The Past Week: February 15-21, 2009 (“Efficiency” Experts Michelle and “3-Card Monte” Barack Obama…Michelle’s Legacy at U of Chicago Hospital Under Fire by ER Physicians; Hubby Plans to Halve the Deficit via “Efficiency” (Among Other Things…); Spring Garden Prep!

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

This is going to be an abbreviated roundup as things still are rather hectic here.

We did get this nugget from our Chicago Correspondent Leslie, who heard a radio report on the local NPR station in Chicago on Friday morning (February 20).

Here is what she passed along:

This morning on NPR (usually the voice of BHO), I heard there is a medical group (I didn’t hear the name) accusing

UofC(hicago) Hospital ER of “dumping patients” with limited ability to pay in order to avoid having to treat them.

This report (by NPR) specifically named Michelle Obama for developing the program used by UofC Hosp. These doctors were quite clear that the purpose of the program was not for “more efficient use of the emergency room” but was expressly developed to move poor patients from UofC Hosp.

I found it pretty interesting that this report on NPR in Chicago did not screen the report more closely. I’ll have to listen the rest of the morning for the replay of this report. Let’s see if they even re-air this one item.

Our intrepid correspondent followed up with the link at the NPR site, surprised that it was even there.

Under the City Room “News Briefs” we find the story about how, in what the Vice-President of the American College of Emergency Physicians calls a “highly unusual” move, the group is accusing the U of C of dumping patients. In fact, Dr. Sandra Schneider says she can’t remember any other time the group has “called out” a hospital like this.

Doctors Slam U of C Hospital

Produced by Gabriel Spitzer on Friday, February 20, 2009

…

The organization singles out the hospital’s Urban Health Initiative, which diverts some patients away from the ER. It’s supposed to make the system more efficient by freeing up ER staff to treat the most urgent cases. But the doctors group likens it to dumping unprofitable patients. SCHNEIDER: We would ask the university to find ways where it would become good business to take care of all patients, not just those that pay. The Urban Health Initiative was developed in part by First Lady Michelle Obama when she was an executive at the hospital. A U. of C. spokesman called the doctors’ criticism, quote:”way off-base,” and said the hospital hasn’t cut back on emergency care.

Back on January 12 we posted the news from CC Leslie about how Michelle’s former job was being cut and how one of Barack’s friends was taking over the duties.  So, the legacy of Michelle Obama lives on at University of Chicago’s hospital…

Reality Check from Our Chicago Correspondent: University of Chicago & Its Hospital “Terminating” Jobs Like Crazy (Michelle O., Guess Shuffling All Those Indigent Patients Elswhere Didn’t Help the Bottom Line That Much? Your “Plum” Job is Going, Too!)

***

Speaking of  making the system “more efficient.”..as I write this post, a story has just come up on the Comcast news feed…talk about an eerie “coincidence”…

Official: Obama wants to halve budget deficit

(SNIP)

And, he has vowed to scale back spending and improve government efficiency by eliminating programs that don’t work.

MORE

It’s that “EFFICIENCY THING”!!  I wonder if the Obamas stay up nights talking about “efficiency”?

Monday we start the next campaign and start seeing what Obama thinks should be cut.  Meanwhile, the money will be flowing with very little supervision to the states and to his favored recipients.

And I’m wondering…how many seniors on Medicare get thrown under the bus?  How many people on disability???  That would seem to fit in in with the policies left behing by Michelle Obama at U of  C very nicely…

UNREAL!  Audacity, hubris, whatever you want to call it…I call it “3-Card Monte”…(another example of  Obama’s prowess with 3-Card Monte” here.)

***

This week in the high-desert garden.  Trees are budding out and the daytime temperatures are getting into the 70’s.  This week I pulled up most of the mustard, which has started going to seed. Same with the arugula.  I also harvested a few more sideshoots of broccoli and those plants have been pulled, too.  I still have to prune the grapes and fertilize. The rock squirrels are beginning to spend more time outside; when I look over the wall, I see one with his head poked out of his hole now all the time.  Today, I saw one of the crew on the wall,  near the feeder where I put cracked corn for the doves, so I know the squirrel was out for a sample.  Every year one of the squirrels tries to dig into my raised bed garden and usually they’ve dug out tunnels up to a couple of feet long before I find out about them!  I fill them in and the squirrels come back!  Then, they seem to get discouraged and stop trying. I’m really afraid that someday they will extend their burrows under the walls into the yard!

THE PAST WEEK

*By American Lassie

Anything More Nauseating that Bill Clinton Shilling For Obama on Greta Thursday Night?? (2/19/09)

El Paso Media Conference Pushes “Newspapers as Change Agents”; Interesting Background of Organizer

Obama World in Pictures: Privates and Flights of Fancy

*Eustace Mullins’ “Secrets of the Federal Reserve”: Read About what Ezra Pound Called “The Great Betrayal”

Family Matters (Politics, Home Style): David & Susan Axelrod and Epilepsy; Bristol & Sarah Palin Interview on Greta (UPDATE 1X: GM Retiree Health Benefits Dropped–the Next “Attached String” Falls into Place?

Wells Fargo Bank Goes Insane! (Antidote: Nice Pictures)

The Past Week: February 8-14, 2009 (Saturday Night Hard HR1 News; Chicago News [“Racial” Comments; Obama Ally Alexi Giannoulis]; “Roots Camp”; Bill Clinton Shills for the DCCC; New Sprouts in the Late Winter Garden)