Tuesday, October 19, 2004
YABL: Details on the Health-Care Draft
Or perhaps this should be in the category of "Oh no! They Would Never Do That!":
(via NYT, doing its job for a change.)
You know a medical worker. Doesn't have to be a brain surgeon, can be a respiratory therapist, an LPN at a nursing home, a claims supervisor at an insurance company (what, you think knowledge of diagnostic codes and such isn't part of the military medical system? It's as much logistics as those truck-drivin' mutineers are.)
If your social circles include the people whose job it is to hire the sort of people mentioned above, make sure to get them into a conversation about how hard it is to get good people in those lines of work today. Then make sure they read it too.
(via NYT, doing its job for a change.)
WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 - The Selective Service has been updating its contingency plans for a draft of doctors, nurses and other health care workers in case of a national emergency that overwhelms the military's medical corps.Go read. Then print out (it's a couple of pages, maybe one with a small font.) Make several copies. Be sure to include the NYT masthead so nobody can claim "this is some paranoid ranting you got off one of those cockamamie "blog" things you're always reading."
In a confidential report this summer, a contractor hired by the agency described how such a draft might work, how to secure compliance and how to mold public opinion and communicate with health care professionals, whose lives could be disrupted.
On the one hand, the report said, the Selective Service System should establish contacts in advance with medical societies, hospitals, schools of medicine and nursing, managed care organizations, rural health care providers and the editors of medical journals and trade publications.
On the other hand, it said, such contacts must be limited, low key and discreet because "overtures from Selective Service to the medical community will be seen as precursors to a draft," and that could alarm the public.
In this election year, the report said, "very few ideas or activities are viewed without some degree of cynicism."
You know a medical worker. Doesn't have to be a brain surgeon, can be a respiratory therapist, an LPN at a nursing home, a claims supervisor at an insurance company (what, you think knowledge of diagnostic codes and such isn't part of the military medical system? It's as much logistics as those truck-drivin' mutineers are.)
If your social circles include the people whose job it is to hire the sort of people mentioned above, make sure to get them into a conversation about how hard it is to get good people in those lines of work today. Then make sure they read it too.
