You see, George Bush was right. Black Americans should be angry that they’re paying into Social Security.

A batch of new studies suggesting that black males in the United States are falling ever further behind other groups in health, education and employment has ignited a debate within the black community about who is to blame and what can be done.

Black men live an average of 7.1 years less than other racial groups and experience disproportionately higher mortality in every single leading causes of death…

This is news that the president wants to hear. It lends strength to his proposal to privatize SS, at least as far as this segment of the population goes. Why have chunks of dinero pulled out of your paycheck, if you’re going to drop dead before you use it?

And here’s even better news. According to this Reuter’s story, the rate of HIV infection among black men was 103.5 per 100,000 individuals. That’s a whopping seven times that of white men and three times the rate among Latinos.

So what are we to do about this travesty? Well, in the Bush world of economics and health, it would be even better if they died even younger, and that would really solve the problem. And once we get all black men dying before 65, then we can start to work on other segments of the population. What about all of those uninsured Americans? They’re at high risk for a premature death. We’ve already got one of the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world–that’s great, we’re killing them really early. No chance of those little critters ever collecting SS.

Maybe we should just institute a cut-off age, like you take your last breath at age 64. That should really solve the dilemma.

Uh, how old are you George?

The ruling is only preliminary, tentative, whatever you want to call, but it looks like the law is siding with California’s nurses. Arnold issued an “emergency” suspension of several of the aspects of the nurse:patient ratio law, and he was promptly sued by the California Nurses Association.

From the LA Times:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had no authority to suspend a new law requiring more nurses at California hospitals and emergency rooms, a judge said Thursday, handing an early victory to some of the governor’s most vocal critics.

The tentative ruling by Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Judy Holzer Hersher concerns one of the Schwarzenegger administration’s most controversial decisions. Last year, the governor issued an emergency order suspending a law requiring one nurse for every five patients in California hospitals, which are regulated by the state. He cited a severe a nursing shortage and hospital closures as reasons for the action.

I bet the nurses in California are celebrating, and Arnold must be breaking apart his mansion in a fit of rage.

The judge’s 21-page ruling sided with the nurses on most of their points. A hearing is scheduled for today in Sacramento for both sides to argue their cases one more time; the judge could still change her mind.

Well it’s not a final victory for the nurses, but it looks like Arnold is going to have to stop screwing California healthcare, and come to terms with it. People like nurses better than they like him. If they get sick and get stuck in the hospital, they want to know that they’re going to be cared for. Arnold’s not going to be looking after them, the nurse is.

Under the Schwarzenegger order, medical-surgical units would be required to maintain the old 1-to-6 ratio of nurses to patients instead of the new 1-to-5 ratio. The administration also postponed a requirement that hospitals provide one nurse for every four patients in emergency rooms as long as there is a “healthcare emergency.” The definition of a healthcare emergency is in dispute.

Of course, Arnold’s administration is already planning their counter-attack. But at least he now sees, that not everyone is a timid little twit, terrified of getting their “butt kicked” by the terminator.

And now after I wipe my eyes and blow my nose after weeping over this tragic sob story, I don’t know whether just to just scream at the continued inanity, laugh at the stupidity, or shrug my shoulders and pray that I will never be a patient in Pittsburgh.

Here yet, is another pathetic whine about the nursing shortage, with the powers that be absolutely miffed and bewildered as to why no one is coming to work in this facility. It can’t be anything that they’re doing or not doing, of course. Better just to attribute the problem to the “nationwide nursing shortage,” and remove all responsibility from themselves.

This particular story is one of the worst I’ve seen yet. It appeared on PittsburghLive.com, about a nursing home that is missing about half of its staff. Apparently, the administrators and whoever else is running the show think that all they need do is run a few “large display advertisements” in the Sunday papers, and blame the nationwide nursing shortage, and that’ll fix the problem.

Sunnyview Nursing Home, a 240 bed facility, is short on nurses. They say that nurses are working “enormous” amounts of overtime because the 240-bed facility employs too few registered nurses. The place is chronically understaffed, and patient loads are horrendous. But they don’t seem to think that has any relation to the number of nurses who keep quitting.

The county has now decided that they are going to use “display advertisements and an assortment of new incentives to try to attract nurses to Sunnyview.”

Here’s what their new incentives are (makes me just want to pack my bags, reactivate my nursing license, and move to Pittsburgh):

*Nurses currently work 8 hour shifts at Sunnyview. They are now offering the opportunity to work two 12-hour shifts on weekends. Registered nurses will be paid either $25 an hour with no medical benefits, or $19 an hour with benefits.

The two 12 hours shifts on weekends has been offered since the late 1970s, as way to entice nurses to cover the weekend shifts. Except…the usual scheme is for nurses to only work 24 hours, yet be paid for 40! With medical benefits! So does Sunnyview think that nurses are going to jump at the opportunity to work every weekend, for no extra pay or incentive? And to get a half-way decent paycheck, they have to forfeit medical benefits? What planet are these people orbiting?

*Second incentive–they are now “increasing” the pay differential for registered nurses working the 3 to 11 p.m. and 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shifts. Nurses will be paid an additional $1 an hour for working the 3 to 11 p.m. shift and 75 cents more an hour for working the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift.

What on earth were they paying the nurses before, if they consider this an “increase?” Could that be a reason, again, why their nurses tend not to stick around.

But wow, I bet now they’ll be flooded with applicants to get that extra 75 cents an hour. I don’t know what the going rate is in Pittsburgh, but hospitals generally pay several dollars an hour more for the differential.

*The average salary for a full-time registered nurse at Sunnyview is about $36,000. Need I say anything else?

According to this article, the powers that be insist that they have a 50% vacancy rate because of the “nationwide nursing shortage.” It hasn’t occured to them that their pay sucks, that the patients loads are too heavy, and the nurses don’t care to be treated like pack mules.

What can I say? This is the same old song played over and over again. Next we’ll be hearing that Sunnyview is recruiting from the Phillippines because they can’t find any American nurses to fill the slots.