AmericanThinker: This tragic story of bureaucratic arrogance, resulting in the potentially avoidable death of an infant, recalls my experience with Certificate of Need regulations, back in the early days of that movement to save costs and centralize equipment and expertise.
As chief radiologist of the x-ray department of a small hospital (110 beds, fairly active E.R.), I was asked to lead the process of application for buying and operating a C.T. scanner which would be perhaps the sixth in Portland. A rather large private x-ray clinic with some political clout was a mile down the street and had installed its own C.T. scanner a while before, as had the Adventist hospital a couple of miles farther down. The state health care agency had been exercising its powers, and so we assembled our documentation and statements from clinicians and hospital staff and, dressed up, appeared before the board.
The board was composed of nineteen people, around a large oval table with the three of us at the other end from the chairwoman. I presented our case with totals of admissions (and estimates of acuity), outpatient work, E.R. traffic, and the potential costs and risks of patient travel for needed exams, and I waited confidently. MORE HERE
Not one of the 19 board members was a doctor. What are their qualifications to make a decision whether a hospital needs a CT scanner?
And they didn’t even bother to ask him any questions before they denied their request.
I hate liberals.
Who was paying for this piece of equipment?
It’s a $250,000 machine that goes “Ping!” ?
“Who was paying for this piece of equipment?”
This is the most important question.
If this is a free enterprise and did not involve government funding, then that panel had no business being involved in the decision process.
If, however this was a purchase funded by the government (and thus, the taxpayers) then this is what happens and it is no surprise.
None of us are as dumb as all of us!
This is why it is better if government is in charge of less and private enterprise and personal ownership is in charge of their own business.
Didn’t Nobama care tax the FUCK out of
medical devices? I think that might have
been part of the driving factor.