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[heydude6]

Anti-maskers have been afraid of COVID leading the government on a slippery slope towards fascism for quite a while now. I guess this is the turning point where we find out whether they were right or not.

[None]

The courts will laugh it out, of course. This is capitalism championing the 'fascism', and the god-emperor Profit that must not be jeopardized, global pandemic be damned. If the Fed cared, they'd mobilize emergency programs to train new staff or offer them some kind of boons or protections, and even that's too much work when that funding could go instead to building another nuclear submarine- it's not at all likely that this injunction gains any traction.

This is just the exceptionally shitty outcome for whomever continues to hope that corporations will do the right thing/protect their workers/accommodate the pandemic, or that they'll create the change we need to overcome the pandemic without federal action. Not that I'm asking for authoritarian government control in stating this, but worker rights and protections would go a long way in, I dunno, not killing people, or filling in the boogeyman of 'the worker shortage.'

[LordBaal]

Thst is not facisms pals. Unless that hostpital is state run is not. Is just abusive bilshit.

[heydude6]

If the State backs this abusive bullshit for the sake of say, preventing a hospital from being too understaffed to fight the pandemic, then it becomes fascism.

You could of course still argue this point, but then I'll have to say that you're missing it. We don't have a concrete definition of fascism anymore. Nobody who uses it is referring to the exact system of government installed by Benito Mussolini in Italy anymore.

When they say fascism here, they mean having America betray its values of freedom for the sake of ends justify the means bullshit. Enslaving healthcare workers to force them to fight COVID would be a new low for this country, and I'm genuinely wondering if the state is going to use this as an opportunity to cross that line.

It probably will be thrown out, but I'm not as certain as I'd like to be.

[Frumple]

I'm not sure it'd actually be a new low, given how we use what amounts to penal slavery to supplement firefighting efforts, among other things, in parts of the country. It'd just be that sort of thing leveraged against people more of the country think matter

It's honestly quite a bit higher than our actual current lows, looking at it -- what the injunction's asking for is a 90 day stay for the filing hospital to have time to replace the staff that's leaving (all of 7 people). Beyond it barely being state intervention to begin with, that's bloody peanuts compared to the regular horseshit our penal and law enforcement systems get to on the regular on a far greater scale, heh.

... it also doesn't actually seem to have much to do with fighting covid, the staff in question seems to handle other parts of care, particularly trauma/stroke care or somethin' along those lines. They're mostly tapped for other sorts of emergency treatment more than covid care specifically. Covid's just being invoked due to how it's stressing everything else healthcare related, basically the (even odds fairly legitimate, our hospitals are fucking stressed right now across the country) excuse they're using for why they hadn't already hired appropriately.

[wierd]

The courts will laugh it out, of course. This is capitalism championing the 'fascism', and the god-emperor Profit that must not be jeopardized, global pandemic be damned. If the Fed cared, they'd mobilize emergency programs to train new staff or offer them some kind of boons or protections, and even that's too much work when that funding could go instead to building another nuclear submarine- it's not at all likely that this injunction gains any traction.

This is just the exceptionally shitty outcome for whomever continues to hope that corporations will do the right thing/protect their workers/accommodate the pandemic, or that they'll create the change we need to overcome the pandemic without federal action. Not that I'm asking for authoritarian government control in stating this, but worker rights and protections would go a long way in, I dunno, not killing people, or filling in the boogeyman of 'the worker shortage.'

If the Fed cared about the status of healthcare, they would:

1) Partially socialize healthcare, (enough that they become a major force in dictating market pricing for services and products, to end the inflated price bullshit they do with insurance companies to make insurance reps look good. (No, really, that is the real reason the prices are inflated--- so that then the hospital can "Discount" the inflated price, and make the reps look like they saved the insurance company money.  For real.)

2) Pass strong legislation to prevent insurance companies from attempting to demand discounts below cost from hospitals in the name of Mammon, and require sane minimum pricing.

3) FUCKING NUKE THE AMA FROM ORBIT, AND OPEN UP RESIDENCY PROGRAMS. (this will drive down inflated physician wages through increasing supply, reduce physician error rates due to being overworked/overstressed, due to insufficient numbers of physicians, and thus reduce the costs of physician malpractice insurance, all in one fell swoop.)

4) Enact strong legislation about healthcare wages and healthcare services for healthcare workers. (Seriously, the people that provide healthcare, often have the worst healthcare experiences, because OVERWORKED, UNDERPAID, and expectations to work when fucked up, broken, sick, or when family are dying, sick, or wounded. Because you know, "Mandate to provide care." (like Wisconsin is pulling.)



BUUUUUUUUTT


The Fed is not at all interested in actually fixing healthcare.  Some of their friends are members of the AMA lobby, and physicians making bank, but being overworked and not allowed to sleep because always on call, because systemic shortages of doctors-- IS MARKET EFFICIENCY!

[LordBaal]

Yes, honestly with your tax base is fucking amazing you don't have a bigger public health care.

Now, I don't get why yoi hate the Aske Me Anything posts... but yeah, blow them to orbit!

[None]

yep, that'd be boons or protections or something.

In other news, a judge granted the injunction- those staff can't work the new job for 90 days. oopsie poopsie we'll just ignore at-will employment and the lack of noncompete clauses

I realize it's not immediately related to the pandemic, but with healthcare strained as it is, it really, really sucks to see workers take losses like this.

[wierd]

Yes, honestly with your tax base is fucking amazing you don't have a bigger public health care.

Now, I don't get why yoi hate the Aske Me Anything posts... but yeah, blow them to orbit!

No, AMA as in American Medical Association.


Among other things, they have full control over medical residency programs, which are required by law to practice medicine in the US.

They use this position to artificially restrict the number of practicing physicians.


https://www.forbes.com/2009/08/25/american-medical-association-opinions-columnists-shikha-dalmia.html?sh=561eb7b142f2

In other words, you can TRAIN all the doctors you want; unless you muzzle that rabid dog that is the AMA, none of them will see a single patient.

I suggest nuking the organization from orbit.   They have been operating on the Western Bloc "5 year plan!" model for decades, squeezing the medical industry through supply side manipulation. They are NOT to be trusted.

[Iduno]

Anti-maskers have been afraid of COVID leading the government on a slippery slope towards fascism for quite a while now. I guess this is the turning point where we find out whether they were right or not.

We have plenty of laws and policies written by corporations (what Benito would call "corporatism"), xenophobia, with strong nationalism, and military. We've been at the bottom of that slope for a very long time.

[Starver]

I don't have any problems with hispanic building designers, personally.

[heydude6]

In other news, a judge granted the injunction- those staff can't work the new job for 90 days. oopsie poopsie we'll just ignore at-will employment and the lack of noncompete clauses

Fuck... I wonder if they’re going to appeal that, but probably not unfortunately. The sad truth was that there was already precedent for this slavery shit in the form of ending strikes by “legislating workers back to work”, which was why I was so worried.

They should be throwing riots over this, but I doubt 7 healthcare workers will piss off the right people. The lack of love for one’s fellow man killed this country a long time ago. How long can it’s undead corpse keep walking?

[McTraveller]

I agree that the AMA is a massive part of the problem with US health care.  Increasing the supply of medical professionals is the only way to bring down costs, which is of course why that organization doesn't want to increase the supply.

Regarding Wisconsin - well if I were those 7 people, I'd just quit anyway, and possibly go work for some other third party for those 90 days.  My reading is the injunction just prevents them from working for the new organization - I don't think it forces them to keep working.  I would totally be behind a campaign to donate enough to those 7 employees so they can go without working for those 90 days.

If the original organization did try to test the waters to force people to work - hah well either we really have lost the country, or that organization will be SOL.

[Rolan7]

I agree that the AMA is a massive part of the problem with US health care.  Increasing the supply of medical professionals is the only way to bring down costs, which is of course why that organization doesn't want to increase the supply.

Regarding Wisconsin - well if I were those 7 people, I'd just quit anyway, and possibly go work for some other third party for those 90 days.  My reading is the injunction just prevents them from working for the new organization - I don't think it forces them to keep working.  I would totally be behind a campaign to donate enough to those 7 employees so they can go without working for those 90 days.

If the original organization did try to test the waters to force people to work - hah well either we really have lost the country, or that organization will be SOL.

Sure, they can spend a fraction of those three months working some credential-less job instead of helping people.  And since it's only seven people and is a big story, random donators can support them.

But this establishes a despicable precedent.  It's not just about seven people.

I'm looking forward to talking to my mother about this.  She's a former nurse, and a few weeks ago she was unloading with me about how awful travel-nursing is.  She disliked the travel-nurses for taking more money and providing worse service, in her expert opinion.  I think she was right about the service being worse.  All I added was: if hospitals are willing and able to pay travel-nurses these excessive salaries, why can't they retain their local, more-effective employees by offering competitive wages?

We left it at that, but I think she considered it a good point and politely raised.  (More so than most of the leftist chatter I casually share with her).

[ChairmanPoo]

I dont particularily trust medical councils/amas/whatnot. But things are more complex  than simply the training slots/med school slots being restricted. Someone has to train these guys.


I've been recently offered to have medical trainees (exactly what sort of trainees it's still debated). I can't really say no or I'll both impair my capacity to get them latter and create bad blood with other departments (they want me to have jr docs to pad the jr doc oncall rota see). But my department is so underequipped and understaffed that right now I kind of feel that it's shortchanging the trainees.

Best I can hope is that, since we're likely talking Q3 at the earliest, things will be more set up by then.