News-Record.com

Whatever became of Steve Campbell, news anchor on "Nightbeat?" Was Dave Plyler a mannequin? What about Libba Hinkle? Is "Black Omnibus" in reruns? Anybody remember that little pet store in the back of Quaker Village? Did anybody ever tell them how hot it was in there? Remember those fanged dogs that jumped out from behind doors on "Shock Theater?" Remember fat little boys at K-Mart tying all the "Clackers" together? Is there a God?

Steve, The only question I can answer, and it is for myself, is yes, I think there is a God. And I think He is alive and well in you also. Glad to see your name at the end of some posts. IMO you have gotten a good start back from hell.

Now John opened this door, and I am going to walk through it (lest someone accuse me of "squatting" on his blog). The 250 word limit on a "Letter to the Editor" just won't cut it (although this text is being submitted). I read, with great interest, Margaret Moffett Banks' article, "Their Fair Share" on Sunday, June 5. I think Ms. Banks did us all a great service by looking into the glaring discrepancies between the salaries of men and women in the "not-for-profit" arena (since it seems really hard to do this with the private sector). But the News & Record seems to have missed a pretty big point.

The question to me, as a taxpayer (and former public servant pretty badly burned - by two of the gentlemen from Asheboro on your list), is not why don't women make as much as their male counterparts, but WHY do these men make so much? I mean, we ARE talking about the "not-for-profit" sector. Many of the gentlemen on your list do head very large, well-respected institutions. HOWEVER, some of them lead organizations that would not seem to be able to justify (to the communities they serve) the salaries that are being doled out. And a good many of the organizations Ms. Banks listed in her article were hospitals or healthcare facilities. If readers wonder where our healthcare dollars are going, well, here's your chance to wake up and smell the disinfectant.

The "not-for-profit" arena appears to be very personally profitable for some folks, and it is increasingly being used to monopolize public resources. The press, until fairly recently, has been pretty oblivious.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina (another "not-for-profit" entity, propped up and privileged by state government) has been bickering with North Carolina Baptist Hospital for months over reimbursement rates, and this past Saturday allowed a negotiation deadline to pass - which resulted in the cancellation of contracts between the mega-insurer and Baptist. Patients are caught in the middle in a fairly despicable attempt to squeeze the hospital for lower reimbursement rates. Now, my natural inclination (as a physician and alumna of Baptist/Brenner's) is to side with the hospital on this one - especially since ProCare recently exposed the perks & benefits (like trips to exotic locales) that some of BCBSNC's executives & sales staff were getting - and has been lobbying NC legislators for reform. But looking at some of these local hospital executive salaries (and remember, wherever a CEO walks there are generally several very well-paid Vice Presidents jockeying close behind), I wonder.

Some of the public commentary on the insurance fiasco has been something to the effect, "We wish both sides would just shut up and deal". To some degree (as a BCBSNC customer who will be in need of at least one surgical procedure at NCBH in the not-to-distant future), I agree with the sentiment. "Care you can (really) trust" costs money. But the general public seems to be numbingly blind to the abuses of public trust going around all around us. We moan and we complain about the waste of taxpayer (or shareholder dollars), but what do we really do about it? What do we ask our leaders do? Why don't we demand more accountability?

I have blogged before on the subject of the nearly half-a-billion dollars that somehow got misappropriated in Medicaid's "disproportionate share" hospital billing program (which reimburses hospitals for seeing large numbers of indigent or "under-served" patients). The program was clearly grossly used and abused over a period of several years (coinciding with the time that some of the salaries on the list skyrocketed), yet the state of North Carolina seems determined not to hold anyone accountable. Indeed Congressmen Howard Coble (a self-proclaimed champion of "fiscal accountability") and Cass Ballenger, as well as former Governor Jim Martin went so far as to visit US Health & Human Services Secretary, Tommy Thompson to urge acceptance of a "settlement" being offered by the state. My question is, if money was improperly managed (as the state admits), where is the accounting of where it went? And (as uncomfortable as it might be) why is the federal government settling anything until this question is answered? If the disproportionate share program was abused in all fifty states at least as badly as it was in North Carolina, that's 25 billion dollars! The "Medicaid crisis" is solved. It's our money folks - at the state or federal level. Where did it go?

For the average reader's information, the data Ms. Banks researched in her article is available on a website called "Guidestar". By law, the IRS tax 990 tax returns of not-for-profits are public record. (As I found out the hard way) many not-for-profits post their 990's on Guidestar, but this is not widely publicized. The profits, losses, executive salary information, and lists of officers/directors/highest paid employees/Board members of a not-for-profit or charitable entity are NOT confidential, as they are included on the 990 return. And, by federal law, if any taxpayer requests this information, the 990 return must be provided in a timely manner. In my own experience (again, in Asheboro) someone on the News & Record's list had a problem with that - and lied under Oath about the "confidentiality" of his hospital's books and his salary - in a fairly blatant attempt to monopolize, obstruct and defraud. It cost me fair restitution for a Pediatric practice unlawfully destroyed - and ultimately the ability to come home and do what I was trained to do - to serve children in the place I call home. Since figuring out that I was lied to and bamboozled (no thanks whatsoever to the government I served - or, especially, officers of the Court), I've had a very hard time getting the law enforced. "Ordinary people", without a lot of money, the right name, or good connections, are lost in a maze of power-tripping and greed.

Ms. Banks' article is proof-positive that the "good-ole-boy" network is alive and well in North Carolina - especially in the "not-for-profit" arena. When I was younger I wanted to "save the world". Now, older, wiser and very world-weary I'd just like to get a fair shake. I'd like to see that happen for taxpayers and patients as well.

Who is Libba Hinkle?

Libba Hinkle was the lady who looked through the hand-held mirror frame on "Romper Room" and would say: "I see Joey and Michael and Sally . . ."

I remember the fat boys tying all the clackers together-- bummer.

Oh. I loved Libba Hinkle. I watched that show every day as a kid. Right up there with Captain Kangaroo.

I don't know what happened to her but it begs the question, were you a do be or a don't be?

Having been a good and obedient child at that age, I was always a do be myself.

musta been a "do be do be do", at least that's what the music said, since I am too old to remember most of that stuff you youngen remember. However I do remember Capt. Kangaroo, but then he was on forever. How about Froggy the Grimlin, or even earlier "welcome friends to the sqreeking door". Or "only the shadow knows".

So much for trying to start a thread of import to the public welfare (& public pocketbook) on the Editor's blog.

A friend reminded me this week that the public only gets the healthcare . . . and the government . . . that it asks for . . . and it deserves.

Ah well. This is not a story that should have to find its footing by blogging anyway. It is a story for a newspaper.

Hope your vacation is swell, John.

Perhaps if you had stayed on the subject of womens glass ceiling in non-profits instead of jumping back to your favorite subject, which everyone has heard so many times that they are weary of it, you would have gotten a better response.
Capt Kangroo and Libba Hinkle are better news than the same ole song and dance which you have written about so often it is like yesterdays fish wrap.
You really need to get out more and have some fun occassionaly. Bitterness only leads to ill health and you , of all people should know that.

I agree with Mary Johnson that Margaret Banks missed the big issue. It's not the glass ceiling for women that's the news. It's that these dudes - male and female - are making SO MUCH MONEY. I couldn't believe that the head of the Goodwill in only a section of North Carolina is pulling in almost $200,000 annually. I thought the $3.50 per pair of pants I pay there was going to help hard-case people who work at Goodwill, not to pay a huge CEO's salary...

Why do the people on the boards of organizations allow these exorbitant staff salaries? I'm sure competent people could be found for half as much money - maybe even for 60 percent less....

The point of my post was that the News & Record had missed the point (even though it was a very, very good article). It appears that some of the bloggers in our area - who pride themselves on open minds and the ability to crack the news stories that the newspapers won't - have closed their minds to bigger issues.

I do get out. I went to the News & Record-sponsored "bloggerEd" a few months ago to learn how to blog - with the hope of finally being able to get my story out. The people I met there were vital and fresh and interesting, and seemed committed to doing the public good. I have not found these people while blogging. I am supposed to go away - or (like John) "take a vacation" - because the public really does not want to hear that medicine is a mess. I get that, I really do. No one wants to believe that he/she (or a loved one) might have problems getting good medical care - or that some of these venerable institutions that we've all been raised to trust & respect might be taking us all for a ride.

I answered an open invitation to start a thread. And for days saw nothing but gibberish. "Bitter" is not the word that describes it.

What happened to me - what has happened to so many other doctors (particularly women and minorities) was unethical, amoral and against the law. I've done everything I was supposed to do to see it rectified (everything that we are all taught in our high school civics class to do) and have been shafted at every turn. And YES, I am ANGRY about that. I hid for years in shame and embarrassment (after being fired for doing my job the way it was supposed to be done), and I am simply not going to do that anymore. Neither will I stand around (like a dead fish) and be quiet while it happens to others - while the whole system stalls in the muck and mire of unrestrained greed. That's how things got so bad in the first place.

I've been a lot of places over the last seven years, and the discouraging thing is that medicine is the same everywhere. The corporate monster has taken over. The same messes - the same mistakes - are made over and over again - and nobody learns because this stuff is not publicized or scrutinized or regulated or prosecuted on any level. Doctors certainly don't communicate effectively with their peers, and the young ones get NO business training in residency. There is no safe harbor for physicians anymore - hunted by malpractice lawyers, shafted & shorted by insurance companies - regarded as little more than educated labor or pawns on an economic chess board by the CEO's with the phat salaries on the News & Record's list.

I've got to credit the Record. They've been writing good stories on healthcare lately - about overcrowded ER's and overpaid CEO's and the Medicare/Medicaid crunch. But no one seems to be listening. Mr. Produce would rather talk about Captain Kangaroo. The "not-for-profit" salaries posted in the story - just outrageous in many instances - are just fine. So be it.

You get the healthcare and the government you deserve. Remember that the next time you wait in an Emergency Room for hours and hours - or cannot get find affordable health insurance (because BCBSNC and/or our venerable "not-for-profits" spent it all on executive perks) or cannot find or loose your doctor (because he/she left for better pastures - or went to law school).

Thank you, Mike Farr. You give me hope.

Thanks alot Mike.

Dr. Johnson,
Why don't you go to Blogger.com and start your own free blog where the rest of us could follow you in more detail? You could make your point and draw far more attention that way than you ever will by posting to the comments of other blogs.

D.H.Griffin on Hilltop Rd. has a steel beam from the World Trade Center on display. Facing the gate, the beam is on the ground to the left(behind the fence and just a few feet away).

No, Mary, I would rather follow the thread of the post which was about old entertainment programs.

It is unfortunate that you were on the receiving end of the "purple shaft". It is unfortunate that medical cost are outrageously high.
You don't need to tell me how high they are, I have paid the bills that insurance did not pay.
The whole point was, Mary, we have heard all of your points over and over and over and they didn't fit the thread here.
Billy the Blogging Poet had the best suggestion. Start your own blog and those who have not heard your story and those who wish to continue hearing your story can join right in.

The rest of us can take a break from the rigors of the world and enjoy talking about Capt. Kangaroo once in a while.

As fond as I am of Captain Kangaroo (who had more than a little bit to teach us about truth and justice and responsibility and fair play), there was a story on the front page of the Greensboro News & Record on Sunday morning that talked about women's salaries in the "not-for-profit" sector. So EXCUSE ME for wanting to point out on the Editor's blog (based on my own experience over seven years on the road in a variety of practice situations), the points that were missed and where other "threads" of thought could go - threads of thought that deserve much more attention and press coverage than they are getting - threads of thought that are very relevant to the public welfare and pocketbook.

As I've said before, I have started a blog. And I am working to streamline & simplify my website - all at the behest of bloggers (both nice and not-so-nice). But excuse me again if (because of the "Asheboro shaft" and the way I've had to make my living/pay the mortgage) if I am not a computer genius, and I don't have 27 hours in my day to dedicate to the project . . . and somedays I only have time to post on another blog. I saw a really good story in the News & Record, and a clear invitation from the Editor. And for several days I saw what people chose to talk about. And it made me wonder why I ever cared.

Yesterday's headline over at the Courier Tribune (whose publisher's journalistic choices contributed mightily to the "Asheboro shaft") was about easing the "Medicaid burden" of the counties in North Carolina (since the pot at the end of the federal and state rainbow has cracked up). So show us the money. Show us where it went. The News & Record's story on Sunday morning should've given us a great big clue. You can't say you care about the people on Medicaid - or the people who can't get it - or the people who pay for it - unless you care about how the money is spent.

It seems to me (in so many posts on this blog), that people get wrapped up in "turf" and "personalities" and "the right way to blog" . . . often getting nasty & downright rude . . . becoming "snob-bloggers". In the process they miss points - and facts - and issues . . . that are right in front of them and screaming for attention. Meanwhile, the press is busy chasing rock-stars who've never absorbed the meaning of the word "NO" . . . or runaway brides . . . or the latest "Survivor" winner . . . and calling it news.

Captain Kangaroo was all for a little escapism. On the other hand, in the real world, Bob Keeshan was a giant amongst child advocates - especially when it came to healthcare. While I would not presume to speak for him, he just might say this: "I taught you-all better than this. If you're waiting on Newt and Hillary (or Easley & Cooper - on whose watch a lot of this healthcare mess festered) to solve all of your healthcare woes - if you're willing to sit by and watch your money, and your children's money, go bye-bye (into 200 & 300 percent CEO salary increases, and the Enronesque board retreats, and the phat-cat insurance portfolios), don't whine when it all goes to heck" (he wouldn't say the other word). And he would probably remind us that we get the healthcare & government that we ask for and deserve.

If you don't change your threads occasionally, the world around you does start to smell like dead fish.

Mary Mary,

You seem to come from a point of self-informed-righteousness. You seem not to tilt your head to ask anyone anything. Your comments are so dead serious that to join in them is to step from color to black and white. Lighten up and kid around. My own thoughts are far more extreme than what I actually write down. Not only would they offend, I don't want to make enemies with everyone here. This also goes for many other bloggers. People don't say, "I'm lonely" or "I hate Mexicans" or "I think Yvonne might have a purdy butt". They try to talk to EACH OTHER. I'm not a doctor, can I impress you with what I know? I'll bet you would never admit it. Talk about serious, I think America is f**ked!!!(on purpose, without remedy) If I said that every time I wrote, it wouldn't sell.

I have been very mad with quite a few people here but the longer I stick around, the more I accept them warts and all. Do you want to be someone people feel they can talk to or are you here to flaunt your status and knowledge? Take the DR off your name, kick off your lace-up shoes and get to know us a little better.

I did try to get to know you-all, Steve. And I tried very hard to get you to understand where I was coming from. The News & Record's Editor's Blog, more than most, is a community forum - or at least it's supposed to be.

It's NOT about me being a doctor, Steve - although in this case that IS a big part of the story. It's about me being a citizen. It's 2005, so I'm not going to apologize for being a smart girl. As I have said before, when I post, I post under my full name & title (which happens to include "Dr." - a minor distinction that I gave up the better part of my twenties & early thirties to earn). Alas, it's also very clear (after seven years trying to right a wrong) that (despite the "title") I have no "status". I'm just an annoying bug for some suit with an MBA to squash. Just like anybody else.

I haven't said everything I really think either. The last time I did (in this country that supposedly protects that right), I got sued.

Here's "serious" and "self-righteous" for you: If you want to know why shuttles fall out of the sky and planes slam into towers and wars happen and prisoners are abused AND the medical system is the mess that it is, all you have to do is look (really look) at stories like mine . . . seven years of people in public service being too self-absorbed with their "strategic plans" and personal financial portfolios and political careers to play by the rules and/or do their jobs. "Whistleblowers" (I'm not fond of the term, but it is what it is) don't generally come forward before the messes happen because they get shot down and belittled when they do - lives & careers are destroyed.

People have been screaming for the "runaway bride" to pay back her community for the fifty-some thousand dollars it spent on conducting a search. The girl, under tremendous pressure and obviously suffering from some pretty nasty inner demons ran away. And the public wanted to cruify her when she was found alive.

What about demanding that a hospital administration that defrauded the government out of nearly $200,000 in physician recruitment funds (all the while slickly jacking up their own salaries), pay the Feds back? Or requiring that the hospital rebuild what, in its monopolistic furor, it destroyed?

Several days before I tried to start a thread on this blog, I was informed that a colleague of a colleague treated like (if not worse than) I was, took his own life. He fell into despair - weary to the bone of fighting for the simple protections and rights that are supposed to be guaranteed by law. I've got NEWS for you, Steve, life and death (which is what we are talking about when we talk about healthcare reform) IS black and white. Patients aren't the only people dying. And again, EXCUSE ME, if I am tired of seeing it happen - and crying for help to deaf ears.

I will "lighten up" if the next time I post, someone does talk to me - instead of telling me to "take a vacation". Try, "O WOW Mary, you've got a good point - maybe we should divert our focus from Captain Kangaroo."

And STILL the point is lost - because you are determined to focus on what you think is wrong with my approach to blogging. The News and Records posted "not-for-profit" salaries last week that should have just about everyone anywhere who ever paid taxes seething. We all should be writing our Congressmen and contacting our representatives in Raleigh and raising all kinds of HHHH about what is going on. Don't talk to me about creating an "education" lottery, or raising taxes to pay for Medicaid (or, in Randolph County, to foster economic development) until you tell me where the money went. Again, the News & Record's story (to its credit) gave us a good idea.

The guys who get these salaries were no doubt very nervous when the News & Record decided to print them for the "common man" to see. But (if they blog) they're laughing now.

The public gets the government it deserves.

Oh, and when I post, I'm generally barefoot.

Mary,

I appreciate the kindness in which you responded. You knew this world was a snake-pit when you sought to gain its respect. Should it have changed because you applied yourself to it?

In a world brimming with stubborn and selfish people, it would be better for you to never seek justice. If the world knows you want something, it'll do all it can to keep you from getting it. People only remember and talk about the bad things you've done, so look up and get your mind off them. (p.s. planes slam into towers because ragheads don't know how to get laid)

I'm not so much worried about the world's respect as I am about the world.

I've been applying myself for quite a while, Steve. I just learned (the hard way) that the advice a well-intentioned do-gooder gave to younglings in a recent Letter to the Editor ("work hard", "get an education", "success will be yours") - is almost as lame as the "reason" you just gave us for planes slamming into towers. I'm not sure you need to be lecturing anyone on "kindness".

And I expect the guys in the "not-for-profit" towers - the ones with the golden parachutes - are still laughing.

You're right. The world is a snake-pit. But I don't have to like it, and I don't have to just roll over and take it when the snakes slither and bite. You can't have it both ways. You can't say, "We're mighty bloogers and we want serious discourse on serious issues" - and then turn around and fault someone for the "sin" of trying to talk those issues (within the framework of their own experience) or displaying (dare I say it?) intellect.

Nothing ever got fixed by shutting up or dumbing down.

Hello. My name is Mary Johnson. I am a doctor from Asheboro who has some personal experience with the dark side of medicine (particularly medical management), "not-for-profits", & public service. May the force be with you - even if you don't want to listen.