saying Administrators with a wider scope of responsibility shouldn’t make more–I’m only saying that the spread shouldn’t be so great in most cases. And just as no Chief of Staff of the Air Force should ever be a non-rated person; no Hospital Administrator should ever be anyone devoid of a medical background. But since we both know that state of affairs is unlikely ever to come to pass, I’ll continue to rail about
Hosp Administrators being overpaid and unqualified.
And true enough, for good nurses it’s a calling, and not only the bucks–but considering the responsibilities they carry, the legal liabilities they are exposed to, their technical tng and the mental and physical stress it all entails–they are vastly underpaid, IMO. My wife took the same organic chemistry class (the primary winnowing screen for pre-med major– without med schools there wouldn’t be organic chemistry instructors at most schools due to lack of demand) as an undergrad in her Nursing program along with all the Docs in pre-med. I wonder how many Hospital Administrators could cut the intellectual mustard? And what gripes my rosie red is the thought of 3rd-rate bureaucrats deciding on limits to nursing salaries while their pay & benefits packages rise exponentially. The health-care budget shouldn’t be balanced on the backs of nurses and less qualified administrative types be rewarded for it.
My wife has been in Sr Mgt, and seen both sides of the budget dilemmas, but as in most things in life you get what you pay for and if you want to be ministered to by overworked and underpaid nurses be my guest, but there are other places to look to economize first–but with an aging population and medical advances keeping the aged alive dollar costs
are going to be hard to contain and the shortage of nurses is only going to grow with baby boomers like my wife retiring. The only way to hold nurse’s salaries down in a competitive system which bids up limited resources is to nationalize it, no? Which brings us back to 3rd rate bureaucrats.
Spleen venting ended. (Pant)
Well, not quite the end, Scott/
I would only add that having Nursed/trained at two of the nation’s largest hospitals (At time LA County was#1 in #of beds, Charity #4 behind Cook County in Chicago and Fitzsimmons Army in Denver) my wife was well exposed to both the pressures of large scale budgeting and political and financial pressures in general–not to mention her stints as a Dept head of one kind or another in a variety of kinds of hospitals/settings & locales. She really was exposed to such a wide variety of clinical practices and financial systems that it’s the old “nothing new under the sun” bit for her at this stage. She’s pretty much seen/done it all–or a pretty big hunk of it, anyway. Unless you’d have nursed in both places, who’d a thunk it that, to cite just one example, Kentucky would be more progressive in many ways in terms of regulations/practices than is Penn? Just as in the service, travel is broadening and variety the spice of life–to cite just two trite and hackneyed (but true) phrases.
(If you read this around 12:57am my main reply is in moderation hell.)
My sister is a trauma nurse and she could give you an earful about hospital administration-most of it not fit for tender ears.
yea, kinda like how JGs can always give you an earful about the CO screwing them out of flight time. Hospitals are incredibly complex organizations to run. I didn’t have any idea, until I started hearing about an hours worth every night. Delivering quality care is important, but so is making a profit. That profit is what pays for indigent care, builds new operating suites, and a thousand other needs. It is incredibly competitive, under constant downward revenue pressures, for all payers — gov’t, third party, you name it. And a patient population that expects the moon, and wants someone else to pay for it. Every patient that shows up at the ER with a headache wants a CAT scan, even if their PPO won’t pay — and will never blame their crappy PPO — will blame the hospital (often, abetted by the care giver — one doc recently admitted a Medicaid patient, scheduled them for surgery that the state had already refused to pay for, and was livid that the hospital wouldn’t do it for free). You want stuff not fit for tender ears? How about the insurance company that is owned by a near monopoly hospital chain, and refuses to pay for procedures at a competing hospital, even when the surgical team is the only local one trained in them. Will pay at an out of town hospital, but not at the one that competes with their corporate bosses.
Skippy, if you sister wants to do something constructive, then she can get to work ridding her profession from the sizable number of toxic nurses. Sorry for thread hijacking, but this potshotting, based in incomplete knowledge, is off putting.
I’m not sure what you mean about potshotting-but my sister feels strongly about her profession as a nurse. And she has been at it for over 35 years, all around the country. She works at a large hospital now and is pretty fried with some of the things they are doing. I don’t know all the details-but she can get pretty strident about it if the subject comes up. FWIW she is more conservative than I am-except when it comes to health care. She is adamant that the country needs a change in its health care system.
I don’t think your Navy analogy holds much water-unless you are of the school that JO’s don’t have any gems of truth worth listening to tucked inside their whining. All I know is I could not work in an ER like she does.
Seems to me though-there are several different issues in your comments here, not just one. Insurance is one, hospital profit margins is another, and uninsured patients who don’t have insurance is another.
I think you understood quite well. The easiest thing to do is the intellectually dishonest thing — criticize, without a modicum of understanding the competing pressures that lead to decisions you don’t agree with. Just like the JOs that don’t understand cuts in flight hour programs, many in a hospital don’t understand cuts in Medicaid reimbursement rates, insurance reimbursement rates, etc. The laziest road is to criticize those closest to them — when they are just the ones that have to balance all of the competing forces, to keep the doors open so the the enterprise can deliver quality care. The focus on that care isn’t the exclusive province of those on the front lines, no matter how much they may think so. They just have the luxury of ignoring all of the other forces.
Scott:
Hope you didn’t think my comment about “3rd rate administrators” was directed against not only your wife–or even most civilian administrators whom, although obviously I have my criticisms, I full well realize are certainly under the range of pressures you describe. I was thinking more of the bureaucrats to come that I see on the horizon with Nationalization. Sorry If I didn’t make myself clearer.