Could a charity hospital based by a crusading Dutch playwright, a gaggle of Quakers, and a decide working undercover turn into a mannequin for the U.S. well being care system? In this episode of the podcast “An Arm and a Leg,” host Dan Weissmann speaks with Dr. Ricardo Nuila to seek out out.
Nuila’s new e book, The People’s Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine, makes use of the progressive mannequin of the Ben Taub Hospital in Houston, the place he practices, to argue for a publicly funded well being system within the U.S. that’s obtainable to all people, with or with out insurance coverage.
Dan Weissmann
Host and producer of “An Arm and a Leg.” Previously, Dan was a employees reporter for Marketplace and Chicago’s WBEZ. His work additionally seems on All Things Considered, Marketplace, the BBC, 99 Percent Invisible, and Reveal, from the Center for Investigative Reporting.
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Transcript: A Doctor’s Love Letter to ‘The People’s Hospital’
Note: “An Arm and a Leg” makes use of speech-recognition software program to generate transcripts, which can comprise errors. Please use the transcript as a device however test the corresponding audio earlier than quoting the podcast.
Dan: Ben Taub Hospital is a publicly funded security internet hospital in Houston, Texas. The majority of sufferers don’t have insurance coverage of any sort.
Dr. Ricardo Nuila has been working at Ben Taub since he was an intern, a medical pupil. He took me on a tour.
Ricardo Nuila: I began right here and, you realize, actually I simply didn’t wish to depart right here cuz I simply, simply actually loved my job right here
Dan: He’s simply printed a e book known as “The People’s Hospital” that’s not only a love letter to the place, it’s a pitch:
Not solely is that this place method, method cheaper than what we’re used to, in some ways it’s higher. And it’s a mannequin, an actual various to what-we’re-used-to.
So, I ask him to select ONE affected person’s story from the e book to inform, he picks a affected person he calls Stephen. A restaurant supervisor, a Republican. A man who didn’t anticipate to finish up right here.
But he had a large lump on the facet of his throat, and his insurance coverage didn’t cowl a lot. He paid money, upfront, to get seen in a neighborhood ER.
Ricardo Nuila: lastly there was a health care provider who had seen a CAT scan and mentioned, you’ve tonsillar most cancers, most cancers, nonetheless, you don’t have, uh, insurance coverage
Dan: Tonsillar most cancers. Cancer of the tonsils. That landed arduous. So did the “however.”
Ricardo Nuila: He felt shitty you realize, that any individual might let you know most cancers, however there’s nothing that we’re gonna do about it due to, of how a lot and…
Dan: It’s prefer it’s too painful — or too apparent — to complete the sentence: Because of your insurance coverage. Somebody tells Steven to attempt the general public hospital, Ben Taub. He expects the worst. But that’s not what he finds.
Ricardo Nuila: He comes to like this place. He offers, that is like so Steven, however he, he offers reward playing cards to the folks greeting on the door as a result of they’re good they usually do their job nicely cuz they make his day,
Dan: And it’s not simply that he likes the folks on the door.
Ricardo Nuila: He seems like he acquired actually good healthcare and that he additionally, um, thought that the value was extraordinarily motive.
Dan: Stephen misplaced his insurance coverage when he acquired too sick to work, and he doesn’t qualify for Medicaid. He owns a home, he’s acquired financial savings, Texas has actually stringent Medicaid restrictions– so he’s paying out of pocket.
Ricardo Nuila: But his last invoice is pennies of what he thought he would pay.
Dan: Stephen’s dad had gotten radiation therapy for most cancers, and the sticker value was 700 thousand {dollars}. Stephen had gotten radiation AND chemo AND surgical procedure — and had been hospitalized for a great whereas.
His invoice was 32 thousand, 300 and seventy-eight bucks. Real cash for certain, however he will pay it. And it’s lower than 5 p.c of his dad’s invoice for a lot much less in depth therapy.
Ricardo Nuila: And the healthcare is admittedly good. And so he’s nearly proud that he’s had this expertise
Dan: Steven’s turn into a convert. And as Ricardo Nuila walks me right into a convention room, it’s clear: He hopes his e book will create extra converts.
Ricardo Nuila: you begin to see this mannequin and it makes you suppose, can issues be totally different in healthcare? I feel that that’s an choice. But we as a rustic haven’t thought of that. Seriously. You know?
Dan: And if it appears politically unimaginable that we might have something like this across the nation– an efficient, environment friendly, CHEAP, publicly-funded well being system–
Well, the concept that Houston might have one, that was fairly unlikely too.
In reality, the story of how Ben Taub acquired right here will be the most stunning story in Ricardo Nuila’s entire e book.
This is An Arm and a Leg, a present about why well being care prices so freaking a lot, and what we will perhaps do about it. I’m Dan Weissmann. I’m a reporter, and I like a problem. So our job on this present is to take one of the enraging, terrifying, miserable components of American life and to convey you a present that’s entertaining, empowering and helpful.
Ben Taub Hospital sits on the fringe of the Texas Medical Center– that’s a large neighborhood stuffed with hospitals and medical faculties, together with among the greatest within the nation, just like the M.D. Anderson most cancers middle.
In his e book, Ricardo Nuila writes about how some sufferers at Ben Taub can see from their rooms the gleaming buildings of Ben Taub’s neighbors.
So after I go to, I make him present me the view. We look out from a stairwell at a glass tower, M.D. Anderson’s Sheikh Zayed constructing.
Ricardo Nuila: that’s glamorous. Right? you get a glimpse into the remainder of the medical middle right here. Ben Taub stands out, I really feel like, as a result of it’s, it’s brick versus glass.
Dan: But as Ricardo Nuila makes clear in his e book: This unglamorous brick constructing will get the job carried out.
In addition to Steven, there’s Ebonie, whose difficult being pregnant — there’s a variety of vaginal bleeding– will get tracked extra exactly than it could elsewhere:
At different hospitals, nurses eyeball the pads that take up that blood and word heavy, medium or mild bleeding. At Ben Taub, they’ve adopted an progressive method: weighing every pad to get a precise measurement.
Another affected person, Christian, has bounced round different techniques with out anyone precisely diagnosing the dire kidney issues which have stored him in ache for years. Because he didn’t have good insurance coverage, it wasn’t price anyone’s time.
At Ben Taub, insurance coverage isn’t an impediment,
Ricardo Nuila: We arrange issues, which is mainly, okay, we have to focus in your kidneys proper now and we have to get you to see a geneticist. And each of these issues occurred.
Dan: they not solely diagnose him, they get him on a type of dialysis that he can handle himself at residence.
It’s cheaper, and delivers higher high quality of life for him.
Everything at Ben Taub is cheaper. The system spends a couple of third as a lot per affected person because the nationwide common. In half, which may be as a result of no one earns million-dollar salaries right here.
But Ricardo Nuila makes the case again and again that they take the time– as a result of they’ve it– to make clever use of assets.
They don’t have as many MRI machines as different hospitals. But guess what? Quite a lot of sufferers don’t want MRIs.
But Ben Taub can’t meet each want: One affected person, Geronimo, wants a liver transplant, and that requires assets the hospital simply doesn’t have.
But Ricardo Nuila and his colleagues put a variety of time into wrenching him again onto Medicaid, so he can get the transplant elsewhere. They rope in a Congressman to get it carried out.
Geronimo tells his mother:”I really feel so vital. Everyone treats me like I’m wealthy.”
Ricardo Nuila: That’s what I feel lots of people really need is simply the sense that the one who’s liable for your care is considering by way of the issue with you and conscious that you’re not having an awesome day and needs to cope with that scenario with you. And I simply felt like this surroundings allowed me to love, have these moments.
Dan: So who pays for this surroundings? It could also be cheaper, but it surely isn’t free.
Some sufferers are on Medicaid. Some are on Medicare. Some have non-public insurance coverage. But the bulk don’t have any insurance coverage in any respect.
Some, like Stephen, pay money. And a variety of the remaining — a couple of third of Ben Taub’s sufferers — are handled without cost.
The bulk of Ben Taub’s funding comes from a particular property tax in Harris County, the place Houston is situated. It funds an entire system known as Harris Health– Ben Taub, a second hospital, and a bunch of clinics.
And after all, none of this has all the time existed.
In reality, it’s solely right here, like this, due to a very wild story, with two huge characters. One of whom wasn’t even from Houston. He was a author I’d by no means heard of, a Dutch man named Jan de Hartog.
Ricardo Nuila: de Hartog was one of the superb people who you might examine. He was a Nazi resistance fighter, Dutch ship captain.
Dan: And whereas he was hiding out in Denmark through the struggle– in between saving a couple of Jewish infants and working struggle missions in his tugboat–
he wrote a romantic dramedy that — later grew to become a broadway hit. And then acquired tailored right into a Broadway musical known as I Do, I Do– which, Broadway-musical nerds in the home– starred Mary Martin and Robert Preston– you realize, The Music Man– and had a track that your mother may nonetheless keep in mind.
(musical sounds)
Dan: Yeah. So, fascinating man. And within the early Sixties he got here to Houston to show playwriting at a neighborhood University. It was a giant time for him. He’d simply gotten married — for the third time, however this one was for keeps- and turn into a Quaker.
Ricardo Nuila: And when he and his spouse Marjorie come to Houston, they discover that there’s all these whisperings about this charity hospital on the town in Houston about how, how terrible the situations are. That the kids within the maternity ward would cry all evening for the, for a scarcity of milk, and in order a part of his religion, he decides that he must volunteer there
Dan: When de Hartog writes in regards to the hospital later, he describes the expertise of strolling in for the primary time as actually mind-boggling.
He’s like: I do know what a hospital smells like. Disinfectant, perhaps some recent laundry. And I do know what a slaughterhouse smells like: Blood, and shit. And the odor right here is slaughterhouse.
As he seems to be round, the sights are one thing else.
Ricardo Nuila: He sees a cockroach crawling into the tracheostomy of like a affected person. He sees like folks sitting in their very own filth.
Dan: He and Marjorie don’t up and give up. They stick round. And then they recruit a dozen Quakers and some society women to come back volunteer with them, and get the Red Cross to coach them.
And it’s nuts. This is a wealthy metropolis. The ZOO is air conditioned. But not this hospital.
And he begins to catch on: Why it’s so horrible.
Number one is racism.
The hospital serves principally Black and Brown sufferers. When Jan and Marjorie begin volunteering, the opposite volunteers are all society women, and the entire program is about up in order that they don’t contact sufferers. DeHartog later says he requested why, and the volunteer coordinator says, Southern women can’t have bodily contact with black folks.
But she doesn’t say black folks. She makes use of the n-word.
When he asks employees why public officers don’t do one thing in regards to the rotten situations, they are saying: What politician goes to stay up for black folks? The n-word comes up once more.
And– de Hartog doesn’t make this connection, but it surely appears fairly on the nostril: The hospital itself is called after Jefferson Davis, who led the Confederacy within the Civil War.
But there’s additionally a political mechanism for institutionalizing this neglect, with out ever having to acknowledge the function of racism:
No one specific political entity — nobody specific political chief– is liable for the general public hospital, financially. The metropolis of Houston and Harris County are every presupposed to kick in HALF. So it doesn’t belong to both of them. Here’s de Hartog describing the city-county dynamic in a lecture he gave a few years later.
Jan de Hartog: And they have been repeatedly at one another’s throats. The one mentioned, you don’t pay sufficient. The different mentioned, however you don’t. And they went forwards and backwards
Dan: The prime official for Harris County really has the title County Judge. At that point, this was a man named Bill Elliott.
And you’ll hear on this clip from a neighborhood newscast, he wasn’t precisely reaching for the invoice. Here he’s, explaining why the some downside with the hospital is definitely the CITY’s fault.
Judge Bill Elliott: it’s completely ridiculous, uh, to say that, uh, it is a accountability and that is the fault of Harris County.
Dan: And the town? At least one.council member is asking for a finances reduce.
Which actually pisses de Hartog off.
And de Hartog really loves the town. It’s an thrilling place. It’s booming– rising super-fast. And it’s not simply an oil city.
Ricardo Nuila: Houston at the moment was the house of NASA.
NASA narrator: Future manned house flight missions to the moon and maybe the planets will likely be commanded from this management room of the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center,
Ricardo Nuila: It had constructed this Astrodome, it was the town of the long run.
Dan: The Astrodome– you realize, a sports activities stadium WITH AIR CONDITIONING. .
Astrodome Narrator: A totally enclosed constructing, massive sufficient for any sport conference present or conclave with fixed temperature and humidity impartial of out of doors climate,
Dan: CBS News does a report in regards to the booming metropolis: NASA, the oil wealth, the Astrodome. And de Hartog is a principal character– speaking about how a lot he loves the city.
Jan de Hartog: it’s a metropolis of, a metropolis of limitless alternatives. It’s an immensely thrilling city, and you are feeling that something is feasible,
Dan: It wraps up with Walter Cronkite speaking about how all people on the town is completely nuts about soccer.
Walter Cronkite: Their model of soccer is like their model of metropolis and model of life. Play large open. Take an opportunity, attempt something. Above all, do it with zest and do it huge.
Dan: Oh, and there’s this OTHER factor Houston is admittedly changing into identified for.
Cutting edge medication. For twenty years, the town’s been constructing the Texas Medical Center — that big campus the place greater than a dozen hospitals and med faculties now function proper on prime of one another. Baylor College of Medicine really moved from Dallas to Houston to be a part of it.
Ricardo Nuila: Houston is a very deeply medical metropolis. And at the moment they’re all engaged on extraordinary issues
Dan: Yeah, in 1964, whereas Jan de Hartog is witnessing the struggling on the charity hospital, Dr. Michael deBakey is performing the world’s first coronary artery bypass at a non-public hospital on the town.
But the medical institution weren’t allies. Jefferson Davis hospital, on the outskirts of city, was about to get replaced by a brand new constructing within the Texas Medical Center.
But the Medical Society– the native medical doctors’ affiliation — hadn’t needed the charity hospital as a neighbor. They’d really put up a poll initiative to maintain the brand new constructing on the outdated website.
Medical Society Voice-Over: you the taxpayer, pays the additional price That’s why your physician recommends you vote for the brand new hospital to stay at its current website.
Dan: It hadn’t labored, however together with the finances cuts, officers have been now speaking about DELAYING the charity hospital’s transfer to the brand new constructing, which had simply been accomplished. De Hartog and his associates, odor a rat.
They suppose the powers that be are literally going to promote the brand new constructing within the Medical Center to another hospital that desires in. This has been a public dialog.
Jan de Hartog: There had been provides to purchase it they usually needed to attend for the best bidder
Ricardo Nuila: He writes a collection of op-eds for the Houston Chronicle that begin to get press, not simply in Houston, however across the nation and actually all over the world.
Dan: He describes the terrible issues he’s seen. And he appeals to Houstonians’ sense of satisfaction of their bustling, futuristic metropolis. A metropolis he loves, too. Here’s how his first op-ed ends…
Jan de Hartog: I can’t consider that it’s the will of the residents of Houston, that our rising medical middle rightly changing into well-known everywhere in the. Shall be allowed to harbor the cancerous sore of man’s inhumanity to man. It would flip the whole middle deliberate as Houston’s glory into Houston’s disgrace.
Dan: Even simply that first op ed made a variety of noise.
Jan de Hartog: the bomb exploded and the nationwide magazines and newspapers and TV zeroed in on the hospital to seek out out what was occurring,
Dan: … and instantly, the hospital DOES transfer into its new residence within the Medical Center. But the funding concern isn’t solved.
So de Hartog retains pushing.
Ricardo Nuila: He writes a e book known as “The Hospital”
Dan: He goes to church buildings round city, synagogues, all over the place he can, recruiting a whole lot of volunteers.
But there’s no political progress — and situations on the hospital really worsen. Key nurses get burned out and give up. Things go to hell.
In a harrowing diary entry, he writes about full bedpans left on tables subsequent to trays of meals. About a affected person crying out for assist, and listening to again “Shut up!”
Jan de Hartog: Never earlier than had I spotted to this extent, the depth of our damnation, and at that deepest second of desperation, after we knew nothing could possibly be carried out, nothing would change for the straightforward motive that
Jan de Hartog: those that had the destiny of the hospital of their palms weren’t there. Mayor Welsh didn’t work there. Uh, commissioner Bill Elliot Judge, the county decide didn’t work there.
Dan: But THEN, there’s a flip. Somebody exhibits up. That’s proper after this.
This episode of An Arm and a Leg is produced in partnership with Kaiser Health News. That’s a non-profit newsroom about well being care in America. KHN will not be affiliated with the enormous well being care participant Kaiser Permanente. We’ll have extra details about KHN on the finish of this episode.
So, Jan de Hartog retains plodding away.
He offers a chat at a Baptist church– he reads that diary entry, the one with the bedpans, and the absence of Judge Elliott and different leaders.
And at first he thinks he didn’t go over so huge. Nobody even raises their hand to volunteer.
But then it occurs.
Jan de Hartog: When, uh, we have been about to depart, a person turned up with a child on his hip who mentioned, uh, do you prepare folks at evening?
Dan: And the man appears to be trying round, making an attempt to ensure no one’s listening. De Hartog tells the man, yeah, we might do this…
Jan de Hartog: He mentioned, I imply, a useless of evening with out anyone seeing.
Dan: De Hartog’s like, “um, sure, I guess. Why, though?”
Jan de Hartog: He mentioned, nicely, I’m Judge Elliot,
Dan: Judge Elliott. The county decide. Probably essentially the most highly effective politician on the town. That’s who desires to volunteer. In secret. Without anyone seeing. He says to de Hartog
Jan de Hartog: I can’t do it as a decide, however I have to do it as a person. And that was the second that the entire rattling factor modified..
Dan: Because Judge Bill Elliott adopted by way of.
Ricardo Nuila: He trains himself in a clandestine method to be an orderly, at evening, and he verifies every part that de Hartog has mentioned.
Dan: de Hartog really oversees the decide’s last sensible examination, the place Bill Elliott tends to an African-American man named Willie Small.
Jan de Hartog: the decide along with his thermometer went and put his hand on Willie’s shoulder and mentioned, Mr. Small, sir, I’d wish to take your temperature to listen to that, to listen to a southern decide, , say “Mr. Small, sir”
Dan: It was a symbolic second. The decide needed to contact, needed to defer to, a Black man. So not solely had the decide now seen every part, he took accountability for what he had seen.
There’s a proposal for a county-wide property tax, to fund what’s known as a Hospital District. Now there’s a referendum, and Elliott backs all of it the best way.
Jan de Hartog: and all of us waited with baited breaths for the end result. And it was no
Dan: Yeah. The referendum fails. And as de Hartog tells it, as soon as it does, an actual backlash begins to construct. It will get private.
Jan de Hartog: those that had resented our presence from the very starting grew to become vocal. Margie and I, have been known as communists
Ricardo Nuila: De Hartog simply wouldn’t flinch. I imply, he and his spouse’s lives have been threatened.
Dan: Also, any individual threw a bag of excrement at their door.
Eventually, de Hartog says the Red Cross, which was coaching and supervising volunteers on the hospital, got here to him and Marjorie and mentioned, “It might be better for us if you left town for a while.”
They did — went on to all types of adventures.
Meanwhile, Bill Elliott stored pushing, and retains pulling in allies– together with, finally, the Medical Society.
Ricardo Nuila: he rallies them to get behind it.
Dan: He will get the query on the poll AGAIN later that very same 12 months. And it passes in November 1965.
It’s a giant second.
Ricardo Nuila: What’s additionally fascinating is that it’s forgotten. Something that I’ve gleaned from all that is that you realize, folks will neglect and you need to remind them.
Dan: And whereas we’re remembering: In 1965, the entire nation is making some huge commitments to well being take care of lots of people. President Lyndon Johnson indicators Medicare and Medicaid into regulation in July of that 12 months.
It’s most likely additionally price noting that Medicare and Medicaid assist make Ben Taub potential: About a 3rd of the hospital’s sufferers are on one or the opposite. It’s a minority of sufferers, but it surely’s many tens of millions of {dollars} of funding.
The Sixties have been a notoriously divisive time. And so is that this.
Ricardo Nuila doesn’t ignore as we speak’s political polarization — or how that polarization makes it arduous to think about a nationwide dialog about creating a special well being care system.
Or the function that medical doctors have traditionally performed in resisting that dialog.
It’s a part of his story. His household story. And in a e book about a spot the place a variety of unhappy issues do occur, this can be the hardest one.
Ricardo Nuila: I used to be born right into a household of medical doctors and my dad in some ways was a hero to me. I noticed how a lot satisfaction he took in his work of being a health care provider
Dan: But over time– as insurance coverage corporations acquired more durable to cope with– the enterprise facet of working a medical apply regarded lots much less apealing.
Ricardo Nuila: . He needed to rent an increasing number of employees. He employed his mom, my grandmother, who’s, uh, the kind of individual to not again down from Chicago, you realize, . And so, her job was to be on the insurance coverage corporations to make it possible for they wouldn’t, screw him out of cash.
Dan: His dad turned away sufferers who didn’t have insurance coverage. His dad growled and grumbled– about insurance coverage corporations, and about sufferers who didn’t have cash to pay.
When Ricardo completed faculty and acquired into medical college, he delay beginning for 2 years. What he sees as his dad’s life within the enterprise of well being care will not be interesting.
Ricardo Nuila: the grind wears on him, you realize? The preventing with the insurance coverage corporations
Dan: I imply within the e book, your dad is a little bit of a stand-in for . For medical doctors as a doctoring, as occupation and the, and the best way by which medical doctors get alienated from medication.
Ricardo Nuila: yeah, he’s a stand in a bit for medical doctors. And it’s gonna be, I feel the medical doctors have lots to say about how healthcare goes in America,
Ricardo Nuila: And sadly, the historical past exhibits that they haven’t been an awesome piece of that, no less than so far as common healthcare is anxious.
Dan: This turns into a part of Ricardo’s story along with his dad. Dad invitations him to kind a household apply. Ricardo chooses Ben Taub. And through the years, it turns into clear: They’re on reverse sides of a political divide. There are painful conversations, after which they go months with out talking.
Ricardo Nuila: that’s how deep politics run, you realize, it’s actually, it’s actually troublesome whenever you overlay like politics onto like a household dynamic,
Ricardo Nuila: It simply felt like he was like completely on board with this concept that, you realize, healthcare is one thing that’s earned and healthcare is one thing that individuals, should you can’t afford it, you don’t deserve it. Is what I heard from what he was saying.
Dan: is your dad a perfect reader of the e book? Is your dad sort of who the individual you wanna make that case to?
Ricardo Nuila: That’s actually fascinating.
Ricardo Nuila: I’d say this, that, I didn’t write this to evangelise to the choir for certain.
Dan: But he’s undecided his dad would really decide up a e book like this.
Ricardo Nuila: It’s simply because I do know my dad, he, my dad’s the kind of one that reads John Grisham on a seaside, you realize? So I’m not 100% certain if he would decide up this e book, you realize?
Dan: Unless, say, his son wrote it. Ricardo does anticipate his dad to learn The People’s Hospital. And even when he doesn’t agree with every part his son has written, Ricardo thinks his dad will likely be proud.
Ricardo Nuila: I can let you know now as a, as a father, , it’s not clear that your children are gonna come out Okay. . You know what I imply? I’m simply saying that like he has motive to be proud simply because I’m a, a residing and respiration individual proper now, you realize?
Ricardo Nuila: And I’m, I’m working in as a health care provider. So I, I really feel, I really feel good for him.
Ricardo Nuila: And I feel that he’s most likely very joyful that I wrote about medication cuz he loves medication.
Dan: The final chapter of “The People’s Hospital” is known as “faith” And in it, Ricardo Nuila describes a every day ritual that he says retains him grounded. It begins with passing a plaque on his method in. Of course I’ve him present it to me.
Ricardo Nuila: I park like proper over there, .
Ricardo Nuila: I are available right here and I simply take a look at, take a look at this each time.
Dan: So, and describe what we’re seeing right here.
Ricardo Nuila: Well, we’re seeing, a plaque that, talks about when this hospital was based, and the individuals who constructed the constructing. And there’s additionally the, I forgot that is, that is unhealthy of me, however I forgot the title.
Dan: the snake across the stick?
Ricardo Nuila: I’m in huge bother now as a result of I’m on the Caduceus Caduceus. I, it’s the Cadus. Yeah.
Ricardo Nuila: And it’s only a reminder, you realize, that we now have this construction in place to assist take care of individuals who don’t have, uh, the means and that, and
Dan: that individuals determined to place this constructing right here. Yeah.
Ricardo Nuila: Exactly. It’s a group effort.
Dan: Ricardo Nuila writes that he sees that group as he walks from that plaque to his desk– all of the co-workers, in each sort of job, doing their greatest.
And that is the religion that he says will get affirmed— studying from the e book right here:
If somebody is struggling and there may be the capability throughout the group to assist, in a method that doesn’t hurt anybody else, then we not solely owe it to that individual, we owe it to ourselves to assist.
Whatever your politics are, I feel that’s fairly nice.
Dr. Ricardo Nuila practices at Ben Taub Hospital. He’s affiliate professor of Medicine, Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. His e book is known as “The People’s Hospital.”
Honestly there’s lots on this e book, — extra affected person tales, extra household tales, a really deft abstract of 100 years of well being care economics and politics.
I’ll let you know: studying this e book, I used to be reminded of an concept I’ve had earlier than. That it is perhaps cool sometime to convene a sort of “Arm and a Leg” e book membership. Because I’d wish to have somebody to speak with a couple of e book like this– like perhaps you.
Right now, that’s simply an concept. The how would take a LOT of determining.
But I’m curious how that concept sounds to you. You can let me know at Arm and a Leg present dot com, slash contact.
I imply, that’s all the time a great place to ship concepts and tales and questions— so a lot of our greatest episodes come from you.
And I’m curious what you consider this digital e book membership concept. If you’ve taken half in one thing like this, or helped to prepare it, I’d love to listen to the way it went.
That’s arm and a leg present dot com, slash contact.
Next time on An Arm and a Leg: A girl named Lisa French requested her hospital what her surgical procedure would price her. They mentioned, along with your insurance coverage, about 13 hundred bucks.
They anticipated about 55 thousand extra from insurance coverage.
They acquired 75 thousand. But then they needed extra. 229 thousand extra. They needed it from Lisa French, they usually sued her for it.
After eight years, the case lastly acquired resolved final June. Lisa French received!
The case has a LOT to show us about our authorized rights.
That’s subsequent time on An Arm and a Leg.
Till then, handle your self.
This episode of An Arm and a Leg was produced by me, Dan Weissmann, with assist from Emily Pisacreta, and edited by Afi Yellow-Duke.
The recording of Jan de Hartog’s lecture is courtesy of the Baylor College of Medicine Archives.
The audio of Bill Elliott is from a KHOU-TV newscast, because of the Texas Archive of the Moving Image.
Big because of the archivists who helped us discover among the tape for this episode!
That contains Emily Vinson on the University of Houston library
Matt Richardson and Sandra Yates on the Texas Medical Center Archives
And David Olmos on the Baylor College of Medicine archives.
Daisy Rosario is our consulting managing producer. Adam Raymonda is our audio wizard. Our music is by Dave Winer and Blue Dot Sessions.
Gabrielle Healy is our managing editor for viewers. She edits the First Aid Kit Newsletter.
Bea Bosco is our consulting director of operations. Sarah Ballema is our operations supervisor.
This season of an arm and a leg is a co manufacturing with Kaiser well being information. That’s a nonprofit information service about healthcare in America, an editorially-independent program of the Kaiser household basis.
KHN will not be affiliated with Kaiser Permanente, the large healthcare outfit. They share an ancestor: The twentieth century industrialist Henry J Kaiser. When he died, he left half his cash to the inspiration that later created Kaiser well being information.
You can be taught extra about him and Kaiser well being information at arm and a leg present dot com slash Kaiser.
Zach Dyer is senior audio producer at KHN. He is editorial liaison to this present.
Thanks to Public Narrative — That’s a Chicago-based group that helps journalists and non-profits inform higher tales– for serving as our fiscal sponsor, permitting us to simply accept tax-exempt donations. You can be taught extra about Public Narrative at www dot public narrative dot org.
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If you haven’t but, we’d love so that you can be a part of us. The place for that’s arm and a leg present dot com, slash assist.
Thank you!
“An Arm and a Leg” is a co-production of KHN and Public Road Productions.
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