Posted by ntzmom (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 12:59 a.m. (Suggest removal)

What can they do? I mean, cutting staff doesnt sound good, I don't want people working on me if they have had very little if any sleep.
The hospital can't refuse people that have no insurance and wont pay their bills.
Goodness, I don't have a clue as to what they can do.

Posted by beammeupscotty (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 3:36 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I hope they can hang on long enough for a Democrat President to get into office. We need some type of coverage so people can get health care and doctors and hospitals can get paid. I don't think this is just a Natchez problem but nation wide. If families didn't have to worry about health care and education for their children then you could live comfortably on $30,000.00.

Posted by ntzmom (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 4:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I agree beam, on all points.

Posted by ConstantComment (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 7:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)

A reputation for good health care is also important in attracting retirees and new residents. Natchez Regional is part of the balance necessary for a growing and prosperous regional community.

Posted by beammeupscotty (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 7:35 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I think they tried to grow too big too fast. We need a hospital to provide certain needs but the equipment is too costly to provide every service. Then again we all need to accept the fact we are going to die.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 8:26 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Every visit to the Democrat is like an interlude from an Orwellian nightmare.

Scotty, we already have medicare and medicaid. We have make-work public education that is one of the largest employers in the country, producing a a product that is laughably substandard, and not by accident. We have farmers who can't plant without a farm bill, businesses begging for the people to be taxed to pay for their advertising.

These hospital stories are just the prelude to requests to raise the hospital millage. There is a sudden crisis, announced a week after plans for a ten million dollar expansion.

Scotty, do you understand that there is no free anything? And that government never pays less for what it buys than private companies do? That kind of thinking you are engaging in is really what our schools are producing in lieu of the ability to expose students to the information and techniques that allow them to learn and think for themselves.

Posted by NoWireHangers (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 8:38 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I worked at Natchez Regional for 3 years. It is a great
hospital and the current administrator was doing a very good job. He really turned things around from prior management. I so hope that the Medicare/Medicaid payment structures can be looked at and that somehow the hospital can get back in the black. I pray NRMC won't close. It is a fine hospital and the people working there really care about providing quality care.

Posted by beammeupscotty (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 9:30 a.m. (Suggest removal)

EnKiKur, I agree the education system is a failure and so is the health care. I have to pay taxes and I want them to be used for education and health care. I think a voucher system for education and a socialized approach to health care can fix these problems. I think it will benefit the children more than anyone else. The government is going to spend the money no matter what, so why not spend it on the future generation Americans.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 9:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)

A legal definition of the word 'public':
Adjective: Belonging to the entire community. Unrestricted in participation. Noun: the people. The populace, the communtiy. That vast multiitude, which includes the ignorant, the unthinking, and the credulous, who, in making purchases do not stop to analyze, but are governed by appearances and general impressions.

Don't worry ParkAve, that hospital is not going to close. Since when did any public entity have to justify it's existence by paying for itself? That is simply not part of the plan.

As long as the public is around to pay for it, that cash cow is going to moo right along milking the general impressions that created it.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 9:43 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Most people would not be agreeable to the idea of a government board deciding what type of new car they will buy. However, people are more than willing to let these boards decide what kind of education to buy for their children, and many are like you Scotty, willing to let government decide what kind of health care they have to buy. I only say these things to point out that the solution to a problem cannot be more of the same things that created the problem.

Public education is not a failure. It is doing just what it is designed to do, you should read 'Underground History of American Education' to learn what the forces were that created public education, and how the goal was not to educate, but to control. Socialized health care will be the same sort of animal.

Posted by beammeupscotty (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 10:08 a.m. (Suggest removal)

The government already controls what we can have. I am tired of the elderly being used,the sick being denied, and the youth being cheated of an education. What do you think tax dollars should be spent on EnKiKur?

Posted by mike8427 (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 12:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)

EnKiKur- I don't follow you. You say the govt boards decide our education for us? There are 4 high school here in Ntz, 3 are private and 1 is public. We do have a choice.

You sound like you really don't like the democaratic govt setup we have here in this country, I can't give you a solution for that dilema. Try moving south, maybe Cuba?

Posted by kpage (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 2:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)

hey mike8427...EnKiKur would get along well with ole Raul. A Raullite. A commie. Anti-American. That ought to be a sin.

Posted by destiny (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 4:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Lets put the Democrat party where it belongs. They finally got it down to two candidates. These two candidates have done nothing but destroy each other, so now the democrats have decided to call on poor ole Ralph Nader once again to help them out of the quagmire in which they have placed themselves. Poor old Nader. I wonder how much more he will put up with. Let Obama and Clinton destroy each other and Nader will be there to lighten the democrat's dilemma by splitting up the votes. Being registered as an independent voter I choose to vote for who I feel would be best at the job. Obama, young as he is, only 3 yrs in Senate, is still wet behind the ears. He needs more schooling in the school of hard knocks. Maybe later not just now. Clinton, as far as I'm concerned, should have shown enough dignity, ( while having none) never should have been a candidate to start with. She didn't even have the dignity to divorce that leech of a husband when he left office in disgrace. Remember, in the end, you as a voter will be held accountable for who you elect to run your country. The public as a whole wants to tar and feather all sex offenders. Just because he was elected to the White House makes him no better than a common everyday sex offender. Whats good for one is good for another and yet still there are a lot of you that want to put this monster back in office. Be certain, if wife is elected, he will be there. As for me, my vote will go Republican.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 4:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)

You hit the nail on the head Scotty, the government already controls. to a large extent, what we can have and that is my objection. I don't think letting it control more will solve that problem. I don't think the majority of the tax dollars collected should be collected in the first place Scotty.

We do have a choice in schools Mike, but we don't have a choice not to pay for the public schools. The parents using the private schools have to pay for the private and the public schools. Why should they pay twice? Why should people with no children pay at all?

Kpage, what I meant by Orwellian nightmare is capsulized in your comment about me being a "commie". I am the oposite of a communist, or collectivist, and that is why I am against public school and socialized health care. That you perceive socialism to be freedom and All-American is what Orwell meant by double-speak. Black becomes white and white becomes black, because the government says so.

In 'The Communist Manifesto' Karl Marx described as keystones to socialism free public education, a centralized banking system, a heavy progressive income tax, among other things. What America now has is all these things. Did Karl Marx not understand the difference between a free society and a socialized one?

Finally, Kpage, I just might get along well with Raul. Not because I believe in socialism, but because I like honest people and he unabashedly declares he is s a socialist, unlike so many of our politicians that count on the "public" not having read enough history to know how socialized our society is. Raul is likey a far more refreshing dinner companion than Hillary, or GW, though would no doubt feel quite at ease in happy conversation with either of those champions of liberty and freedom.

About this hospital all any of us know, or are likely to know, is that management says they are 7.5 million dollars in the red because patients don't pay their bills. What was the total revenue of the hospital for the last ten years, and what were the expenses? Do you think the managment company is one of the unpaid debtors of the hospital? Becasue if they are 7.5 million dollars short, there must be some unpaid debtors, or there must be so much profit in the operation that 7.5 million can go uncollected without causing any real distress to the operation. Which is it? Would the Mississippi legislature give 10 million to an already insolvent operation? Whatever is going on with that hospital is far more than we have been told or will be told.

Posted by NatchezEnema (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 6:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)

What we have here is a hospital that tries to be like the big boy hospitals in the big cities. When it was Jeff Davis it didn't have an extra floor all that fancy equiptment. The population was twice then as it is today, these people are broke because of that. You take away the cost of expansion and the equiptment and things wouldn't be so bad, dead heads who don't pay will be around always. That is not what the problem is here. How much is the mri? 1-2 million, how much for the new floor, helipad? I bet you take away these costs and they wouldn't be in dire staits.

Posted by rushinghjr (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 10:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)

If you want socialized medicine, feel free to pass "GO" and head to Canada or England or talk to persons from these countries-the stories will make you think twice about the government medicine business! Better yet, talk to your local doctors?

Posted by JunkyardDawg (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 11:48 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Now wait a minute, Destiny, a sex offender is one whom doesn't have a willing participant. From what I recall about the Clinton--Monica scandal was that she was an adult and the one doing the dirty on him. I kinda felt sorry for the gurl having to do all the work. I mean c'mon, what woman keeps a dress with evidence on it? And then, suddenly remembers at the last minute...oh, I still have that blue dress, uncleaned...just let me just get that for ya. He was set up for the fall in order to gain republican and Christian support in the following election, in order to carry out the pre-planned agenda. But thank God, that other ugly cow, recording the Monica tapes, was able to get that plastic surgery with the money she made off of that ordeal! Not to mention the mega bucks paid to Ken Starr for sorting thru Clinton and Monica's dirty laundry.

And I can't believe anyone would blame Hillary for anything Bill did wrong. Often times Christian women do forgive their straying spouse, when the spouse asks for forgiveness, as forgivness is taught in church and is biblical text. Republicans sure seem to be the most unforgiving lot of people I've come across since 911, or perhaps since Clinton turned out to be a human afterall. I wonder how well you would hold up in front of the whole world with those cameras in your face right after finding out that your spouse had cheated? Huh? Seems to me that Hillary can handle a crisis very well, she has previous experience dealing with foreign country leaders, experience making changes that work for education, and is capable of making great decisions for the good of this country as our next president.

Posted by rushinghjr (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 11:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Proud of you Destiny!

Posted by JunkyardDawg (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 11:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Everyone knows that a vote for Ralph Nader is a vote for the Republican candidate. The Democrats don't call on him, the republicans do when they start running scared. Yall are sounding really scared to me.

Posted by JunkyardDawg (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 11:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)

anyway, this article was about the hospital. Somehow, it always gets turned into a political bash on Clinton and the democrats. What on earth is McCain gonna do without you people (if he gets in the White House) helping him run the country?

Posted by JunkyardDawg (anonymous) on February 26, 2008 at 11:59 p.m. (Suggest removal)

The other day I overheard some die hard republicans talking and they said that if McCain was the nominee, they were gonna vote for Hillary, lol.

Posted by JunkyardDawg (anonymous) on February 27, 2008 at 12:20 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I could say the same thing in reverse to you rushing, but I can't think of a place to tell you to go that doesn't have universal or national healthcare, lol. We are the only super country without concern for the welfare of our citizens, but we don't mind paying thru the nose for wars and to rebuild the countries we destroy.

Posted by natchez1 (anonymous) on February 27, 2008 at 12:57 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Natchez has a problem - it has too many medical providers and too few people with good insurance or on medicare/medicade. This leaves Natchez Regional providing service to people who either can't or won't pay.

The local economy has slowed since losing IP, Johns Mansville and the tire plant and now less people have good insurance.
There is no easy solution the county does not have much money to cover the losses, the income is unlikely to rise with a sagging economy, and to close the hospital would be political suicide. New management is probably needed and probably some services will be cut (like OB/GYN).

The overall medical situation in the US is in crises, less companies are able to provide full service health insurance as costs are rising fast. Less self employed people can afford the premiums for insurance. The politicians know their is a problem but the solutions are not easy. Doctors in the US make a very good living, any National Health scheme would limit doctor's (and nurses) earnings, this would not be a popular move.

Other countries with a national health care have capped expenses and earnings and although not perfect it actually works quite well. I have lived in countries with National Health, although taxes were higher it is reassuring that if you have a major illness, an accident or a child the costs will not send you into bankruptcy or to the poor house. Although people often cite horror stories about long waiting lists or poor service the service is often better than in the US. I am self employed and health insurance is a major drain in my finances (and I am healthy!) My income tax is a similar percentage, though sales tax, gas tax and other taxes are much lower in the US.

I would love to see some health care reform, but it may be too late to create a system that works as well as countries that reformed their health care in the 1940's.

Posted by rushinghjr (anonymous) on February 27, 2008 at 10:58 a.m. (Suggest removal)

(Junkyarddog) You have the perfect name!

Posted by JunkyardDawg (anonymous) on February 27, 2008 at 12:56 p.m.

(This comment was removed by the site staff.)

Posted by gerandall58 (anonymous) on March 2, 2008 at 9:23 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Well I do know we all foget to read the instruction book from time to time , but here's one for ya!
2 Chronicles 7: 14 if my people, who are called by MY name ,will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked way's, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Heal the heart and the rest will follow. We was a land that once said in GOD we trust. You gotta ask yourself this , who do we trust now. Prayer is out of schools and guns knives and drugs are in. Our politions grow more and more corrupt , and will continue to as long as we turn a blind I while our children are led to believe there is no GOD in our schools. Who do you trust GOD or politions ? I wish that I had all the right answers , but I don't , but do know the one that does.
GOD BLESS AMERICA