Stupid is as ...
Nobody Ever Went Broke Underestimating
the Intelligence of the American Public!
– H.L. Mencken
The current debate in Congress is less about Health Care Reform and more a Political Punch and Judy Show in which each side flails the other in a meaningless battle of strong words and weak wit.
Once again proving the late newspaper cynic H.L. Mencken was right in his disregard for the American people and their way-less-than-representative government they elect.
But then the average American voter has always been driven by his emotional state – as opposed to his intelligence.
For example, in sorting out which groups stands for what in national Heaqlth Care Reform movement, it appears those:
FAVORING Health Care Reform hope to reduce the skyrocketing cost of health care while making it available to every American.
AGAINST Health Care Reform want to keep Big Government out of the health care business.
Trouble is, ain't no way ---under the nation's current profit-driven health care system – that we can provide every American with adequate health care any more than we can reduce Big Government's already huge role in the nation's health care industry.
The horror, of course, is that it's all so insanely simple.
Like everyone in the nation's health care business wants more money this year than last (which is why cost of health care continues to rise).
While every other American NOT in the nation's health care business expects to receive increasingly better health care for increasingly less money (which ranks right up there with Jesus' free wine at Cana and eternal youth).
All of which suggests the American people and their elected representatives are either:
A - Dumber than shit.
B - Have their heads shoved way, way up their collective butt holes.
C - Or both.
Oh yes.
And double shame on Barak Obama for having the dumb-ass hubris to believe nation's terminal health care system can be fixed.
The View from Tallahassee
Writing about the sordid and shoddy dynamics of Florida state government and the Broward Legislative delegation is a shameful waste of this old man's time.
Especially since the picture below captures the view from Tallahassee far better than a bazillion wasted words might do.
A Toe Tag Response
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This comes in response to a recent email I received from a reader on my alternative and more personal blog toetagdiary.com JKdeG
My Dear Friend Patrick
Thank you for your kind and thoughtful comments to my Toe Tagged thoughts.
Which merit a reply in kind.
So...
Where to begin...?
First, I suppose with my Toe Tag blog interest in the likes of shit, tits and ass.
After a half century of writing for a wide range of audience demographics, I'm down to writing my toetagdiary.com for two people: my niece and grandson (actually, I'm not interested in my grandson reading toetag until he is in well into his 20's.)
But more to the point, my goal is to tilt reality in such a way as to get my two young readers to consider points of view totally different than the madding media mainstream (the dynamic here is not all that different from what a an artist does when she views a work from a different angle to learn something new about the integrity of the work's design.)
However...
Sadly and even very much MORE to the point, I fear shock is all we have left --- thanks to mass media --- which gains audience "traction" by increasing the shock value of its content and message over time.
Thus, as one who worked in mass media for most of his life, I've found that the end game of mass media (where “reach” is all) is to generate an emotional response from its audience --- which is more or less what McLuhan was messing around with a half century ago.
Now...
At the risk of mind-raping the obvious, I've found mass media “work” by giving their “consumer” audience a bigger emotional and/or visceral jolt this year than last – be it television, popular music, radio, blogs, politics, etc.
In short, Western mass media work very much like the drug dealer who “helps” his customer along the downward path of addiction by increasing the strength of his product.
For example, on TV:
Fifty years ago, married men and women always wore pajamas to sleep in separate beds.
Today semi-nude people of the same sex happily exchange body fluids to a pre-recorded laugh track – in between commercials for anti-depressant drugs and erection aids.
And so it's gone.
It's like a current TV ad for a high priced German car which assures a potential buyer:
“We don't just make cars … we make feelings.”
(Would have loved to hear McLuhan's take on this one.”
Anyhow...
It's been cultural light years since Paddy Chayefsky wrote the film “Network” – which starred a TV news anchor gaining overnight fame after going Prime Time berserk by urging his audience to race to throw open their windows and scream “We're madder than hell and we're not going to take it anymore” into the night.
That said....
What's the difference between Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the madder-than-hell American Tea party and the outraged Howard Beale?
But here's an even better one?
Question: What's the difference between Huey Long and Sarah Palin?
Answer: Palin had tits and no track record as a governor, while Huey didn't and did.
By the way...
Hope you read Bly's the Sibling Society where he writes of a culture easily duped into confusing a non-event with the real thing – ala Kierkegaard's “dangerous” ice skating exhibition, or the Washington's so-called Health Care Reform Debate which shit sure isn't.
Oh yes.
Again, as one who earned a dubious living string words together as a newspaperman, I'm increasingly fascinated by the steady dilution of the English language as an intelligent means of communicating.
Like how can we understand each other if the word I used yesterday means something totally different today?
France and Spain, as you know, maintain institutes dedicated to maintaining the power and meaning of the spoken and written word.
But then France and Spain also believe in the importance of an educated and enlightened intelligentsia.
But not so here in good old market driven America....
Which is how and why I chose to play around with totally meaningless nouns like “shit” and “love.”
Yeh. I know others have nailed it way better than I...
But still.
It's a frightening trend I'd like to get my niece and grandson to at least NOTICE.
Which is how and why at some future point I hope to do a toetag lexicon from hell on words that have become totally meaningless like:
Change, progress, peace, war, new, old, improved, progress, debate, God, liberal, conservative, truth, God, news, young, good, evil...
Which is how and why I've been reduced to shit, tits and fuck.
Sort of like a guy detonating giant bombs in a boiler factory.
Bottom line?
You and I are products of a totally different culture than the one driving my niece and grandson's world.
What's worse, while we had it pretty good --- that ain't how it's gonna be for them and those they love.
How so?
One - The "myths" of Judeo/Christianity that enabled Western society to “work” for some 2,000 years no longer lend any meaning or purpose to the life of an average person.
Two – For the first time in the history of Consumer American, the next generation will have it worse.
Three – Mass media is creating a culture of sensation seeking addicts.
Four – The law has replaced ethics.
Five – We're no longer Number One
Six – We're running out of enemies
Seven – The mass media may have become a substitute for reality.
Eight – Interesting trumps meaningful every time.
Nine – Some villages must be destroyed to be saved..
Ten - Feeling bad is never good.
All of which, often moves me to blog mutter holy shit and mother fuck!
Wishing you a blessed black history month,
John de Groot
No Hemlock at This Forum!
Hindsight being 20-20, I realize my last post about was a tad over-the-top regarding my fatalistic feelings for South Florida's toxic gestalt, greed-driven leadership and grossly materialistic values.
More to the point, I've been asking many of the folk I run into on a daily basis several questions including:
1. Whom do you respect and admire in South Fllorida?
2. Which (and how many) of our leaders do you trust?
3. Are you hopeful for the future of our “community”?
4. What is it about South Florida that strengthens your belief in a higher meaning and purpose to your life
5. Where (or what) is your sacred or holy place in South Florida?
The answers I've received are mainly dark and way less than hopeful.
That said, a gaggle of alleged community leaders will attend the regular monthly meeting of the Fort Lauderdale Forum tomorrow --- where the discussion will focus on “Un-Fun Facts” about the city.
Should be interesting.
I hope to offer the above five questions to see what sort of “Un-Fun Facts” they might generate.
Pity the local media will be absent.
But then they usually are -- unless there's money to be made.
The meeting will be held at 7:30 AM Wednesday (tomorrow) in Room 1110 of the FAU/BCC Downtown center at 111 East Las Olas.
Former Fort Lauderdale Mayor Rob Dressler will serve as moderator.
Refreshments will be served – sans hemlock, or rusty razor blades.
John de Groot
Terminally Fucked???
I have grown increasingly disenthralled with what passes for reality here in South Florida.
How and why?
As a so-called community, South Florida has the cohesion of a bucket of crabs – and the morality of a gang rape.
Even worse, it is devoid of dignity and compassion.
And finally, it has come to represent Boca Bling at its worst.
Which is how and why I shall be devoting less and less psychic energy to the daily doings of South Florida and the more than four millions souls struggling to survive in an increasingly dysfunctional environment.
Like if the Broward County Commission and/or Harry Wayne Huizenga represent our best and brightest....?
Then we're terminally fucked.
Hence, I will be limiting my posts to www.john-degroot.com for the near future.
While devoting most of my time and creative energies to an alternate blog at www.toetagdiary.com which I am writing exclusively for an audience of two: my niece and grandson.
Live Long, Know More!
John deGroot
(Squa Tront)
No Time for Satire!
The Shameful Tale of Broward's
Two Health Care Taxing Districts
The entire administrative brass of the North Broward Hospital District attended a special Thursday gathering welcome the new Board of Commissioners responsible for governing the seventh largest health care system in the nation.
Missing amid all the background and numbers?
Any mention of exactly why Broward County has two tax-funded hospital systems in the nation – both of which are among the largest in the nation.
Facts are, the North and South Broward Hospitals Districts annually:
Generate more than $2 billion in revenue
Collect more than $220 million in local property taxes
Provide life-saving care to some 150,000 inpatients.
Serve more than 500,000 visitors to their emergency rooms.
Employ more than 11,600 doctors, nurses and other skilled health care workers.
So much for the powerful basics.
But as to why we have two giant tax-funded health care systems....
Well, quite simply, the two Districts offer at least double:
The number of contracts awarded to politically connected outside vendors
The chance for campaign contributions
Opportunities for the governor to reward his party's faithful.
The need for banks, investment firms and lucrative bond brokers.
All of which boils down to a ton of patronage, jobs and money – via two huge political power bases – rather than one.
Which – from the standpoint of both political parties – makes each District a giant golden egg-laying goose for the party in power.
However...
All this fails to answer how and why Broward came to be blessed with two political golden geese in first place.
To answer that question, we need to go back to 1951 when the two tax districts were created as totally separate governmental entities by the Florida Legislature.
For years, Broward's only hospital had been located in – and totally funded by – the City of Fort Lauderdale on West Broward Boulevard.
But then, in 1950, local residents decided to build a larger hospital at the present site of Broward General on South Andrews Avenue.
Which led local residents to seek a special taxing district to finance their new hospital.
But then someone in Fort Lauderdale remembered -- GASP -- The Jews.
And so it came to pass that with the passage of two seperate acts by the Florida Legislature:
The North Broward Hospital District was created to serve two-thirds of the county north of the Dania canal – which was highly anti-Semitic (with its "restricted" property deeds and hotels.
While the South District was created to meet the health care needs of the southern third of the county – which was home to the vast majority of Broward's Jewish residents.
All because, as a virulent center of anti-Antisemitism, Fort Lauderdale didn't want its sick and suffering to be cared for with “Those People” from south Broward.
And that, as the late Paul Harvey used to say, Is the Rest of the Story.
Out of Wise Ass
Lost all my wise ass snark at Thursday's half-day Orientation meeting for the four new Commissioners who will decide the future direction of Broward Health – the seventh largest health scare system in the nation.
First things first:
I'm afraid I was totally off-base in my snide conclusion that Broward Lobbyist and Big Time Bundler Jim Blosser played a key role in the selection of the four new commissioners.
I've known – and worked with – Blosser for a number of years.
And these people are way too intelligent and curious to bear Blosser's stamp of approval and certified Republican hacks.
Bottom line?
Although understandably bewildered by the complex and surreal world of Big Health the Orientation session merely skimmed over, these people demonstrated a willingness to ask cut-to-the-chase questions.
Most impressive?
Richard Paul-Hus, the youngest of the new Commissioners.
More to come later.
But right now, I'm rethinking a ton of my previous cynical thought re the new citizen leadership settling in at North Broward Hospital District.
Oh yes.
One other highlight of Thursday Orientation session:
Sam Goren, the District's Interim General Counsel, gave the finest – and most scholarly – summation of Florida's Sunshine Laws that I've heard in all my years as a newspaperman.
JKdeG
Author's Note
A Word from John deGroot
Gentle Reader
The blog you're reading – john-degroot.com – is but one of two internet ventures by your humble author.
Careful study should establish the purpose of this blog is to serve my left brain needs.
That said, I take equal pleasure in filling my right brain needs at toetagdiary.com.
Thus, unlike so many things in life, you have a choice.
JKdeG
Selling Health that Sizzles!
Wally Wunfree
Marketing Maven
Beer, Hospitals, Erections
The North Broward Hospital District has budgeted nearly $6 million for a series of newspaper and magazine adds, plus a number of commercials on local TV this year. Why? - Bewildered Taxpayer.
Dear Bewildered
Don't go staging a Taxpayers' Teaparty in front of Broward General just yet.
Ha-ha!
The problem, of course, is that most people know as much about marketing as Governor Charlie Crist knows about the behavior of subatomic particles as energy, or matter
So let's start with the basics.
The primary purpose of marketing is to convince consumers in your market they need your product or service – whether it's a political candidate, Lite beer or a pill for an erection.
This is especially true when it comes to institutional marketing – or branding.
Which is more about feelings that facts.
As in Michelobe Ultra versus Busch – as in beer.
Or why Sarah Palin has her own TV show and the Dalai Lama doesn't.
Serious Sizzle Spiritual Steak
In short, this is all about sizzle – but not very much about steak.
But here in America, good sizzle sells way better than good steak.
That said, there are three major obstacles to selling a hospital:
One – People go there to die
Two - A visit can put you in bankruptcy
Three – From brain surgery to toe fungus, a real hospital is totally different than its fictional counterpart of TV.
All of which creates “a tough sell.”
Hence, in marketing Broward Health, our job is to create a series of prints ad and TV commercials that will generate positive feelings for our hospitals on the part of our consumers.
Which is tougher than selling pre-need funeral plans.
No kidding.
Take the two competing children's hospitals operated by our tax funded health care districts:
Memorial Health's Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital named for a beloved dead baseball player
Broward Health's Chris Evert Children's Hospital named for a tennis star into trading up husbands – only to discover her latest model didn't work out.
Even worse, take a look at the disparity in the brand images the two tax-supported hospital districts are projecting with their celebrity namesakes.
Joltin' Joe Curvaceous Chris
Like how does each image speak to you regarding your kid's pending brain surgery?
Plus which one – image-wise – would move you to make a major donation to their good works?
Really.
The whole thing's that simple when it comes to selling your brand.
Like beer and erection pills.
But don't take my word for it.
Just check it our print ads and TV commercials.
They don't mean anything.
But they'll sure make you feel good.
Not that the people running Broward Health have a clue about branding and image.
Like totally clueless and out of touch would be putting charitably.
No kidding.
Like last month they sent over this color shot of some mega-million dollar surgical robot which cuts you open with these giant metal claws -- which the people running this place think is the greatest thing since Our Lord invented sliced bread.
Trouble is, the freaking surgical robot shot is about as warm and fuzzy as an Islamic beheading.
Or a Sci-Fi Slasher flick on acid.
Check it out.
Worse than Worm Farmers
Like I said.
When it comes to branding and image, the people running this joint are a notch below worm farmers.
No matter.
I made them use this photo (below) featuring a couple of happy all-American types -- which was way more about feeling good about Broward Health than scaring the snot out of your health care consumers with a metal clawed surgical robot.
Not that the asswipe Worm Farmers were all that happy>
"Your Broward Health - Feeling Good in No Time"
Okay.
Don't get me wrong.
I do have my moments of quiet glory where I know my life has meaning.
Like just the other day, my neighbor and I were taking about chinch bugs when he said out of the blue:
“Wally, next time I start bleeding from the rectum, I'm gonna try Broward General.
Naturally, you can see how the moment was totally transcendental.
Next: Why Media Relations?
For Powerful Profits
NOTE: Once again, the medium is satirical – but the numbers are a serious as cancer. JkdeG
Pile On Mucho Mas Lab Tests
Jose Conjo, CHBC
Lab tests are to hospitals what booze is to a restaurant: Where the money's at.
And our doctors at Broward Health order lab tests like drunks go for two-for-one shots at happy hour (to belabor the analogy).
Anyhow...
Slamming our patients with tons of lab tests is a major reason for our Powerful Profits at Broward Health.
What's more, this is a key point to our financial success that our new Commissioners need to appreciate– and one that should be stressed at their upcoming Orientation meeting Thursday.
Because when it comes to generating easy revenue, unnecessary lab tests are a sure sign that your hospital's administrators – and hospitalists – know how to milk a cash cow.
Ideally, our graphics department will put together a Power Point presentation nailing the remarkable increase in the use of lab tests at your North Broward Hospital District.
No question but our new Commissioners will want to break out the champagne when they see our kick-ass lab numbers – especailly compared to the Wuss numbers for our health care competition here in Broward.
Like consider the increase in adjusted admissions* versus the increase in lab tests at various hospitals in Broward during the current decade:
2000 2008 % increase
Broward Health
Adjusted
Admissions 70,572 96,883 37.3%
Lab Tests 2,128,853 3,373,363 58.7%
Per Adj. Admits 30.2 34.8 15.2%
Memorial Health
Adjusted
Admissions 64,854 130,744 103.6%
Lab tests 1,891,513 3,492,093 84.6%
Per Adj. Admits 29.2 26.7 (8.6%)
Private Hospitals
Adjusted
Admissions 119,303 96,150 (19.4%
Lab Tests 3,139,836 2,475,001 (21.2%)
Per Adj. Admits 26.3 25.7 2.3%
Yours for a Mucho Mas Bottom Line
Jose Conjo, CHBC
Certified Health Budget Consultant
*Adjusted admission – a healthcare industry baseline used to reflect both a hospital's payer mix plus its inpatient and outpatient population – thus allowing an accurate comparison of one hospital versus another.
SOURCES: Florida Agency for Health Care Administration
Broward Regional Health Planning Council.