1st responder first
see frontline medical
jon stewart 911
deadly hypocrisy: am hero rhet after 911, but told air was ok, many have died slow painful death since; beautifal clean coal jobs, return of black lung; dr gag rule can't tell about chemicals in fires they fight
an 12 24
pres musk govt shutdn // kid cancer
'Unfathomable': Firefighters slam spending bill after Trump 'scuttled' 9/11 first-responders fund
torres-sp
Chapter 10 · Fracturing Politics 193 FRACKING
Robert Monk: corps "externalizing machines" 195 once ran coal co , cheap only if ignore rx effects;"death machine";
PUCregulatory capture when only corps show up for mtgs, tough b/c very technical and hard for regular people to grasp; even tougher when info secret proprietary p199 Colo nurse treated man who spill frack fluids on self (fumes from boots?) she had mult organ fail and nearly died, Cathy Behr; ZetaFlow co wd not tell Dr what was in fluid 200; data sheet 2 proprietary compounds; 14% sheets complete, ½ of products less than 1% could be determined 201; Hallib said reveal wd be unconstitutional TAKING; told Colo if forced to reveal wd leave state 202; ~ scotus precedent: 2015 Horne v Dept Agr upheld 1984 Ruckleshaus NOT taking.
When facts not on corp side, shift to disinfo PR campaign eg AGW; tobacco doubt science playbook;
Reg capture MMS; ALEC PA Dr gag rule frack; state must step up when fed fail [but colo state frack ~ local ords]
==
omfg fire whistleblower
https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/heres-what-wall-street-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-its-grip-on-emergency-rooms/
no lnx
Here’s what Wall Street doesn’t want you to know about its grip on emergency rooms
Written by Eileen Appelbaum, Rosemary Batt / Independent Media Institute April 3, 2020
Doctor Ling Min is the first emergency room doctor to be fired for going public with his concerns about poor hospital emergency room safety practices and shortages of medical supplies and protective gear for health workers.
He won’t be the last.
Like many hospitals in the US, PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center in Bellingham Washington, where Ling Min worked for the past 17 years as an emergency room doctor, has outsourced the management and staffing of its emergency room.So, Min works on-site at the hospital’s ER, but he is employed by a physician staffing firm that runs the ER. These staffing firms are often behind the surprise medical bills for ER services that patients receive after their insurance company has paid the hospital and doctors, but not the excessive out-of-network charges billed by these outside staffing firms.
About a third of hospital emergency rooms are staffed by doctors on the payrolls of two physician staffing companies—TeamHealth and Envision Health—owned by Wall Street investment firms. Envision Healthcare employs 69,000 healthcare workers nationwide while TeamHealth employs 20,000. Private equity firm Blackstone Group owns TeamHealth, Kravis Kohlberg Roberts (KKR) owns Envision.
Care of the sick is not the mission of these companies; their mission is to make outsized profits for the private equity firms and its investors. Overcharging patients and insurance companies for providing urgent and desperately needed emergency medical care is bad enough. But it is unconscionable to muzzle doctors who speak out to advocate for the health of their patients and co-workers during the global pandemic that is rapidly spreading across the US.
Yet, that is what Blackstone-owned TeamHealth just did. Why would an experienced ER doctor be fired in the middle of a pandemic?One clue may be that Blackstone’s CEO, Stephen A. Schwarzman, is part of President Trump’s inner circle. He may not want to risk that relationship by allowing TeamHealth’s doctors to inform the public about Washington’s mishandling of the allocation of supplies and protective gear. The president might conclude that TeamHealth doctors didn’t appreciate him enough, and where would that leave Schwartzman?
PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center may have the distinction of being the first hospital to have a doctor outsourced from a physician staffing firm unceremoniously fired for telling the public the truth. But it won’t be the last. Hospitals are now telling doctors treating coronavirus patients they will be fired if they speak to the press.
The American Academy of Emergency Medicine protested Dr. Min’s ouster and questioned how TeamHealth is allowed to provide hospital services when the law requires that physician practices must be owned by a licensed medical practitioner. TeamHealth skirts the law by owning all the assets of the physician practices it acquires—the real estate, offices, equipment, supplies, inventory, and even accounts receivable.
On paper, the physician practices are owned by a doctor-led organization that TeamHealth has set up to comply with the law. But what does it mean to own a physician practice if the practice has no assets and no possibility to exist on its own?
The furor over patients hit by surprise medical bills revealed that TeamHealth controls the billing for the doctors it supplies to hospital emergency rooms. The firing of Doctor Ling Min pulls back the curtain and reveals that TeamHealth controls the doctors as well.
Eileen Appelbaum is the Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and visiting professor, School of Management, University of Leicester, UK.
Rosemary Batt is the Alice Hanson Cook Professor of Women and Work, Cornell University ILR School.
This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
https://www.ecowatch.com/net-neutrality-verizon-california-firefighters-2598114540.html
Fire Chief: Verizon Throttled Data Speed, Endangering Firefighting Efforts
A Northern California fire chief said in a court filing (pdf) Monday that during its efforts in battling the Mendocino Complex Fire—the largest in state history—that one of the department's trucks, equipped with Verizon wireless service, had its connection speeds significantly slowed and made communication effectively impossible.
"This throttling has had a significant impact on our ability to provide emergency services. Verizon imposed these limitations despite being informed that throttling was actively impeding County Fire's ability to provide crisis-response and essential emergency services," Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden wrote in a declaration, first reported by Ars Technica on Tuesday.
The fire department paid Verizon for an "unlimited" data plan but suffered heavy throttling after it surpassed its monthly data allowance of 25GB.
"Data rates had been reduced to 1/200, or less, than the previous speeds," Bowden wrote, noting that without full-speed service on the communications rig, "resources could be deployed to the wrong fire, the wrong part of a fire, or fail to be deployed at all. Even small delays in response translate into devastating effect, including loss of property, and, in some cases, loss of life."
The fire chief's claims were added to a lawsuit filed this week by attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia seeking to reverse the Federal Communication Commission's repeal of net neutrality.
"The Internet has become an essential tool in providing fire and emergency response, particularly for events like large fires which require the rapid deployment and organization of thousands of personnel and hundreds of fire engines, aircraft, and bulldozers," he noted.
In a series of email exchanges between Verizon and County Fire that were included in the filing, the company confirmed the throttling but told the department they would have to switch to a $99.99 a month data plan, more than twice the cost the department had been paying. County Fire eventually upgraded to the more expensive plan.
Bowden claimed Verizon throttled data during previous fires. "It is likely that Verizon will continue to use the exigent nature of public safety emergencies and catastrophic events to coerce public agencies into higher-cost plans, ultimately paying significantly more for mission-critical service—even if that means risking harm to public safety during negotiations," he wrote.
More than 3,500 firefighters are still battling the Mendocino Complex Fire, which is made of the River and Ranch blazes. The fires have burned 406,532 acres as of Tuesday.
After the Ars Technica article was posted, Verizon admitted to the error but said in a statement, "This situation has nothing to do with net neutrality or the current proceeding in court."
The statement continued:
"We made a mistake in how we communicated with our customer about the terms of its plan. Like all customers, fire departments choose service plans that are best for them. This customer purchased a government contract plan for a high-speed wireless data allotment at a set monthly cost. Under this plan, users get an unlimited amount of data but speeds are reduced when they exceed their allotment until the next billing cycle. Regardless of the plan emergency responders choose, we have a practice to remove data speed restrictions when contacted in emergency situations. We have done that many times, including for emergency personnel responding to these tragic fires. In this situation, we should have lifted the speed restriction when our customer reached out to us. This was a customer support mistake. We are reviewing the situation and will fix any issues going forward."
RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB
mf-er
==
cf database taken off line; when jrnl asked best way to find site told to drive around and ask?!]
https://voicesfromtheheartland.blogspot.com/2013/04/bush-administration-responsible-for-no.html
Friday, April 26, 2013
Bush Administration Responsible for No Oversight of West, Texas, or Other Fertilizer/Chemical Storage Facilities by EPA
“Perry reworked the language and helped to get it added to the spending bill in a conference committee. Under the new amendment, the DHS would have nominal authority to regulate the chemical industry but also have its hands tied where required.”
What Phillip Perry, VP Cheney's son-in-law, did was to add language the chemical industry wanted to an appropriations bill rider that moved the task of regulating and oversight of chemical plants from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Another day, another group that has bought and paid for Republican members of Congress. This time it is the chemical industry which is only being highlighted after the West, TX, fertilizer plant blew up last week while storing large amounts chemicals that should have set off red flags. EPA is no longer in charge of regulating these plants while the Texas Department of Health who had the authority seems pretty worthless as they took the owner's word with no inspections.
Seems chemical manufacturer's thought giving DHS authority for regulation and oversight with little money provided by Congress would allow them to operate as they chose without no regard to safety. As we saw in West, Texas, the lack of oversight blew up in their face with a plant storing chemicals that were way over the limit allowed in unsafe storage units with no markings so fire department officials didn't know what was in the storage tanks. Because of not knowing what was stored, the volunteer fire department used water instead of foam which is used to fight chemical fires. The owner of the facility has already been sued.
This picture is from the site of the West, Texas fertilizer storage facility the night of the explosion where 10 of the 13 killed were volunteer fire fighters, one was a paramedic, and one was from Dallas search and rescue -- all first responders who died because of lack of oversight and inspections of this plant:
[pix of rubble]
With Chris Hayes connecting the dots on MSNBC with this video, it shows what happened which eventually led to the West, Texas, fertilizer plant exploding.
Summary of the Chris Hayes video:
Let’s recap: The Bush administration’s own cabinet secretaries come up with a plan to regulate these chemical plants. It’s stymied by Phil Perry once. The Bush administration sides with the chemical industry when it’s brought before Congress. And then, basically in abackroom maneuver, Perry does the chemical industry’s bidding by moving the oversight of this from the EPA, which the chemical industry hates, to DHS, which the chemical industry thinks they can more easily manipulate.
Now, fast-forward six years. The West Fertilizer company is storing more than 13-hundred times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by DHS. And it does appear now, that not only did DHS literally have no idea that the West Fertilizer company was storing ammonium nitrate. But according to Congressman Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, DHS did not even know the plant existed until it blew up.
Everyone in America should watch this video which connects the dots which all lead back to the Bush Administration, Phillip Perry, and the chemical industry:
Bush and the West explosion: The untold story of deregulating chemical plants
Collier Meyerson, @youngcollier11:26 PM on 04/25/2013
==