Friday, October 1, 2010

OBAMANOCARE Invades the VA Medical System

Please take time to read this and the situation that I have described at the end of this blog post. It is very important to every Veteran in this country and to you as family members or even friends of these Vets.


When you read through the nearly seven hundred pages of the House stimulus
bill it is easy to begin dozing off after a few hundred billion dollars
worth of run-of-the-mill wasteful government spending. One has to keep a
keen eye out for the components of the bill that don't just steal your
money, but that may actually do you great physical harm, if not kill you
outright.

On page 151 of this legislative pork-fest is one of the clandestine nuggets
of social policy manipulation that are peppered throughout the bill.
Section 9201 of the stimulus package establishes the "Federal Coordinating
Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research." This body, which would be
made up of federal bureaucrats will "coordinate the conduct or support of
comparative effectiveness and related health services research."

Sounds benign enough, but the man behind the Coordinating Council, Health
and Human Services Secretary-designate (and tax cheat) Tom Daschle (of course Daschle has been replaced with another socialist), was kind
enough to explain the goal of this organization. It is to cut health care
costs by preventing Americans from getting treatments that the government
decides don't meet their standards for cost effectiveness. In his 2008 book
on health care, he explained that such a council would, "lower overall
spending by determining which medicines, treatments and procedures are most
effective-and identifying those that do not justify their high price tags."


Once a panel of government experts decides what is and what is not
cost-effective by their definition, the government will stop paying for
treatments, medicines, therapies or devices that fall into the latter
category. Initially, this will limit access to very expensive treatments
for federal employees, veterans, the elderly, members of the military and
their dependents and others who rely on the feds to pay for their health
care. But since this would place nearly half of health care dollars off
limits for such treatments, the demand for and further development of such
treatments would likely dry up. And Daschle wants to expand the
Coordinating Council's power even further, allowing the government to deny
tax benefits for private insurance that covers treatments deemed too
expensive by the Council. Thus, if a handful of government employees deem a
therapy not cost effective, no health insurance will cover it and it will
become virtually unobtainable to patients at any cost.


It has arrived at the VA already.

I have been waiting since June for meds/treatment. Six weeks ago the doctor said she was writing a prescription for the meds that I had had much success with BUT she said the pharmacy would have to decide if they could get the Humeria which cost over $3000 a month for my use. Strange, I thought the doctor wrote the prescription and the pharmacy filled it, not decide if it was affordable or available. I say affordable because that is what it is boiling down too. It seems that if the med is too expensive then TOUGH, you ain't getting it. I have realized that this is the reason that they failed to schedule the Infusion that I had been receiving. The cost is about $5000 for the infusion and I would receive 4 to 6 per year. Are you beginning to see the picture??. 

The doctor put a hold on the perscription that she wrote 6 weeks ago but failed to notify me. 

When she called on Tuesday, after I had voiced my concern to a coordinating clinic and doctor, she said there had been a mix up and that I would have my meds on Wed via FedEx.
Did I get them? NO!! On Friday(today) I called the Directors office and lodged a formal complaint against the doctor and stated that I am in the process of filing a suit for malpractice against her and the VA. Talk about panic!!!. The assistant director got in touch with the pharmacy. The pharmacy got in touch with the doctor and the meds will be ready on Monday. At 9:45 tonight the Patient Advocate, who I had not been able to get in touch with since trying many times since June called me, in a panic. She said, did you mention my name as the one not able to get in touch with or to return your calls?.. Heads are going to roll and everyone is tucking theirs between their legs to protect themselves.

That is not all of the story. Remember when Odummer talked about treatment teams? In the OBAMANOCARE package it states that the patient may be seen by a team which may consist of a RN, LPN, a nurse practitioner (if you are lucky) and a doctor(at last resort). I received a letter from the VA telling me that I had been assigned to a TEAM and that I would be seen by them, one of which is not even a medical specialist but rather an administrative type. How wonderful!!!
Well as I said, OBAMANOCARE has invaded the VA.

Next. Have you seen all the ads for doctors at the VA on TV? Remember in the NOCARE bill there will be REGIONAL HEALTH CARE CENTERS. Hmmm.
 Are they going to build these regional centers from scratch? Hardly, but then think about it. What is already in place across the US that is located in regions of every state for the most part? Well the VA of course and those my friends will become the new REGIONAL Centers for OBAMANOCARE. Vets will become just another number, take a number and get in line(which is done at the VA now) but those who have never served one day in the military will receive treatment and you can rest assured that the VETS will be placed at the bottom of the list given the lack of respect Obama has for us and his hatred of the military.
Of course illegals will be given treatment because as soon as they can be given amnesty by Obama and his minions in the Democrat congress they will be voters and they must be kept healthy long enough to vote. 

I warned about this mess in this blog at the beginning of the fiasco called health care. Of course the "Liar in Chief" said Vet medicine and medical care would never be touched. Read it for yourself, he lied. Of course he said there was nothing in his health care bill that effected Vets. But now you know where it is hidden. 

Are you a Vet? Do you know a Vet? Do you know a Vet that has had the same type of problems that I have just experienced? If so have them get in touch with me and give me a brief outline of their problem. The Congressmen that I have been in contact with want to know and want to know how many and I am just the ones to help them find out.

We paid a high price for our care and it's not going to be taken away from me or other Vets as long as I can sit at a computer and am breathing.

Won't you help a Vet today? Pass this along as requested and encourage those Vets to get their ire up and take a stand today. It's our only chance. If we do nothing we are destined to die without medical care. Of course Obama and his socialist followers would love that. Think how much money they would have to spend on their socialist programs if they could rid themselves of the pesky Vets who draw even the minimum disability or even use the VA minimally. Scary isn't it? Paranoid? Hardly, the proof is in my experience and the experience of others and in what I have offered for your information on who will be effected. Think about it!

27 comments:

Chuck said...

I think there are 2 issues here:

-Obamakare is going to destroy our health care system. People ridiculed Palin when she talked about death panels. What else would you call this?

-the VA system is a damned shame in this country.

I deal with vets health care on 2 fronts in my job. I get patients in our ER from a local vets facility (basically a vets long term care facility). The care I see them getting there is atrocious.

When they are sending a patient in to be seen in the ER they call ahead and give us a little report on what is going on with the patient and why they need to be seen in the ER. I am always throwing a fit after talking to them. It always seems to be poor medical management, not only long term but also during the current medical crisis the patient is facing. They delay transferring them so that when we get them they are a mess medically.

I also work with vets that are seen in the VA outpatient clinics. I always ask the question, what is the vets doing about this (current medical problem we are discussing)? The answer is either nothing or, I can't get an appointment for a few weeks, a month, etc.

Looking at the VA facilities from the outside I have a very poor opinion of them.

I honestly wonder if veterans wouldn't be better if we just give them good insurance and put them in the mainstream. Eliminate the vets clinics. I have to believe they would get better care from our regular health care system then to rely on government bureaucrats for their care.

Ticker said...

Glad to see that someone else can verify what I have been seeing for a number of years now.
Problem as I see it in many instances is that the VA's have hired people who are there for a paycheck and not for a job. Once in they join one of the commie unions and it takes almost an act of God to get rid of them. In Dallas they did what they call "hired from the neighborhood" which in that area is the ghetto. Nothing wrong with providing jobs for those in lower income areas but in Lancaster it has been proved that you can take a person out of the ghetto but can't take the ghetto out of the person in most instances. In Atlanta it is not the lower workers so much as it is the medical staff, doctors, many of whom must have graduated from Carib U. One of the med schools in the Caribbean that you read about where graduates couldn't pass the EMT test in the US. Others were evidently "lazy" med school grads and want to work short days, have little accountability and a guaranteed job at a nominal salary. I call them "post turtle" doctors or Affirmative Action Post Turtle Doctors. Either way they are useless and could care less about the patients. Two hour waiting times are nothing. Most of the time it is more. Reason, they schedule 10 people for the same time slot hoping that 9 or them don't show.
Well, that's my take Chuck. Thanks for coming by .

Chuck said...

Problem as I see it in many instances is that the VA's have hired people who are there for a paycheck and not for a job.

These are the same people that you find in any Post Office or DMV, they just have credentials behind their name.

Ticker said...

Yep but the folks in the PO and the DMV aren't screwing with peoples very life .

Always On Watch said...

It's not just the VA!

Cases in point recently, one in my own family....If someone on Medicare is taken to the hospital (the ER) and stays in the hospital for several days, Medicare may not pay much. Why? There's "observation status," which results in little payment from Medicare.

My 95-year-old aunt, incredibly healthy until three weeks ago when she fell, has been to the hospital 3 times in 3 weeks. She has stayed in the hospital twice, but never "admitted." Clearly, three visits in three weeks indicate that she NEEDS to be admitted for care.

Another recent case I read about...A woman in her 80's fell and shattered three ribs. She was in the hospital for 6 days, then sent to a nursing home for rehab; that rehad should have been fully covered by Medicare. Not so! The elderly couple got a bill for $10,500 for three weeks of care in the nursing home, because the hospital never fully admitted her.

I recently posted about the pitfalls of ObamaKare, and included this:

A plan can still put a lifetime dollar limit on spending for health services that the government does not deem essential.

Ticker, you are spot-on with this:

Vets will become just another number, take a number and get in line(which is done at the VA now) but those who have never served one day in the military will receive treatment and you can rest assured that the VETS will be placed at the bottom of the list given the lack of respect Obama has for us and his hatred of the military.

I would expand that to include certain elderly, whose treatment and care will no longer be deemed cost effective.

But you can bet that those in the oligarchy will get the best of medical care -- regardless of their age or condition.

PS: Ticker, good to see you back on the web!

Always On Watch said...

It's not just the VA!

Cases in point recently, one in my own family....If someone on Medicare is taken to the hospital (the ER) and stays in the hospital for several days, Medicare may not pay much. Why? There's "observation status," which results in little payment from Medicare.

My 95-year-old aunt, incredibly healthy until three weeks ago when she fell, has been to the hospital 3 times in 3 weeks. She has stayed in the hospital twice, but never "admitted." Clearly, three visits in three weeks indicate that she NEEDS to be admitted for care.

Another recent case I read about...A woman in her 80's fell and shattered three ribs. She was in the hospital for 6 days, then sent to a nursing home for rehab; that rehad should have been fully covered by Medicare. Not so! The elderly couple got a bill for $10,500 for three weeks of care in the nursing home, because the hospital never fully admitted her.

I recently posted about the pitfalls of ObamaKare, and included this:

A plan can still put a lifetime dollar limit on spending for health services that the government does not deem essential.

Ticker, you are spot-on with this:

Vets will become just another number, take a number and get in line(which is done at the VA now) but those who have never served one day in the military will receive treatment and you can rest assured that the VETS will be placed at the bottom of the list given the lack of respect Obama has for us and his hatred of the military.

I would expand that to include certain elderly, whose treatment and care will no longer be deemed cost effective.

But you can bet that those in the oligarchy will get the best of medical care -- regardless of their age or condition.

PS: Ticker, good to see you back on the web!

Always On Watch said...

It's not just the VA!

Cases in point recently, one in my own family....If someone on Medicare is taken to the hospital (the ER) and stays in the hospital for several days, Medicare may not pay much. Why? There's "observation status," which results in little payment from Medicare.

My 95-year-old aunt, incredibly healthy until three weeks ago when she fell, has been to the hospital 3 times in 3 weeks. She has stayed in the hospital twice, but never "admitted." Clearly, three visits in three weeks indicate that she NEEDS to be admitted for care.

Always On Watch said...

Another recent case I read about...A woman in her 80's fell and shattered three ribs. She was in the hospital for 6 days, then sent to a nursing home for rehab; that rehad should have been fully covered by Medicare. Not so! The elderly couple got a bill for $10,500 for three weeks of care in the nursing home, because the hospital never fully admitted her.

I recently posted about the pitfalls of ObamaKare, and included this:

A plan can still put a lifetime dollar limit on spending for health services that the government does not deem essential.

Ticker, you are spot-on with this:

Vets will become just another number, take a number and get in line(which is done at the VA now) but those who have never served one day in the military will receive treatment and you can rest assured that the VETS will be placed at the bottom of the list given the lack of respect Obama has for us and his hatred of the military.

I would expand that to include certain elderly, whose treatment and care will no longer be deemed cost effective.

But you can bet that those in the oligarchy will get the best of medical care -- regardless of their age or condition.

PS: Ticker, good to see you back on the web!

Ticker said...

AOW, totally correct. The line in the so called Stimulus bill includes elderly who will suffer the most.
The elderly or older vets will be in that number as well since the aging process is part of the plan in which individuals will be eliminated. The older one gets the less medical care they will receive.

Lex said...

Re the comparative-effectiveness issue: I covered health/medicine for the News & Record in Greensboro for a couple of years, and this is an issue that has been bouncing around for a long time, not something new that Obama dreamed up. (My August 2008 article on it is here.

A few thoughts:

1) Comparative-effectiveness research would be based on disinterested, objective science, unlike much of the research now being funded by Big Pharma and device companies.

2) It is essential to reining in health-care costs because roughly a third of what we spend now goes toward stuff that either doesn't work or works no better than other, cheaper treatments.

3) Some of the crap now on the market is killing people unnecessarily -- tens of thousands per year.

We have, by a wide margin, the least effective health-care system in the industrialized world. Two big reasons are 1) We spend way too much on stuff that doesn't work, and 2) we spend way too much on useless, pointless end-of-life care. Atul Gawande M.D. wrote an excellent article on the latter subject in the New Yorker this summer. I don't think the full text is online anymore, but a decent summary is here.

Finally, the VA health-care system, far from being "a damned shame," is, by objective measures, some of the best health care available in the country. Go check "Best Care Anywhere" by Phillip Longman out of the library.

It's a critically important subject. Let's have facts at hand when we discuss it, please.

Ticker said...

Lex, your post is so far out and incorrect that it really doesn't even deem a reply.
I will ask, other than your "day job" of "covering" health and medicine, How many times have you experienced VA medical care?
My guess is none.
Yes VA medical care has been at various places that I have lived very good but I have watched it decline in the last 18 months.
Tell ya what Lex, when you are a regular patient at the VA and depend on the VA for your meds then tell me just how damn good it is. Until then Lex, your opinion is simple that of a typical leftist.

One more question Lex. Just who is to decide how much is too much to spend on what you call useless, pointless end-of-life care. Last time I checked no one in government had been appointed God.

Thanks for dropping by Lex. It's always good to have a good laugh at the typical leftist comments and especially those who have no actual "hands on experience". Kind of like the "fool in chief" in the WH I'd say.

Ticker said...

Oh and Lex, when you have some REAL FACTS other than what you read in books, come on back and let us know. OK?

Scotty said...

"Problem as I see it in many instances is that the VA's have hired people who are there for a paycheck and not for a job."


I’m a disabled Vietnam vet. I’ve been using the VA systems for eons and I will say, it has been my experience, that location is everything!

I’ve received care from the VA in several different states and the difference can be night and day.

My stint as a New Yorker (upstate) I always found the services there wanting. To me there always seemed to be an attitude in the air as if they were doing you a favor by seeing you.

I now live in Florida and the care I get there is exceptional. One would be hard pressed to find a vet at this location having any serious complaints. Of course, there are the exceptions.

I’m also on some very pricey medications but, there has never been any question about cost nor availability, but, then again I’ve seen the opposite in other areas I received care.

My disabilities were such that I was “boarded” out of the Army in 1971, which means I was given full retirement benefits that came with anyone that was retired from the services the more conventional way. I mention this because, as I am a retiree I’m given TRICARE which is what all retirees and their dependents get. That’s in addition to VA care.

I watch some of the hassles my wife goes through dealing with “civilian TRICARE doctors” for lack of a better term and thank God for the care I’m receiving through VA. My life has never been easier and getting the medical care I need, the staff and doctors of the facility I go to seem to bend over backwards to service me and other vets there. She waits weeks for appointments I wait days, depending on the seriousness of the problem.

This is by no means an attempt to justify the facilities within the VA system that offer less than exemplary care. There is no excuse for less than excellent care. But if there is a blame to laid, look to your congressman/woman or senator. Politics plays heavily into the budgets of your local VA system and it’s plays heavily into where facilities are built and not built. And that can certainly effect the quality of care.

A VA clinic in any locale can be a cash cow for that neighborhood. Be it jobs, support, maintenance. And political clout can mean everything when it comes to ANY VA facility. They all have budgets and some have budgets better than others.

One example, it’s been a few years since I’ve looked up the stats but, it used to be that Florida was second only to California on the number of vets seeking care in the VA system. But, Florida was only 30th or so in funding, why? Politics.

We were scheduled for a hospital/long term care unit in my neighborhood and it was and STILL is sorely needed yet, another congressman had the sway of the budget committees and it was taken from us and put in another county…..need meant nothing but, politics was everything.

SO I guess I’m saying don’t necessarily blame the facility you’re using, blame those that play politics and pay off obligations to others that the politicians were beholden to for campaign funds…..

Scotty said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Scotty said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Scotty said...

Sorry for being so long winded

Ticker said...

Thanks Scotty for your input on the subject. I have to say that I do agree with you for the most part, especially the second sentence.
Like you I have experienced some really good treatment and care and have experienced some of the worst that can be found. As I stated earlier in a reply, I have found that the quality has been going down hill in the past two years and I find more of the things I warned about in ObamaNOCARE system creeping into the VA system.
Cost of medication is just one of them. The chief pharmacist in the Atlanta did not come out and admit that cost was a factor but did not deny it either. Granted the VA has done well by putting meds out for bids to keep cost low. Something Medicare should have been doing all along. However cost should not play a factor in the dispensing of the medication. When a Doctor states that the pharmacy will decide if the medicine is dispensed then something is "rotten in Denmark" or in this case in Atlanta.
I have listened to a lot of humming and hawing in the past week and there has been a lot of dancing and half-stepping, back stepping over my medications which by the way I finally received on Monday. Yes I had to make the 53 mile (one way) trip to pick them up. When my name was entered into the computer at the pickup window it was filled with specific directions, underlined, highlighted in green, blue and red. Most of it was, "don't piss this man off " of course not in those exact words. hahah but the meaning was there.
They are not off the hook and the doctor is still guilty of malpractice according to the guidelines on the subject.

Again Scotty thanks for the post. I would appreciate hearing from any Vet who feels they have been victims of such non treatment.

They can use afticker@yahoo.com to contact me if they do not wish to respond on this blog.

Dr Mary Johnson said...

Thanks for the tip, P. I've been on a family get-away at the beach. Just what the doctor ordered.

I am very familiar with Lex Alexander's technique in "covering" local healthcare issues/stories in the Piedmont NC area.

Facts never did interest him as much as agendas. He was asleep on the job then, and, if I were as cruel as he has been to others in the past, I'd used his own words to describe his notions on this "critically important subject" now.

But I won't sink that low.

Ticker said...

Very True Dr. You are too good a person to sink to the level of such that manage to crawl out of the "swamp" occasionally in an attempt to show their importance.

Oh,me, and I was so nice in this. Maybe you're rubbing off on me blogdaughter. hahahha.

Lex Alexander said...

Mary, if you have any evidence whatever to suggest that anything you just said about my past work is true, I invite you to produce it. Otherwise, you need to shut up. The fact that you may have been screwed doesn't give you the right to libel other people.

Ticker said...

Lex, if you have something to add to the conversation fine, if not shut the hell up and stay off my blog.

Most readers are familiar with your "work" at the N&R for what it's worth. Asking someone to produce proof might prove very embarrassing, but only to you.

Oh and Lex, tI wouldn't throw the work liable around if I were you since it might get your butt in trouble considering the way you have tossed out bs about others. I don't think I need to expand on that subject now do I? I've read the way you have trashed people, not only the good Doctor but others as well. Perhaps you need to go back and read some of your crap in order to refresh your memory.

I'll allow your post to stand since I fought, bled and damn near died for your right even to be wrong and stupid.

Dr Mary Johnson said...

Lex, you are well aware that I have a blog that extensively details how (as the Greensboro News & Record's "medical reporter/blogger") you and you nimrod Editors could not crane your collective necks far enough looking in the opposite direction of a local medical story that might embarrass Moses Cone Hospital (one of the N&R's major advertisors).

That story was my story . . . a story of a Pediatrician-in-public-service-done-wrong that more than proves Obamacare's "solutions" for rural health & physician shortages are just old, tired, badly recycled Clintonian notions that did not work twelve years ago and are not going to work now.

2000+ pages of new "reform" legislation did not fix any of the things that really need fixing.

Your precious "citizen journalism" was a joke. The truth did not matter to you one bit. I lost count of the times I was baited and stomped online. No mercy was shown. Meanwhile, you and yours did not ask a single objective question of those I accused of very bad/illegal/amoral/unethical things.

It's America, and I can have the OPINION that you were a sorry excuse for a "medical journalist" then . . . and you can take your accusations of "libel" and STUFF THEM now.

I wasn't alone in absorbing the abuse. Do you recall calling another Randolph County blogger with an ugly-story-to-tell "criminally insane"? You kicked pretty hard when he was WAY down. Or has that slipped your very selective memory too?

At least you've finally acknowledged I got "screwed". Too bad you couldn't report that when you were actually a reporter at the N&R.

Don't you DARE tell me to shut up now. Because Mister, I will tell YOU where to go.

Ticker said...

Hahahaha. you go girl. I love it when you get your ire up. Lexy boy deserves all the hell you can give him.

Lex Alexander said...

I say again: If you've got proof, bring it.

Lex Alexander said...

Oh, and Mary, you have no knowledge, proof or evidence as to what transpired in conversations I had with my superiors regarding your requests for coverage. I could have ignored you, I could have advocated on your behalf to the point of being threatened with firing if I didn't shut up, or somewhere in between. You have no idea, and for you to suggest otherwise is simply delusional.

Ticker, you dismiss the book I cited without looking at the peer-reviewed scholarly studies it cites. That's your privilege, but don't kid yourself that you're making any kind of fact-based argument in doing so. I made some points backed by science, which I thought was contributing to the conversation. Sorry it didn't measure up to your exacting standards.

For what it's worth, I spent a couple of years at the N&R, including a fair bit of my own time, looking into the problems faced by this country's veterans and the generally shabby treatment they have received from our government. My coverage highlighted a number of problems as well as the failure of elected officials to act on them and the efforts by some DVA officials to smear their critics. It's all online if you want to go look. I think it speaks for itself.

Ticker, I'm not sure why somebody who could write so knowingly and movingly about Joe Dennison, whom you never met in real life, is so far off-base w/r/t me. Hey, it's your blog; write what you want. But if you or Mary or anyone else insists on saying things about me that aren't true, you can expect pushback.

Ticker said...

Lex I have read "Best Care Anywhere" and while it may have been true at one point the system has been compromised and is failing. I have been in the system for a long time now and can speak with authority on the matter. As far as end of life expenditures, I ask the question once again, who has been given God's authority to determine when such has been done? Last time I checked, God was still in charge regardless of what leftist think.
Being right about Joe and being right about you Lex is simple. I judge by content of character. Joe had it Lex, you don't. It's that simple. Joe's character was reflected in everything he wrote publicly and privately. The same with your character Lex . It is reflected in your writing, privately and publicly and many find it lacking. You are always right , at least in your opinion. Joe was intelligent enough and man enough to understand that he was not always right on all subjects something which you have failed in your lifetime to comprehend.
The biggest problem with you Lex is that you don't know when to shut the hell up. It's really that simple.
My grandfather had a saying and I have tried my best to live up to the expectations contained in it.
You might wish to take his words and "think on them for a spell" as he would say.

"Speak of what you know, Know of what you speak. The rest of the time be quiet(or as I would say, shut up), you might learn something."

Now, I rest my case.

Dr Mary Johnson said...

Lex, you want pushback? Here goes:

The FACT remains that I did my job as a Pediatrician to the very best of my ability in Asheboro - defying the threats of my superiors and doing what needed to be done (medically, ethically, morally) for a dying infant whose care was being botched by someone else (someone else who was Cone-owned).

I saved her life. And I reported what happened to peer review. In short, I did MY JOB. And I got fired for doing it. And then sued. And then swinddled. The mission of the government program I served was totally thrwarted - hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars wasted.

I believe you call it "getting screwed".

And during all of that, I was ABANDONED to the wolves by the very government I served - the SAME government that you seem to think can fix all of our problems in healthcare . . . problems in large part caused BY a government that was alseep and set no limits/had no standards in the first place.

As a veteran of sorts of the NHSC, I know ALL about "shabby" treatment.

(OBTW, as you are pontificating out of your vast experience in the system that both P and I have considerable experience in bucking, good luck talking any newbie who has read my story - the story you didn't report - into going into primary care in North Carolina.)

On top of all of that, I got treated like a FRICKING DISEASE by all of the noble, truth-seeking citizen journalists in the Greensboro blogosphere. Called every name in the book. Cyber-stalked. Kicking Mary Johnson was a sport. It was a real HOOT to all of you. To coin a phrase, "it's all online if you care to look". Go proof yourself.

Meanwhile, you may or may not have had a few chats with your own superiors - but you most certainly did NOT go that extra mile (we don't know because you don't even have the guts to clarify it here).

In short, Budro, you're no Mary Johnson.

And you're out of a job anyway. I shed ZERO tears when you went. Maybe if you had had the guts to tell a story that sold some local newspapers things might be different.

Moreover, I've got to ask. WHY would you have been fired for telling my story? WHY would you have been canned for telling the truth (sworn discovery responses are pretty hard to argue with)? And if that is true, what does that say about the "newspaper" you so proudly worked for?

I was THERE, Lex. In the trenches of primary care and drowning in a cesspool of incompetence and corruption. Pleading with the fouth estate for help. The Greensboro N&R came down to Asheboro promising to be our last best defense against the mill-town blow-hards and suck-ups at the Courier Tribune - a pathetic excuse for a newspaper whose reporters can apparently be "bought" for the night by the very local government they cover (and I DO have the proof there). What did we get?

Ethan Fiensilver. And Lex Alexander.

I've taken great satisfaction in reading some of the tripe you've recently sent to Congressman and Senators on your blog. They're not paying much attention to you either. How does it feel to be IGNORED?

Maybe you should get over it. Move on. See a shrink for the "criminally insane".

Pushback? I've been nice so far. You make me sick.