That is bad news, but the same thing was reported earlier in the week from a private hospital. There are always places willing to cut corners, or make mistakes. Did you read about the polo ponies, and the bad prescription that killed them. On CNN yesterday a woman, supposed to be an expert but I didn`t get her name, said 98,000 people die each year from that same mistake. seems high to me, but that is what she said.

pharm here is another dreadful reason I am against others having the same care as provided by the VA.
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr...

Nobody said "free" health care. I know it will cost, but it will not be $8000 a person. When you get charged $8 for an aspirin, that`s robbery, fraud ,abuse. If you look at the stats, there is no quality for most of the people. Let`s leave it to the states, if we did that there would still be slavery, no voting for women,polygomy and a myriad of other wonderful ideas.

Some states (like Oregon) all ready have a health care for everyone. That is how it SHOULD be. It's much like gay marriage. It should be LEFT UP TO THE STATE! Why are we abandoning Federalist concepts so much now, and screwing EVERYONE with the federal blanket of government??
If you want "free" health care for everyone go to a state that provides it. If you want to marry someone of the same sex, go to a state that allows it. Let the states decide these issues, and then people can go migrate to the states that support their issues. Why is this such a hard concept for people to understand? Why screw everyone by a federal policy? The federal government screws up everything they touch. Let the states decide, that is how the founders intended things to be in the 1st place!
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Should be noted that the states who have all these mass government programs are also the ones who are in massive debt, and have the highest rates of unemployment. Somehow that won't happen when the federal government takes on this burden though, I guess.

"You already have national health care from the VA, but you don’t want your fellow citizens to have it?"
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First off not, not all past/present members of the military have health care coverage by the VA and many that do only have limited coverage (the remainder is pay-as-you-go); like everywhere else. That being said, after using the VA twice in Milwaukee I have never gone back and will continue to use private medical practitioners because of those two visits. Are there bad experiences at private places too, probably; but for my money free does not make it better. So to answer your question, do I want the others to have the same treatment I received from the VA, the answer is no.

Did you every think that maybe we are the richest country in the world because we don't have socialized medicine? You are greatly deceived on your facts for medicare, health care prices are HIGHER because of it. Health care providers have to write off millions and millions of dollars worth of medicare, because it underpays by about 60% of what the real costs are, which is what the government mandates for pricing, so health care providers make that up by passing it on to the paying folks, now that's not fair. Your 3% figure for overhead for medicare is a under estimate if you figure in the legal costs and CMS. Private Insurance on average has administrative costs of 16.7% (varying between 30% for individual policies to 12.5% for large group policies). Yet these figures are inflated. If we exclude taxes and profits, as well as sales commissions, then the total administrative costs decrease to 8.9% overall and 8.0% for large group policies. I do not agree that commissions should be deducted from this this figure but profits and taxes certainly should. You can prove anything with numbers and figures. The fact is you will pay for it, and in the end the quality will decline. Keep in mind that if there is no promise of a good wage we will begin loosing doctors, and if you don't have the doctors what will free health care matter? I still find it fascinating that people always look at government funded vs insurance/uninsured, when they could look at other ways to reduce cost, law suits, better ways to compete, and to introduce competition. Government funded health care will kill competition. Case in point, Dean Care has plans to move to Janesville, so what does Mercy do? They streamline, they are building on and improving their facilities. Oh, and another thing we can't afford health care, we are currently paying 1.2 billion in interest on the debt we already have, that's a little under 14k a second, and in a minute and a half 1 million dollars and that is just debt being paid. I'd love to have a new house, but you know what I can't afford it. If we get health insurance from the government, well get more debt, and more entitlement spending that we can't afford, but no one ever talks about how to get the money, and if you are thinking the top 5% think again, if you take people making over 250k a year that's approx 2.3 trillion, if you take their WHOLE salary, realizing we have a current budget in the 3.2 trillion range w/o health care, well, dang, middle class worker is going to be footing the bill (as always and again).

It`s not just money, some of the past practices have to be updated. You already have national health care from the VA, but you don`t want your fellow citizens to have it? It is not perfect, nothing is, but millions of people are denied because of money, when there is enough money in the system to cover everybody already if the waste and fraud were weeded out. Why do insurance companies pay 25% administrative costs when Medicare does it for 3%? Unless you have great insurance, a lot of money, health care in this country is poor, look at the statistics. The richest country in the world and we can`t make the top twenty in taking care of our citizens. Iy`s shameful!

"I`d hate to see Mr. Obama double/triple the debt, but at least we will have health care, better education,"
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It looks like government controlled health care in this country already is beginning to look like Canada and the UK...no thanks!
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/09.... To your point on "better education" how is it going to get better just because more money will be spent?

You are right, people from around the world come here for care. People with large amounts of money. Those, and the ones with a good company health care plan, and the ones who don`t think they need any kind of care , are happy with our system. But, it is nowhere near the best in the world, far from it.

There is fraud in Medicare, there is fraud in all health care. Medicare is not free, but it is over 20% cheaper to run than private health care . The health care the government is looking at is a mix like France, private and government sanctioned. When you have 50 million of your population with no care, and 30-40% with cut-rate care you need to do something. When you see the rising cost and lessening coverage you need to do something. It`s not going to be free, nothing is, but it`s a scam the way private insurance is run now, not to cover people but to make the most money. You can talk about rationing, you have that now. Unless you have insurance, or a pocketful of money, you are denied life saving services already. Try to get a transplant without either. One, if not the first, causes of bankruptcy , is a large health care bill. In the long run, some kind of National health care will be cheaper for everyone than it is going to be the way the rates are rising now, much faster than inflation. And maybe the US will no longer be ranked in the bottom third of industrialized nations for the health of our citizens.

Pharm said: "I`d hate to see Mr. Obama double/triple the debt, but at least we will have health care" Holly crap no one has health care now? The TRUTH is everyone has healthcare now, you just want (and let's be honest), "free" healthcare. The problem is with "free" from the government is it is NEVER free. We already have a form of socialized medicine in place, it's called medicare, and it's a mess, with massive amounts of fraud. We have the best health system in the world, people come here from all over the world to PAY for it, when they have FREE healthcare at home. Why is that? Hmmm could be the healthcare rationing, the lack of incentive for the healthcare industry to do any better, but hey you know at least it will be free, well er, we'll still pay for it with taxes and other fees from the government, but it will appear kinda free. Remember... "the problem with socialism is you run out of other people's money" It may be the top 5% now paying for all this stuff, but yes sooner or later we'll all have to pay, but hey it's free healthcare!

"Ms. Baldwin is probably employing more staff than Mrs. Pelosi, thereby helping the economy."
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Yes that is responsible. A mere member of the house having more staff than the speaker of the house?

I agree that the bonuses are nothing. Simply a distraction to divert from real issues. It was much like the AIG bonuses. They put that story out there to divert from the fact that AIG gave BILLIONS of the TARP $$$ to over seas banks (that story made page 18, while the bonus story was plastered all over page 1)! Most of these stories are total smoke screens over nothing.
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Ryan and Baldwins staff really deserve the bonuses. My God they voted for the biggest sham bill in US history in TARP, and the people of their district promptly re-elected them both! If your good enough to pull that off, you deserve a huge bonus in my mind! Truly rewards exceptionalism. You rip off the tax payers for a trillion $$$, and are savvy enough to be re-elected. Now that's doing something. Give them all huge bonuses!
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On a different blog I do my weekly update on TARP. Today it was announced that criminal investigations into it are proceeding, just as I said you would happen from the start. While the plan has still done ZERO, ZIP, NADA to ease credit markets, which was the bills intent. As I have said many times, all you need to do is look at the roll call vote for TARP to isolate the worse members of congress; as this was the biggest boondoggle, scam job of all time. All signed onto by politicians supposedly working for you, haha.

tallman
GM is gone due to management not Paul Ryan. I am sorry you had to struggle to meet your bills, maybe you should live with in your means? oh how foolish of me to think a demacrat lib live with in there means when all they want is hand outs.

Good God Mr conservative!!!!!! But, he keeps getting elected by all those good ole home town boy fans. Wake up over there, he has NEVER had to live wondering if the bills would get paid. He is a straight down the road BUSH boy and it's spend like ya got it. He could care less that GM is gone and headed for bankruptcy and many loosing their homes. Republicans and Democrats spend and protect their own. Get him out of there just as the state legislators who gave themselves a 5.3% pay raise this year!!! VOTE THEIR BUTTS OUT OF THERE.

After watching the last 29 years, Republicans can`t claim anything about fiscal sanity. They have ballooned the debt eleven fold since Mr. Reagan took office. The only time we were close to sanity was under Mr. Clinton. I`d hate to see Mr. Obama double/triple the debt, but at least we will have health care, better education, and some environmental changes.Ms. Baldwin is probably employing more staff than Mrs. Pelosi, thereby helping the economy.

"The party of fiscal sanity?"
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Perhaps you should ask Tammy Baldwin why her budget is just ~$150,000.00 less than Nancy Pelosi's (the Speaker of the House)...and then come back and debate party philosophy on fiscal sanity.

It`s mostly in the Senate, they lost about 20% of their members ,yet asked for the same amount of money to pay staff as last year, when there were many more of them.

Overall, less people, more per person, more than cost-of-living raises.

pharm:
Just to be clear...the Republicans requested the same amount of money overall as they requested overall last year...
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Each Republican requested the same amount of money (individually) as they requested (individually) last year?

Kind of funny, fewer Republicans in Congress but they requested the same amount of money for staff salaries as last year, above and beyond cost-of-living raises. The party of fiscal sanity?

Although I'm not a big Ryan supporter, I will say that this shouldn't bother anyone in the least. His staff is among the lowest paid, and I'm sure they deserve their bonuses...it's not like they each got a million dollars. I'm beginning to think that since the AIG debacle, whenever anyone hears the term "bonus" they assume scandal.

Paul Ryan understands that he works for the people of his district, but who do you really think answers the phone, deals with various agencies on behalf of those constituents, or answers their questions? I know lots of people the Ryan office has helped.

If you folks really want to pi$$ and moan about wasteful spending, pay attention to your state legislature. Yesterday the Joint Committee on Finance held an executive session in Madison to approve '09-'11 biennial budget. Of specific concern, Gov. Doyle approved $1.2 million to the DNR for a beautification project. Fair enough. Sen. Mark Miller (D) called for a vote on approving $1.33 million for the project. When asked why the amount increased $133,000, his response was "because we want to".

Go to www.wiseye.org and watch part 2, around the 38 minute mark.

Ryan is indeed a big free trader, much like Bill Clinton was, and many on the Democratic side who were NAFTA and CAFTA proponents. Free trade is great thing in my opinion, as long as the trade is fair to the interests of our country. Joy Global and Manitowac Company are two great examples of big companies from WI who benefit huge by free trade. If you want to have a real serious discussion on trade, you should talk about the Chinese and their multi billion trade gap with us. That is the biggest reason so many manufacturing jobs have been out sourced over seas. Of course China now holds all the cards in their stranglehold over us in trade because they own trillion of our treasury bonds. A move that artificially strengthens our dollar, so they can reap massive rewards in their trading surplus between us with the currency artificially imbalanced.
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No one ever wants to bring this issue up on either side of the political spectrum, and yet both sides just borrow away $$$ to finance our debt spending (Ryan voted for the trillion $$ TARP debacle), and keep on funding this trade stranglehold the Chinese and Middle east has upon us.

There has always been a problem with the way budgets to federal agencies are critiqued at years end. If you did not spend it all then your budget is typically sliced by that much the following year. Many agencies call this fallout money "we have to spend it or we will not get it next year". I am not sure if office holders budgets are subjected to the same criteria...never-the-less, it is a practice that needs to be fixed (wasteful).

Hark! Teabaggers! Beware The Tories In Your Ranks
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/4...
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"Technically, Ryan represents Janesville, Wisconsin, but his real designation ought to be: Paul Ryan, R-Wall Street. Janesville is, or at least was, a manufacturing town. Yet, Ryan has ... consistently voted for free-trade pacts ... that have been devastating to the community and others in his district. How devastating, last winter, the sprawling General Motor plant that had been the community's top employer for nine decades, was shuttered.... His whole career has been about redistributing wealth upward, rewriting trade rules to favor multinational corporations, robbing the federal treasury to enrich his banking industry benefactors and running up debts to bail out Wall Street."

If we truly had representational government, Congress would adjourn themselves for the entire months of July and August. Shut the doors and see how it feels, if for only 60 days.
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All Members would return to their home districts (even those who keep nothing but a small apartment there, while quietly calling Arlington VA home).
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All committee staff and Member staff, the Congresional Budget Office and whatever else suuports Congress, would then fill-out their government created Unemployment Compensation forms to collect their benefits while they are laid-off.
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President Obama could not spend any more money without congressional action, and the really big important national defense stuff could be done by Executive Order.
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Then Labor Day, we study where the economy is, given the lack of government intervention and congressional interference.
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Stop quibling about a 3.2% bonus in congressional pay, and do something substantive.

I challenge all those who continually report that Ryan is such a friendly, nice person face-to-face to LOOK at his Congressional voting record and then determine if he's truly working in the best interest of our families, our economy or any other crucial areas for our national well-being. Did he ever vote against a funding bill that the GOP wanted or acknowledge his failed responsibility for what would have happened if his plan for individual investments in the stock market with Social Security monies had suceeded? Sadly, you'll be faced with a representative (sic) who suddenly doesn't seem so "friendly"; a "rising star" who is more concerned about the image instead of the substance.

Average $1,600 bonus for a staffer making $50k. Hopefully he's not rewarding them for advising him on his "yes" vote to bail out the corporate bankers last year. ($800B)

I agree that all of our representatives are too free with our money; if his staff deserves a bonus, it should come from his salery, not the office budget.

Why do government employees get bonuses in the first place? Is it not enough to have great insurance an awsome retirement package and retired after thirty years? This is just another way that so called government oversite has failed again. I do not get a bonus and I believe that they should not either. Why should they be rewarded for doing their job? When you use tax money for anything you should spread it as far as it can go to ease the burden on the tax payer. Do I sound bitter? Well yes I do but the fact remains anybody that works in government should never get a bonus ever.

Ryan for Governor, He couldn't do any worse than old baldy!!! I would vote for him!!! I believe he was just doing what he should be. If you read the article, you'll find that he was modest in his giving compared to others and he gives back alot to us!! Investigate and find out, he's a pretty good guy and represents us well!

Ryan touts spending yet gives bonuses(these were modest by any means)Mr. Ryan You couldnt hold off after the year we here in Rock County are experincing??I BEG to be employed and would love to have a living wage,if any bonuses were extended i would refuse. You sure talk a good talk,yet your words are meaningless. WHY not be honest to us and help your constuients as you help your staff?Just more "politicalese"

The problem congressman is the bonus money is to come out of your pocket, not the taxpayers. You just gave away taxpayer money. I just sent you a large check a week ago, don't expect much next year. You and congress do not know how to handle money.

Seems like the rest of the Government could take a lesson from Ryan!!