>There are only 3 parties - caregivers, patients, and insurers.
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>OK, but you've included a lot of stuff in "caregivers" apart from doctors and nurses. You'd need to include ambulance services, hospital/hotel owners, pharmaceutical manufacturers and wholesalers, equipment suppliers, sterile supply suppliers... sheesh, there's a lot of stuff bundled into that innocuous term. ;-)
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>>>Yes, insurers are skimming, but a whole lot of people are covered by Medicare and Medicaid, which are non-profit.
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>Agreed, but if the cost of care is high then the cost of care is high whether the funder is non-profit or not. Theoretically, insurer dividends are another layer on top.
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>>>The AMA has done a great job of vilifying trial lawyers for the incompetence of its own members who routinely put people at serious risk for cosmetic improvements.
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>Is that all trial lawyers do? OK... except that Texas lost its ability to provide specialist obstetric care through most of the state and had to impose limits on litigation to get providers back. I'm not sure obstetricians perform many cosmetic procedures: the problem was that if an obstetrician faces a 1 in 3 chance of being sued every year, you're better off practicing in a place with fewer moochers- because this is driven by the lawyers, not by the patients.
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>>>Unless you can find someone else, that only leaves one group that is skimming most of the cash, John.
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>Alas, not just one group- surely you split the pharmaceutical suppliers from the nurses who dispense the meds to patients?

Repeating myself, as is often the case, in my stay in the hospital earlier this week it was the nurses who floored me. (Lord, what a long week. It's Friday just after 5:00 and I am declaring it over). The doctors were fine but it was the nurses who really impressed me. There was one in particular who was assigned to keep an eye on me. When I was released she accompanied me all the way into the taxi to take me home at 4 in the morning, long after her scheduled end time. I don't think you find that in many occupations, not even those that boast about pulling an all nighter to get out a new build. It wasn't an attraction thing, although she was nice enough looking. She was just doing her job. So (and this is to everyone), the next time you meet a nurse, thank her. Or occasionally him, although they are overwhelmingly female. The kind of person who makes you feel like an unimaginative idiot for even thinking of giving up on life.

No word yet on admission date/time. They told me it typically takes 2-3 weeks. The plan remains unchanged, and Marcia can crack on me all she likes if it doesn't happen faster. Unless I am in crisis, which I am not, I don't get to jump the line.