Medical misdirection

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The Gail Collins piece in the NY Times today (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/opini ... ef=opinion) is a clear indication that the trend over the recent decades to not care for the mentally disabled in the proper medical institutions has driven them into an extremely distorted form of political life and from the US recent presidency of G.W.Bush and his cohort through the current members of Congress and the various and sundry members of governorships and state legislatures it seems most elected officials would be better for society in the booby hatch rather than in elected positions of power. Unfortunately the citizenry seems not to have had much of a choice since both the Democratic and Republicans have offered demented candidates with severe mental limitations. Since the citizenry is not violently objecting to the financial sector running off with a serious section of the GNP while losing jobs and housing in a financial avalanche I suppose the citizenry could well be disposed of also in booby hatches which leaves one to wonder who should be left out.

Why should they care about the mentally disabled? They don't even care for normal NTs in society.

roflcopter. I remember back in highschool everybody was like "ha ha, that's so silly, that could never happen", and I'm like "damn, it already has ".

An excellent comparison between Huxley and Orwell there. Bradbury also predicted a world where people are controlled by distractions such as television (in Fahrenheit 451). As Beatty explains, the censorship that exists is largely unnecessary because no one wants to read anyways.

This is why I don't watch or read the so-called mainstream media news. And my statistical analysis of elections leaves me with little confidence that voting is a meaningful act in national races in the U.S., unless you happen to live in certain states.

The problem in mental healthcare goes back to the Reagan era, when a shift away from the old-style of long-term hospitalization began. It has since accelerated, and several psychiatrists I've seen have told me that they can't hospitalize many of their patients because of policy and coverage issues. And they have to release these patients long before they are ready to be released.

Basically, it's a statistics game. What are the risks versus profit margins associated with various forms of treatment? The calculations are made, of course based on liability and other laws as well as state and federal regulations, then the course of treatment during hospitalization is determined, all before an actual patient has even walked into clinician's office or ER.

I've seen this up close with a suicidal family member who was discharged while still wholly unstable, but just safe enough for the hospital to avoid liability.

Orwell and Huxley were both right: illness is health, and many people don't realize otherwise because of all the distractions.

Explain then the difference between the healthcare industry profiting from illness and the agricultural industry profiting from hunger. I don't see any substantive difference: in both cases someone has something that is essential to your survival and will only give it to you if they can make a profit off it.