By Robert Duerr
Calling both the present Hawaii and proposed National healthcare system unsustainable, Dr. Edward Gutteling, a Hilo orthopedic surgeon, recently spoke to the non-partisan Conservative Forum of Hawaii. For Gutteling, predicting what’s wrong with the upcoming national system is seeing what’s already playing out in the healthcare debacle in Hawaii. Not wanting to be only autopsying a bleeding to death patient, Dr. Gutteling also offered workable cures.
Dr. Gutteling, with degrees in physics, oceanography and medicine, opened his prepared talk with “the USA, the wealthiest nation on the planet, we can afford to have a health system that takes care of every citizen that needs care, that is high quality, flexible, affordable, and does not infringe on the freedoms of any citizen… It can be done, and it should be done.” Gutteling, speaking at the Naniloa Hotel Polynesian Room before an audience of sixty people, explained that as in science, sound results only come from sound fundamental principles.
He began his journey by sketching the broad strokes to his medical world view. (Full text available http://kappahi.wordpress.com) A strategic error jeopardizing the entire system is that government is mistakenly undertaking a social justice campaign to guarantee universal health care for all based on the belief that “heath care is a right”.
Taking an individual rights approach he stated: “I do not believe that I have a right to demand that my neighbor assure that I have healthcare…I object even more as this obligation will exist without any responsibility on my part, as I have a “right” to get health care from others whether I pay for it or not and no matter how I choose to live my life.”
Universal healthcare systems are found in most developed countries.These systems grow bureaucracies where expense overwhelms sustainable quality.
Inevitably, the mandate for universal health rights where Centralized governments “find that they can no longer afford to give everything to everybody at all times, and that they are coming up short financially.”
Gutteling cites the example of President Obama’s June 2009 praise of the nonprofit Mayo Clinic for offering “the highest quality care at costs well below the national norm…. a classic example of how a health care provider can offer better outcomes art lower cost”. Reality reads differently. The Mayo clinic recently released that they lost $840 million last year on Medicare patients which was covering only about 50% of costs.
As of January 1, 2010, they will stop accepting Medicare patients at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona. To continue care, such patients will have to pay cash, at a rate above Medicare’s payment.
Gutteling told the Conservative Forum audience about the “Obamacare” plan to cut an additional $500 billion from Medicare: “The chief Medicare actuary estimates that 20% of all hospitals nationwide will become unprofitable as a result.”
When government caps healthcare, payments according to Gutteling’s view, a shortage of qualified doctors follows. He cited Canada, which has such a shortage of primary care doctors that some citizens get on a waiting list to enter a lottery to be assigned a doctor. “Switzerland, Japan, England, Canada, Germany, whatever. Every single country with government controlled healthcare payments experiences doctor strikes. Is this because they are greedy? I’ll let you judge, but I claim it is because they are paid too little and work too hard, and see no justice in what they are paid. And that is an unsustainable situation.”
In what sounded like the current situation for Hawaii, Guttelingoutlined “then the doctors move, or retire, or quit. In Cuba, a doc makes more money driving a cab than being a medical professional….”
According to Dr. Gutteling’s analysis: “Every country today that embraces government programs runs in to the same cost-control issues. The end result of this chain of events is that you can indeed assure social justice if your goal is equal dispersal of healthcare, but you cannot assure the best care to everyone”.
To implement this policy, he explained, injustices occur: In Canada, it is illegal to purchase private medical insurance. The exception is Quebec, where the supreme court ruled it unconstitutional and stated “Access to a waiting list is not access to health care”
“There are presently only 2 other nations in the world where private health care contracting is illegal: Micheal Moore’s Cuba, and North Korea.”
The recent health care bill that passed the US House will force everyone to buy health insurance or suffer a penalty.
When asked about health care fines, President Obama said: “What I think is appropriate is that …if you have the ability to buy insurance, and you choose not to do so, forcing you and me and everybody else to subsidize you… there’s nothing wrong with a penalty.”
A letter from the Federal Joint Commission on Taxation makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income) are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties.
Section 7201 reads that felonious willful evasion is “punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.
Gutteling stated:“Health insurance will no longer be an individual choice, it will be a societal obligation, mandated by law and threat of force from the State, and attempted escape will put you behind walls with armed guards keeping you there threatening deadly force if you try to leave.”
He compared this to the Berlin Wall, placed to prevent citizens from fleeing the East German “workers paradise”. The communists called those who escaped “traitors to the working class”, who by abandoning the country were in essence both stealing from those left behind (by taking their skills elsewhere) and selfishly avoiding their duty to work for the benefit of the community. The death penalty was therefore justified so that the workers’ paradise would prevail, at any cost.
“That any US citizen should face prison for not buying health insurance is simply incredible.” says Dr. Gutteling. “How does it get to this point? ” I maintain it is not due to a shortage of government interaction, but from too much government meddling.”
For Gutteling it all starts with the faulty premise that “health care is a right. From that, all this badness follows, because a right for one means an obligation on all others.
Health care is NOT a right, and to insist that it is a right is both dangerous and evil. It hurts people, it kills people, and it enslaves people.” He stated there was a better way for the US to get healthcare for everyone….health care resources are limited. Their distribution cannot be universal and infinite, because the supply is not universal and infinite.”
So what is happening in Hawaii Island healthcare? Gutteling answers:
“Not enough docs…The hospital is going broke… the government and private insurances aren’t keeping up with inflation…this is unsustainable…”
Where lies the problem according to Dr. Gutteling’s diagnosis? “The primary customer for the hospital is not the patient, and it is not the docs, it is the bureaucracy. There are many fine employees working there, but they are crushed by the system.”
He continues:“Hilo Medical Center loses about $1 million per month which is not sustainable. This has recently been investigated and researched, very thoroughly.” Hilo’s hospital like other neighbor island medical facilities is run by state controlled Hawaii Health System Corporation (HHSC).
Aware of a potential $1.5 billion dollar state budget shortfall and a hospital system that is on an ER stretcher bleeding to death, the legislature last session demanded an audit and plan of action. The “Comprehensive, Independent Review and Evaluation of HHSC” dated December 15, 2009. It was prepared by national healthcare advisory firm Stroudwater Associates and the Honolulu accounting firm KMH LLP.
(full text available here:http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/Main/Portals/0/Article Attachments/HHSC_Study_Volume_1_Distribution_DRAFTFINAL_12.14.09.pdf)
The reviewers found that state HHSC subsidies, which would make hospital nuns blush, now amount to $111 million a year. Costs are expected to climb.
The reports reads: “HHSC is in a financially perilous condition. Future financial viability of the organization was in question. Its liquidity is at dangerously low levels with barely enough current assets to meet current liabilities. It is far behind in its payments to vendors (80+ days)… Its future viability is at risk, particularly if the State is unable to provide increasing levels of operating subsidies for HHSC going forward.”
What is the reports’ solution to keep Hilo Medical Center operating? They recommend immediate moves and the point blank bullet to the torso of Hawaii politics is a recommendation to excise the civil service system from the hospital body.
It recommends to convert immediately to 501-c-3 private not for profit status. They propose paying off all union employee obligations such as pensions, sick leave, vacations, and continuing forward as a private entity. The union payoff would be expensive at $256 million, and likely financed by a bond. The one-time cost would save annual operating costs of $50.3 million.
The second required action would be to realize operational efficiencies. Gutteling says: “I would phrase it, “becoming a real business and serve the customer, instead of the bureaucracy.”
The final action is to identify a capital and or operating partner. This would solicit both in-state and mainland options. The point of the exercise for Gutteling is “to help accelerate its transformation to a high performing contemporary health care delivery system.”
Gutteling, reports Senator Josh Green, the only doctor in the legislature, is solidly in support of this hospital reorganization plan.
But Dr. Gutteling is not a babe wet behind the ears: “As it involves over 4200 HGEA and UPW employees, or about 10% of their total statewide membership, I see this as not going to happen.”
“In at least one private meeting, HGEA officials suggested it would be preferable to close hospitals than to take HHSC out of the civil service system.” This strategy though shocking is not without precedent: school children losing services before public employees do. With deficits inevitable, Gutteling is frank: “This means steady spiral of inefficiencies, declining services, and need for expanding state subsidies. Not a pretty picture. So much for the hospitals.”
What about the doctors leaving Hawaii Island?
“For docs in private practice, they continue to leave for greener pastures elsewhere, or for early retirement. Why? Because they are paid too little, work too hard, and have too high expenses.”
Gutteling relates that 20 years ago, a private practice general medical doctor could run an office with a nurse and a receptionist/bookkeeper. Today it takes a staff of 4 – 5. The extra employees are needed for the paper work requirements of “referrals, approvals for care, authorizations, checking of eligibility, coding of care delivered, documentation verifying the care, coding and billing for services, completion of disability papers, correspondence with the carriers….”
So costs have risen but what about payments? Gutteling and many other medical professionals before him explains that the Government is notorious for not paying enough. Medicare and private insurances do not keep up with inflation. HMSA has stated that they use Medicare rates as a benchmark for how to structure their own payments.
“In Hawaii, Medicare rates are below those in California, even though our cost of living is higher,” and Gutteling furthers: “HMSA, which has a near monopoly on private insurance, has been able to successfully pay the docs less and less on an inflation-adjusted basis, because the docs have no choice but to work with them or not have any patients.
“I myself could move to the mainland today and double or triple what I make as an orthopedic surgeon here in Hawaii. I get spam faxes and emails every day soliciting me to greener pastures. My office managers try to intercept these and hide them from me, as they’re afraid I’ll leave if I get too tempted.”
“This is why the orthopedic docs have fled: its why Dr Lane left Hilo for Prescot Arizona, Dr Hiller left Waiamea for Montana, Dr Ballotti left Kona for California, and why after 10 years of my trying to recruit others to stay here, zero have done so. The only ortho docs to come and stay have been employed by the hospitals, who are subsidizing them to bring patients to their facility.”
It is easy to see Hawaii, a state touted for its universal health care and a state where the government only allows limited insurance options, as a back to the future look at National health care.
“Try this experiment: go to www.eHealthInsurance.com to get a quote for a single male 29 years old, and type in a zip code for Pennsylvania. 87 different plan options pop up, with all kinds of deductibles, options, prices. Do it again for Hawaii, and only 4 appear. That guy in Hawaii is forbidden by law from shopping in Pennsylvania, or anywhere else.”
What are Dr. Gutteling’s alternatives to a successful health system, and distribute limited resources?
“It is by free market mechanisms. It is the best way, the most efficient way, the most effective, flexible, and the most ethical and moral way to distribute a limited resource?
“This is a fundamental principle. Nothing else in history comes close. We don’t expect the government to distribute food, or clothing, or shelter as an effective means to care for the community….Why then would we think that government can suddenly change history and make it right with health care? I will state categorically, it cannot.”
Gutteling suggest that today’s health care is not free market health care. It is mostly government sponsored through tax breaks and outright control. For Gutteling the biggest problem is many believe that health care is “free”, leading to spiraling costs as the patient had no incentive to spend healthcare money wisely.
Here’s Dr. Edward Gutteling’s 4 point plan to health care health.
“1st. Put patients in control of and responsible for the costs of their own care. The patient should own their policy independent of the employer. This would allow anyone with an insurance policy to keep it if they moved to another job. Either eliminate tax breaks for health care insurance by employers, or else make tax breaks universal for everyone. No one should be subsidizing someone else just because of the nature of their employment.
“Patients must be responsible for how they spend their health care dollars. Only the individual knows what is the best way to get the best bang for their hard earned buck.
“2nd: Promote true health insurance, (like car insurance), not health maintenance plans: policies should have large out of pocket deductibles, but still be there as true insurance to cover expenses over a large limit. As even routine medical care is expensive, allow citizens to put reserves apart for their basic healthcare costs, if necessary as tax-free medical savings accounts. Insurances would kick in when health costs hit a certain limit, including routine maintenance care. No one will go bankrupt from a health issue.
“Allow policies to be tailored in any way the insurance company desires. Want a lot of coverage? Pay more. Want a bare bones policy? Pay less. Get rid of all state mandates on what a plan should cover.
“Allow insurance to charge more for riskier patients than for healthier patients. Want to smoke 3 packs / day and have 2 heart attacks? Expect to pay more than the guy who doesn’t smoke, exercises daily, and probably won’t be hospitalized.
Car insurance is like that, health insurance should be also. Cost for this: nothing.
“3rd: let competition lower the costs, which it will. Allow purchase of any health insurance plan from any state. Insist all doctors and hospitals reveal their prices, and let them compete also. Cost for this: nothing
“4th: for those that still cannot afford health insurance, then the government should subsidize them until they can. I maintain that if the prior 3 steps are taken this will be a very small group, and the costs very affordable. And probably the most cost-effective way to cover them would be through vouchers. Like food-stamps, but they would be healthcare-stamps. Get the government out of the act of owning healthcare businesses and controlling rates. They don’t run farms to feed the poor, they shouldn’t run healthcare for them either.
“Health costs would be lowered even more by other items also, such as meaningful state and national tort reform (which would lower malpractice costs), world-wide ability to shop for drugs, elimination of all certificate of need requirements so any private venture could get in the game and compete, anywhere. And many other things as well.
To critics of the economics of medicine not responding to free market scenarios, he holds two examples: “the total cash market for corrective cornea surgery (LASIK and others), not covered by insurances, shows that quality and competition have improved the product and lowered the price. When first introduced 10 yrs ago, Lasik was $5000 / eye, now down to around $2000 and a better procedure despite regular and medical inflation costs. Ditto for plastic surgery.”
“Again, I suggest that a true free market in health care is the only practical and sustainable option. It is also the most ethical and moral. There is a way out, but it requires political will. Embrace liberty.”
To learn more about or propose a talk for the Conservative Forum for Hawaii, contact President Walter Moe at WalterMoe@gmail.comor (808) 966-5420.
(Robert Duerr is the owner and operator of Kappa Productions and a Big Island Press Club member.)
January 14th, 2010 at 11:11 am
I just don’t understand how they’re going to know that you aren’t carrying insurance in the first place. Random “audits”? I know that Massachusetts simply does it through your income tax returns…i.e. if you can’t prove you have insurance, they just take the fine out of your returns. But how are they going to do this on the national level? There are many people live “outside” the system so to speak and don’t file income taxes. Take students for example. A lot of the don’t WANT to file because it means they can get larger grants. I can see this really getting out of hand in some parts of the country. I mean, try going to some of the poorest backwoods areas and telling the people there that they’re going to be forced to buy something…that’s like telling people on some parts of the big island that they have to carry car insurance. Not gonhappen.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Dr. Gutteling, it makes entirely more sense to autopsy a live patient than a dead one because you can ask them directly what killed them…..as you cut their brain stem. I am a Board-certified Phrenologist and I find plenty of opportunity in Hawaii. Money is not the proximate problem here. The government is.
a hui hou
Dr. Tom
January 14th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Hi Bob:
See ya’ at 7:15 new gym on campus on this Sat.
Let me know if you have a prob. Lots of us are looking forward to the song fest. Thanks again and see ya soon.
Regards, Bob L Good job on the report
January 14th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Dr. Gutteling gives open minded people much to chew on and think about. Thanks, Bob.
rp
January 14th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Having lived with government run health care for 35 years. People should be very careful what they pray for. The military let a broken T-11 go for 5 years. Why because the government paid so poorly only the least qualified Dr.s usually stay. Upon retirement I refused to be discharged till the constant pain in my back was explained. So after 5 years I was scheduled for an MRI where the damage was so bad they told me a move could permanently paralyze me. The next day I was made an inpatient and the next day the surgeon admitted that his peers unfortunately missed the Obvious. Especially after a Dr. of Osteopathy had diagnosed it 4 yrs. prior.
The govt. medical saga continued at the VA. They first denied the broken back and surgery had disabled me in any way. So I flew from Hawaii to D.C. won in court. Recently I have waited for years to again see a nuerosurgeon. Which was only arranged after Sen. (D) Akaka became involved. Along with an Emergency Trip to Bethesda Naval Hospital for temporary paralysis. This caused the VA to re-examine my complaints. OOPS! the T-11 had again frayed from wear and tear after the surgery 15 years prior and the lower back had obvious disc damage. So If you want governemnt health care you are welcome to it.
Private health care is now catching on in the Peopels Republic of China! Though of course they still have public healthcare available, much like our urgent care/emergency clinics. In England I visited the town of Mildenhall. You could be sick on Wednesday between 1:30 pm and 3:30 pm for that was when the Dr. was in (Surgery) town. My relatives in Canada need to come to the USA for prompt obstetrical or Cardiac Care. The Canadian Dr.s were over worked and couldn’t make a living. So they relocated to rural USA. They were at least appreciated and compensated. Now Dr.s are already setting out for Central America where they will be appreciated and treated with respect. In America Dr.s are fed on by Lawyers, Insurance Companies, HMO’s, and two layers of government. I remember when Dr.s were respected and appreciated like teachers. We are destroying our society by over governing all educated professionals. Teachers are moving to China, Dr.s to Central America. For God sake do not trade security for liberty. I pay for my wife to have civilian healthcare. If I left her to the basic spousal care she would have died of Lymphoma. Not because she wouldn’t see a Dr. She would have waited longer and late Stage one would have been Stage three by the time she was seen. Don’t blame VA Dr.s they are heroes. Overworked, underpayed, and limited as to what treatments and drugs they may use by GOVERNMENT regulation. The cheapest drug not the best. The paperwork they must accomplish is assinine. In the end the treatment is less effective and more expensive. Because Government bureaucracy must grow.
This bloating prevents hiring more Dr.s and LPN’s or R/N’s
January 15th, 2010 at 8:18 am
Brian, the government is broken. All of it. The problem now is that everyone knows it but there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do to fix it. Voting one set of crooks out and another in simply changes which special interests get fed for awhile. I know one veteran who gets excellent VA care. No one else I know does. The VA spends all their time denying that people who are trained as warriors and sent off to combat could possibly ever be injured. I think all the money that goes to welfare families ought to go to veterans and that EVERY veteran should get the best lifetime medical care in the world at absolutely no cost…but that’s just my opinion. I cannot even convince the VA that I was in combat during TET because the people who were supposed to writing this stuff down were out on the lines….and I am not asking for anything but the restatement of a thirty cent ribbon which I was already awarded. Akaka didn’t bother helping me.
The problems with our government go way beyond a badly formed health bill. They speak to a problem that isn’t going to be fixed by ‘conservatives’ and ‘liberals’ calling each other names but doing the same things.
January 15th, 2010 at 8:56 am
HMSA-Quest just announced a 7% cut in payments to all physicians starting March, 2010, as they say their costs are too high and enrollment went up.
Expect fewer docs to accept this, more use of E.R.
And this is BEFORE Obamacare has even started.
January 15th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
The primary driver of health care costs is the drive for profit…profit for medical clinics, medical equipment suppliers, health insurance companies, etc.
Health care costs should not include profit because it is impossible and inappropriate to value the value in dollar terms a healthy human being.
Remove profit from health care costs and you have sufficient funds to pay for the medical care of all Americans.
Imagine what life would be like without the worry of medical bills, co-pays, and cost of health insurance.
Doctors are not economists or accountants. They know how to provide health care, not the economics of health care.
Huge amount so of money are spent promoting foods that are unhealthy. Huge amounts of money are spent promoting prescriptions drugs whose benefits and side effects are generally beyond the understanding of the average person.
The current reality is that private business is thriving by promoting unhealthy products and bandaid fixes for the consequences of promoting these products.
Basic common sense has been forgotten because it has not been taught within the family, in schools, on television for some time now.
For instance, Dr. Dean Ornish created a program to reverse heart disease. Over ten years ago, my own diabetic mother followed this program after being told that her heart function was not sufficient to survive open heart surgery.
After one year of following Dr. Ornish’s program, her heart function had improved to the point where she had the surgery. Yet she almost died because of the lack of communication among her various specialists.
We fired the doctors who refused to agree to a single point-person doctor and obtained doctors who were willing to co-operate. And so she is still with us today.
1 in every 7 Americans have no access to health care, regardless of quality.
Given that our nation spends more per person than any other nation on Earth, this is quite simply unacceptalbe.
Take private profit out of healthcare and healthcare becomes an asset to this nation, rather than a liability.
January 16th, 2010 at 9:03 am
How is it that General Practioners who worked for a profit made before. They wer not irrationally sued They were not gouged by government and insurance charges. They simpy wer allowed to practice medicine. We have now specialized and complicated the process so much Dr.s are abandoning the system and the country. This will not increase the numer of those who get health care and I feel you figuire is a bit tilted.
Many are illegals, non productive citizens BY CHOICE, and as usual the truly poor and needy widows, orphans and mentally ill. Go to ER and see all the substance abusers. They chose to wreck thir lives.
Why should I subsidise their poor choice? Why shpuld I pay to birth their children and then make them citizens? Why should I pay for criminals? Because this country has lost its mind! nI of course want to pay for the widows orphans and truly needy. If you are between 21 and 62 this country owes you opportunity not a free ride. I live on a small salary and a small pension which I literally roke my back for. I’m not carrying healthy lazy young people.
January 16th, 2010 at 9:05 am
OOPS as usual sorry for the typos
January 16th, 2010 at 10:38 am
“We don’t expect the government to distribute food, or clothing, or shelter as an effective means to care for the community…”
Would Dr. Gutteling suggest that law enforcement, road maintenance, or public education, among other public health and safety concerns, also be run as private businesses?
The problem with privatizing the public commons is that “money devalues what it can’t measure”, to quote Ivan Illich. Cooperative and equitable access to these things is not in the nature of the capitalist beast, if you will. Communities’ interests, monetary profit minimized, become a threat to those seeking market force profit.
For example, why distribute clean drinking water when you could run it for profit? Non-profit education? ..You could really pay teachers a lot more if we’d just run it as a private enterprise.. Can’t afford it? Screw you. This is survival of the greediest..
I ain’t buyin’ it.
January 16th, 2010 at 11:27 am
“Would Dr. Gutteling suggest that law enforcement, road maintenance, or public education, among other public health and safety concerns, also be run as private businesses?”
We have had private schools and colleges for centuries.
January 16th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Nonetheless, public concerns are distinct from private enterprise. I’ve no problem with private enterprise, profitable or otherwise. It’s the conflating of the two that is injurious to public wellness.
January 16th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
@Darren: Do not expect anyone to know who Ivan Illich was or to understand your reference….or your light sarcasm, which is quite to the point in my estimation.
When corporations became solely investment vehicles and ceased to consider, as their primary business, the function or product they were formed to produce, the ethics of ‘business’ changed.
Should I start a business, I would endeavour to produce the very best product I could and sell it at a fair price until I discovered that I could sell any trash I wanted as a viable product and set my own rules if my congressional representatives got a large enough share. In fact, I could write my own rules and make them the law of the land. If anyone complained I would simply hire lawyers and lobbyists and squash them or buy newspapers and TV stations and have my employees call them commies or conservatives or whatever name was unappealing that week and the public simply wouldn’t notice that I had gamed the system.
Ed Gutteling is a friend of free enterprise and I believe he thinks the less government meddling the better. I agree, but with a caveat. If the government is going to butt out of things in which they have no business or should have no say, they must get out across the board. Just get the hell out completely; but that’s not what we observe. What we see is that the people with the deepest pockets get the biggest taxpayer subsidies and the largest tax breaks. They are called “Too Big To Fail”. The rest of us are not too big to fail and we are failing, faster every day.
This story has already been chronicled numerous times. Look it up: “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution”.
January 17th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Since this country became a government owned and operated entity under LBJ, vice the citizen owned country it was created to be. It has been all down hill. Believe it or no there was time when it was considered shameful to have the government help you. Now citizens have been sytematically conditioned to believe the government owes them everything. Would you ask your neighbor for half his pay to subsidise your children who won’t work or have wrecked their lives with drugs? NO! Yet that is exactly what welfare and healthcare are. By and large the productive carry the unproductive on their back. No one wants the widows and orphans out in the cold. Believe it or not in the 1960″s most Democrats believed this also. Then a brand of socialist vs. socially concerned politicians entered both parties. Actually they wer built in the 1930’s and 1940’s, It just iook until the 1960’s for them to obtain positions of authority in politics and Academia. Socialist Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans. Rich people who were made to feel guilty for their success. Academia has always had fringe thinkers and thank God. No one realized they would so successfully convert the children of the wealthy to become self loathing anti Americans. America the country that is most charitable. The country that saved the world in two wars, now hates itself. Not by the middle class or working class. They were spared the brainwashing they were sent to war. By those who sacrificed Nothing for America. They wiggled out of their military duty. Look at our last three Presidents. One reservist who didn’t serve all of his time, one draft doger who doesn’t know the definition of is or what sex is and finally one young lawyer who first real election was the Presidency.
March 6th, 2010 at 9:45 am
Interesting article. I notice, however, that there was a name missing from the list of docs that Dr. Gutteling brought in that have “fled”. Ricketson. Wasn’t THAT one a big OOPS.
March 6th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Actually, Dr. G had to take Ricketson to court to get him to leave the island. EProbably expensive but necessary.