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Article: McDermott: Health care system 'inhuman', 'stupid'.(Joel Connelly)
- Article from:
- Seattle Post-Intelligencer
- Article date:
- August 12, 2009
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Dialog LLC by Gale Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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An eye opener at a recent Seattle health symposium: An Oregon doctor reported that his large hospital's neo-natal unit can find itself performing $1 million worth of unpaid care on a given day.
Costs of intensive care for these newborn babies, many the offspring of uninsured teenage mothers -- with afflictions that could have been spotted during pregnancy -- gets pushed on to all the rest of us.
"Our health care system is not only inhumane, but stupid," Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., himself a physician, said in relating the doctor's story.
In order to reform that system, McDermott feels, President Barack Obama will need to show steely nerve, and ...