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Did he really say that?
By adamg on Fri, 01/11/2008 - 7:57am
Tom Menino: Allowing retailers to make money off of sick people is wrong.
Remember that the next time you head to Rite Aid for some Nyquil.
OK, he said that in the context of how he thinks those planned CVS MinuteClinics will "seriously compromise quality of care and hygiene," but, um, wait, hygiene? People will get covered in soot at the CVS? Focus, Mr. Mayor, focus. Like, maybe, on the city's plan to ban trans fats in restaurants.
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Comments
I'm a Menino fan, but
That was a dumb thing to say. It's hard to get simple health care in this country. The way the HMOs work, they make everything more expensive for everybody. If you just want to walk in and get simple treatment for a minor problem, you have to wait and wait and pay and pay. And if you don't have insurance, you have to do more of both.
In plenty of other countries, simple treatment can be provided at pharmacies. In my experience, it works just fine.
And let's be serious about hygiene. The absolute least hygienic place you can go is a hospital. They're full of sick people! If you can take your cough to the pharmacy instead, maybe you won't be exposed to a waiting room full of people with worse diseases, surfaces covered with staph, and doctors who don't wash their hands.
Mumbles saying this reminds me of Daddy Bush not knowing how much a gallon of milk is at the supermarket. It's been too long since he's had to deal with health care as a humble citizen for him to understand what common folk need.
Speaking of the trans fat ban...
More crack reporting down at the Globe:
boston.com/news/...toward_trans_fats_ban/
The article states:
"In many respects, though, the Boston ban appears to be a regulation in search of a need. New York City prohibited trans fat in the fall of 2006, and in the food business, as goes New York, so goes the rest of the restaurant world.
For large chains such as McDonald's and Starbucks, it made little economic sense to keep using the substance everywhere but New York."
What's with the past tense? McDonald's has found that it makes perfect economic sense to market 0 trans fat foods to only Montgomery County, Maryland and the NYC and Philly Metro areas.
http://www.mcdonalds.com/usa/eat.html
A similar piecemeal approach also is in place for Starbucks, which forces you to enter your postal code to see your nutrition facts - And ours look as trans fatty as ever:
http://www.starbucks.com/retail/nutrition/Zone015_...
Seems that having a ban isn't a moot point after all...
Menino is a pathetic demagogue
Menino is plying the old doctrine that making money as such is evil. All the "noble experiments" in socialism have shown the result of removing that "evil" in the name of "people before profits" (as if profits were made by something other than people), but there's still no shortage of demagogues like Menino to push it once again.
Moron
Is there a dumber big-city mayor in the U.S. than Menino?
For Christ's sake, Minute Clinics can deliver low-cost, high-quality care to the folks who need it most, and he's against it.
What a jackass.
Doc-in-a-box
I've been confused about the issues around these things. Having health care closer to patients, especially those who don't have a regular MD, is a bad thing? They are worried that *licensed* nurse practioners (and I assume physican's assistants and maybe an RN) won't have proper supervision? What, they think that the cashier will fill in if the regular medico doesn't show up?
These clinics can be great for those of us who are only visiting and don't want to spend a day in ER hell (and pay the extra fees) and for those sick visits when your own primary care physician doesn't have appointment space to see you on the same day. Isn't more health care, closer to the patient, better for everyone?
That would be a big no.
That would be a big no.