Real Texans saw a need in healthcare and “got ‘er done!”

Real Texans saw a need and “Got ‘er Done!”

An interview with a visionary.

Editor’s note: Have you or a family member ever been served by an EMT or had an ambulance called to an accident scene where you or a family member were involved?  Or how about a heart attack, or a child’s accident?  There are a few times when something makes so much sense that it is sometimes scary.

Here is an interview with someone who was on the front lines of health care reform at the most basic level in Texas.

It was the reform of the Emergency Care System in Texas.

The effects of what they did were so profound that you, and many of your family members were affected by it.  My brother John Werst and a few of his colleagues reformed the delivery of health care by first responders in Texas.

How many people have been saved by what they did back then?

Politicians these days have perverted the term “public option”.

That battle has already been fought and won in Texas with voter approval.  These first responders were Texans with a community-building spirit who fought the public/private war in the 1970’s,  and did the only righteous thing to do.

These first responders were real people with real names like C. Roy Wright and Doc Robertson.

John  has some more ideas on health care reform that could start in Texas and be scaled up nationally, how to pay for it and not raise our taxes, and bankrupt the country, and how all this will create jobs along the way.

It’s interesting and thought provoking reading.

Real Texas: OK, what is some of the history of the first responders in Texas from the early 1970’s?

John Werst: At the start, 75% to 85% of  ‘first responder’ ambulance service was provided by funeral homes, the rest by local volunteer fire and rescue departments, rural & suburban. Do you remember all that?  The ambulance service in the town I grew up in was run by a nice man who drove a station wagon to accident scenes.

Big city police and fire departments had some basic and advanced Red Cross first aid courses or Boy Scout training or some military trained medics,  but you were basically out-of-luck in an emergency, heart attack,  or car wreck.  The funeral home provided drivers were there to pick up bodies, alive or possibly a dead potential customer.

Stories from East Texas of fights at late night car wreck scenes started to scare people.

You see, the funeral home ambulance would get $1,500 for a Dead Dearly Departed Loved One, or soon to be DOA,  if they were slow enough getting to the ER, if an ER existed close by.

They were reimbursed $50 for a live one.  Hmmmmmn?

The local fire and rescue boys would sometimes have to duke it out with the funeral home drivers and get them out of the way, so the live ones could be assessed and treated and transported first.

Too  many cases of economic triage by hillbillies, rednecks, and the untrained, uncaring, and ignorant, caused the public to quickly align in favor of local government-run and subsidized non-private trauma care.  These days you would call it a ‘public option.’

Voters approved city and county taxes or EMS Fire & Rescue tax districts to pay for it.

Sometimes the local funding and donations were  just subsidies for the local EMT’s to get training to Paramedic level, supplies and enhancements of their personal vehicles with lights & sirens and trauma kits and Jaws of Life, just as locals had always supported their volunteer fire departments with BBQ’s, bake sales, & gimmee cap sales, to send their people off to Texas A&M for summer fire school.

This scene was repeated all across Texas to ‘help out the fire department boys.’  Heck, it’s still happening.

Real Texas: Yes, we raised funds by donations from private individuals and local oilfield businesses for our first Jaws of Life in my community.

John Werst: Yes, that’s how it worked back in the day.

Here’s more.  As a result of voter approval for more funds for training, tens of thousands of regular folks signed up for ECA classes and CPR,  then graduated to EMT and a few to ParaMedic, aided and abetted by funds (your tax $$$ at work) from The Emergency Medical Services Systems Act of 1973, (EMSS) sponsored by recently departed Senator Teddy Kennedy, et al,  and Austin’s own Cong. J.J. (Jake) Pickle.

Your money then comes down to the local level by grants and revenue sharing to local COG’s, (councils of government) associations of counties, from federal Health & Human Services & DOT’s Traffic Safety Programs. COG’s were started by LBJ, enhanced by Nixon, and further empowered since then, to bypass layers of bureaucracy that waste your money going up and coming back down to Locals.

Out in what you call Real Texas, Concho Valley COG, est. 1967, covers 16,376 square miles over 13 counties with nearly 150,000 people. We have 24 such COG’s in Texas.

In your planning and thinking, remember that small town America is the escape clause/safety net for urbans and suburbans. You know, the places where all your relatives went for jobs & “other” lives.

Here are some money figures on how to pay for some health care on a local basis through COG.  $100 bucks a month each from your fed tax money back would be $15 Million for CVCOG. Per Month.

How about per year?  $180 million would be a good down payment for “affordable health care”?   Okay, how about $200 a month each for $360 million in return on your fed tax dollars?

That’s Chump Change  for The Pentagon & black ops & contractors, other feds.  That’s like looking at $360 Billion to cover 150,000,000 people.
Let’s spend it where the survivors will be after the Times of Troubles are passed.

Remember ResusciAnnie?  She came from grants.

Here’s a funny from the past:  Remember when the handsome hunk of a fireman doing the CPR class would casually lay his hand strategically on Annie’s “chest” while talking. That set off some henhouse fluttering among the cafeteria full of young, mostly female, classroom teachers, & some of the older ones, too.

New life-saving tip:  Before CPR, do the Heimlich Maneuver first.  It clears airway & jump starts heart rhythm a quarter to a half of the time.

Real Texas: So what did that local funding of EMT’s and ambulance service and some state EMT agency funding produce?

John Werst: By 1981, the situation was reversed, now funeral homes had 20% of the calls and local Volunteer Fire Departments had 80%. Large cities & suburbs had established professional EMS departments with excellent training and vehicles and equipment and vastly improved death and injury outcomes.

Mainly, though, locals got involved with planning & new thinking about how to meet the 12 to 14 parts of a successful EMS disaster response plan. How do we do that? What do we need? How do we fix it?

Public education turned out to be a big deal after the Polio scare of the 1950’s & swine flu scare of 1975-76, hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, floods, you name it, & First Responders are at least aware of it enough to be the adults in the room, and on the scene. Think of your local Volunteer Fire Department guys and gals.  They are actually trained for a lot of these scenarios.

The first Golden Hour of opportunity for stroke, cardiac, acute illness, or trauma treatment became a big part of public awareness. Now it’s up to the Weather & History Channels to get us back to “Be Prepared”.

Locals took responsibility for 9-1-1 plans, dispatcher training, and how do First Responders talk to each other, & who is closest to what scene with what piece of gear for oil rig, home, or office fire, wreck, bus, railroad, cattle truck, oilfield truck, propane truck accident, or strictly a medical situation. How many people are involved & how many units to send.

Fire & police folks were given time and credit for EMT training, as well as other First Responder, disaster, & NucBioChem training.  Out in West Texas, responders even trained for huge gas leaks that would ride the draws and bar ditches and sneak into a town and asphyxiate entire populations.  There was a real danger in some areas of that scenario.

Meanwhile, at state EMS, I studied systems from Los Angeles CA and Seattle, WA, and Montgomery County near DC,  and adapted their lessons to the area and demographics of Texas. We got grants from fed DOT Traffic Safety for an ambulance run & ER reporting system; they were hungry for real numbers of what’s actually happening in the country, not just surveys.

So I snuck in the opportunity for locals to get numbers on how they were doing as compared to others.

Then I designed the forms & got the printing contracts & got the field EMS guys to go around & drum up some business. The city kids whined when I told them every check box on the AmbRpt form had to answer one of the essential questions: Injury or illness? Blood, bones, etc. Hair, teeth, & eyeballs all over the place? (sorry, that’s an old Ray Stevens song)

Real Texas: So what role did the state play?

John Werst: Remember, most small towns didn’t have computers or much in the way of smart word processors or even primitive spreadsheets, not mini’s, not micro’s, just Selectric typewriters and calculators. Those came along in the mid-80’s. So we were going to do the computer data entry & printout reports for them. So far, so good.

But instead of a quiet life, a big rush started when Brownwood EMS, Abilene, El Paso, Fort Bend County EMS, Odessa, even Austin came around to jump on the band wagon. Other biggies soon followed.

And the race was on. It was December 1976 and the program was at 12,000 records, Year 1977 saw 120,000; then 240,000 in 1978; up to 480,000 in 1979 to 960,000 in 1980.

I had to re-do the data entry intake system three times to handle it all. We ended up with convicts at Huntsville Ellis Unit doing data entry key-to-tape & disk for their job training to re-enter normal life.

Normal life?   Who could  have one in those wild & crazy days?

And the printouts flowed and EMS Land was happy.  Then along came Politics, Money, & Egos to mess it all up.

Along the way, I computerized the EMT test to generate random questions, based on two references in the main EMT  text books for fairness & professionalism,  and maintained the Registry of ambulance services, vehicles, inspection, and  personnel,  so we could get more new equipment, supplies, radios, and renewal classes to folks who needed it.

I trained my Boss in SPSS, StatPackforSocSci, & new hires, no prior experience, in COBOL Report Generator. It was a dinosaur of a system, like the IRS still is, but we were more like Raptors, quick & adaptable, using West Texas common sense:  Is this working? If not, why not? How do we make it work?

I had a thick skin & took criticism, except for one yokel from East Texas with a new Apple ][  who wanted to know why our turn-around time wasn’t faster. Try pushing 100 guys with egos and attitudes, above you in the food chain, to do the Righteous Thing.

Only a Real West Texas bookworm with senior letters in Real West Texas football & basketball (that would be me) would even try, much less succeed.

Fortunately, Charles E. King, director of EMS & civil defense & traffic safety, who had the foresight to move into the new age of computers, stood behind me.

This millionaire, independent from state bureaucracy, made his money on the land from Twin Buttes Dam to Knickerbocker Road outside San Angelo, Texas.  Connections matter, people networks matter, & the folks you meet on life’s journey are there for a Reason.  He did a lot of good for a lot of people and needs to be recognized for his contributions.

I also routinely provided printouts of all the ambulance and ER departments in Texas to private, for-profit, equipment supplier companies. The small business folks treated the state more honestly & fairly than the big companies, like when Motorola wanted to dump a warehouse full of old radios on the locals.

We jumped their butts for that, and took up for the little towns. Everybody wins when there is cooperation, instead of fighting and name-calling & shady dealing.

(Texas EMS, state-level, had started as Civil Defense & Disaster Preparedness in the early Cold War arms race, 1950’s. Those packaged disaster hospital kits in the basements of the courthouse & the local hospital? Not there anymore. Budget cuts.)

Real Texas: That was all a good start and pretty interesting history. Now how do you propose to pay for more health care?

John Werst: For a start, use re-paid bail-out money, TARP & TALF, etc. More $$$ are needed from StimPlan I & II for Civil Defense & Disaster Preparedness, & Local health care plans. Where is the Federal go-to-person in each of the 3,300 counties?

The 3,300 local ag extension agent? Home Economic extension agents? They are great people. Why aren’t there more of them and everywhere? The 3,300 local health care liaisons to the COG / RegPlanComm?

Where are the 3,300 local National Guard community centers for education, training, etc in each county for infrastructure support, preparedness,  & enhancement, information awareness, communication support?

What exactly do they guard, anyhow? The local library that’s not there anymore, from budget cuts?

StimPlan I took care of the top 10% & top 2%, economically.  Around 7 million persons.  StimPlan II needs to be bottom-up economics for the 75% of persons,  225 million out of 300 million, in the 51%, about 58 to 60 millions, of households below the median income, out of 117 million households.

Double the IRS 1040 personal AND standard deductions. Do it to Support our Troops, & their Families.

Dump the AMT & means-testing. Mean, Stupid.

Dump Schedule A; it’s wrong & mean & stupid, out of whack with reality & recent history.

Remember when consumer credit was tax deductible?   Why do Godless, Atheistic, Corporations get their “welfare deductions”, and little people get the bill?

Go to Google, check this out: “Household Income”. Stare at the graph. Absorb it. Anybody on this Site is better off than 80% of the country. Then check out “IRS 1040 personal exemption history”. Read it and weep.  Ditto for “IRS 1040 standard deduction history”.

Remember, the median House Hold  income is essentially 2 people working at the inflation-adjusted minimum wage (since the slow rolling Depression and  falling dollar started in 1973) of $10.50 per hour.

In 1971 I could buy 360 Japanese Yen for a dollar; today I can only buy 90.   And they had a lost decade?

After Chairman Bernanke further slowly de-values the dollar, it will be worth even less, and all commodities, food, & energy will cost more. The feds leave that out of your  cost of living adjustment, so they can understate true inflation (we cost too much ) and loss of value.

Just who do they think built this country?

Value  to the economy for goods and services of “the velocity of money in circulation”  from Pensions, SocSec, Disability, Unemployed, MediCare, SSI, etc = $1,000 per month x 50 M people x 12 months  x 10 multiplier = $ 6 Trillion.  Conservatively.

Numbers don’t add up?  The GDP is not the measure of an economy. The $$$ that flow through the Fed Reserve Clearing Houses & overseas transfers would be a better measure. To paraphrase Alan Greenspan, “the list of deficiencies in measures of the economy is depressingly long”.

Again, go to ShadowStats.com.  The old guy, has seen it all, Alan Abelson, Barron’s Mag, told us to.

Perhaps, we need a New Federalism that returns our own income tax $$$ to our own Local control.

The Texas population was then, and still is, growing hugely, surpassing New York  as second most populous state,  and now all local property tax supported entities,  city and county & EMS & Hospital District budgets, are hitting the wall.

A big thank you goes out to Wall Street from all of us here on Main Street, for destroying Western Civilization, and Our Future Lives.

So, to pay for rebuilding the basics, we’ll just let Wall Street do a little payback.

Real Texas: I’m kinda in for that.  Is this how we pay for it all?  Get Gordon Gekko and Wall Street to pony up?

John Werst: Trillions of $$$ per Day move through the “money” city markets and  the Federal Reserve Clearing Houses.  Your checks and electronic funds transfers pass through there. By the Trillions.

I’ve proposed a “sales tax” or “transaction tax” on Wall Street ( & markets in money cities; NY, Chicago, Boston, Philly, San Fran. They are at the “Velocity of Money in Circulation” big multiplier levels.)  for federal income revenue for years.  At least since 1976’s Peter Grace Commission came out with their reports, & so have P. Krugman, J. Tobin, Dean Baker (all of them economists; even Larry Summers name is on one of the studies), but it’s an idea whose time has now come.

The traders and brokers, futures & commodities, CDS & CDO, etc don’t like it (reduces volatility, as if that were a bad thing), & claim they would do nation “shopping & skipping”, so it would take a G-20 common effort. (They punished Denmark for doing it; they killed Thailand’s currency).

So the bond & hedge fund people got rich leveraging Houses of Cards on puny assets of little people, and now they’re fussy about payback?

Listen up!  The transaction tax on stock sales exists now & has since 1934 to pay for the SEC, who by the way did not do all that good a job looking out for us.

Confused about The Glass-Steagall Act back in FDR’s day?

These folks & buddies helped set up the Federal Reserve System in 1913. Then later the FDIC. Who would know more about it? Them, or silly old Sen. Phil Gramm or Dick Armey, the guys who have made a mess everywhere they go.

In about 2002 or 2003, HR 1068, reduced that tax from 1/333 to 1/833  for each dollar amount traded.   It can easily be increased to 1/100th.

We, the People, at the bottom of the food chain, certainly can’t stand any more income taxes,   especially since Social Security, Unemployment, & Disability are income-taxed already.

That’s right, Brother David, if you live a few more years, you will get to pay $100 a month for MediCare, and $100 a month in income tax on your meager Social Security, per person, just like we seniors do, even at our low 15% tax bracket,  which you’ll exceed, because you were responsible enough to have a teeny, tiny teacher pension.

Other movers at the top of the economic multiplier pyramid include the  $4 Trillion per DAY Foreign Exchange markets,  Commodities Futures & Options Trading markets,  or the Federal Reserve Clearing Houses that move $3 Trillion per DAY (or more. It’s a Secret of the Temple)  in checks & electronic funds transfers.

A penny on the dollar should do it.

Find out more on “the velocity of money in circulation, M3”, at ShadowStats.com.  Even a Republic of Texas could do these and come out ahead of the current Bad Deal.

But, until we do secede, or Texas becomes de facto cut off from Right Coast & Left Coast by natural disaster, a lower rate “flat” sales tax applied to both retail and wholesale sales would replace most property taxes in Texas today!!

Does that sound appealing?

Let your local state representatives know about a lower rate ‘flat’ sales tax.  And don’t let them tell you it won’t work.  It damn sure will and all they have to do is look into it.  You can hold them just as accountable as many are holding our federal representatives in Washington, D.C.  (Details in The Big Lake Wildcat newspaper, May, 1993).  Is all this too simple for politicians to get?

The health care payment system, and its uneven, skewed distortions for services rendered, has deteriorated to disastrous levels, amid cost-shifting from expensive private insurance to cover hospital & doctor shortfalls from low MediCare reimbursements, causing the privates to do denial of services, and cancellation of your insurance when you make a claim for trauma, cancer, stroke, diabetes, or heart surgery.

Yes, all that needs reform, but we need our money back to our local homes, doctors, and facilities for personal responsibility, prevention, wellness, disaster preparedness  efforts.

Real Texas: How Does that help us out here in Real Texas?

John Werst: Public Option EMS for more than 95% of the population is now well-established & accepted.  Even the Trans-Pecos region has service; it just takes longer to get there.  Can anyone today imagine calling a private ambulance service in a true emergency?  Who ya gonna call?  Yep, you will dial 9-1-1 and get trained volunteers or trained professionals on the way pronto!  If your kid is in an accident, are you going to call ABC Ambulance Service?  Didn’t think so.

However, you can still call a private ambulance service and they still do a lot of routine business of transporting patients from one facility to another.  And there may be excellent private helicopter and airplane options in some places.

Estimate: Private option EMT-monitored transport has doubled or tripled from what it was.  EMT’s have gotten many good and less stressful jobs there in the private sector.  It’s good for the economy, too.

So, let’s say it again.

After public option EMS won, the private-sector EMS jobs more than doubled. Just different duties. Go figure.

Public, local government-funded or subsidized volunteers and EMS systems have increased the supply of First Responders by a factor of ten in Texas, from 35,000 in 1974 to more than 350,000 in 2009.  Part of the increase, of course, would be CPR card holders plus vastly improved first aid short courses for teachers, fire fighters, and police, Boy & Girl Scouts, 4-H, Campfire Girls, etc.

We need lots and lots more.  Count the months and the rates.  More than 360 months x 1000 avg. = 360,000.  Texas needs more:   at 25.5 million population, we need 2.5 million First Responders.  The private sectors will step up and fill a need also.

Real Texas: And, after the first response, what then?

John  Werst: Indeed, what then?

This is hugely important to Homeland Security.

1.  Public Option, Local management.  Not some huge “other” federal bureaucracy far away. Think local hospital boards, local medical societies & performance review boards  ( the smartest guys in the room, except when it comes to money or costs or big systems), or city councils.

2.  Or use our VA clinics/hospitals that offer extend-a-care to family members of veterans, National Guard, & Reserve, (which is fully supported by VFW & American Legion);  Like the internet model, de-centralized & spread out physically, but linked electronically.

3.  Or private clinics, minor emergency centers, or ER’s; public “seed” loan money to get established & expand (banks are helpless & hopeless right now).

4.  Or extending MediCare Option for age 50 to 65,  (the first to be laid-off, or fired, or “downsized”, or “rightsized” older folks whose jobs will never return)

5.  Or no-fault job loss MediCare automatic enrollment for under-employed and un-employed and un-insured,  (50 to 60 to 90 million?). Only a third of unemployed get FUTA checks to survive on. Too many don’t survive. To get the true unemplyment numbers, U-1, multiply by three, to get to U-6. Taxing unemployment checks is mean & stupid. Folks ought to at least get MediCare/MedicAid in return.

6.  Or $100 a month per capita health care & funding reform; local, city, county, state, federal sharing.

By the way……this …….is……a Homeland Security issue.

Health care that is.

And it is a Department of Defense & Offense issue,  (the Atomic powered aircraft carriers USS GHWBush or USS Ronald Reagan can rain hellfire and damnation down on our “enemies”, but even they cannot shoot down a SmallPox or BadFlu virus particle.

However, that virus can wipe out any big boat or base or country or World)

Issues:  Civil defense, FEMA, Commerce, Labor, Education, Health & Human Services, CDCP, DOT, etc., for funding, protocols & public education, (internet, access channels, PBS), whether it’s trauma care, ER’s, chronic disease management, long term care, pandemic control,  or disaster preparedness.

Such a scenario was recently highlighted in the History Channel’s feature about the US Eastern Seaboard tidal wave from the Canary Island volcano. Beltway people don’t watch what we regular folks watch.

The new movies “Knowing”,  “Eagle Eye” and the one coming this year about December 21, “2012”  will affect the public mood somewhat for the 2010 mid-term Congressional elections.

Audiences at the movie “Live Free & Die Hard” laughed nervously & disgustedly at these two lines:
— “It took FEMA 5 days to get water to the SuperDome”
—FBI guy to de-briefer about young hacker, “I want to know what he knows”,
— Young hacker reply about FBI guy: “His head would explode if he knew what I know”.

Here are more reasons to be concerned and get prepared here in Texas.  And yes, it all has to do with local health care and disaster preparedness…lots of EMT stuff.

Here are some facts that will keep the disaster scenario guys awake at night:

— The Yellowstone Dome has risen 14 inches & is still bulging more than an inch a year.
— Mt. Lassen, Shasta, & Hood, maybe Whitney & Owens Valley, CA are overdue for the next phase.
— There’s no snow on Kilimanjaro.
— The Ross ice shelf is sliding into the sea.
— Greenland is melting. When it’s green again, what then?
— The earth’s magnetic field is acting funny sometimes.
— The Sun has some interesting behavior coming up in December, 2012, and UV fluctuation.
— Funny signals come from New Madrid Fault & Hudson River Fault, etc., occasionally.

Fortunately AFTAC is keeping tabs on all that, but does the Public ever get to see it?

— NASA says the mesosphere is still cooling at a degree a year, getting closer to the scenario of “supercell” storms as in the Dennis Quaid movie “Day after Tomorrow” & the book before that.
— Gene splicing is taught in AP classes in high schools, and in community colleges. Are you ready?
— Slate.com had a poll of 144 disaster scenarios for The End of America.

Real Texas: Dang, you sound like Mel Gibson in that movie Conspiracy Theory.

John Werst: Yes, that all was kind of a rant, but I believe we all need to be aware of possibilities.  Local EMT and healthcare can help lead the way out of disasters.  Be more like the Boy Scouts….Be prepared!

Private companies will never look at the Big Picture, when their first responsibility is to shareholder, CEO, and Wall Street.

But We, the People, can.

Public Option Emergency Medical Services, in Texas, with the Great State being second in land area and in population in the USA, has vastly increased, to the public good side of the equation, efficiency & effectiveness, with cost containment, over 3 1/2 decades.

These results have been documented with measurable outcomes of death & injury. Local folks, closest to home & hearth, take responsibility and make better outcomes happen, when bad things happen to good people.

In short, We’ve done a good job in the past….and are now letting a lot of it slide.

Real Texas: Some of that sounds too good to be true. And some of it is scary. How do you know all this?

John Werst: I know, because I designed & ran the data systems for the State of Texas that measured all this when we first got started,  with small staff,  (no Pollyanna theories, just hard work),  that were headed past a million ambulance & ER incident records per year, (120,000 per month).

I personally transported the boxes of ambulance run reports  & ER reports to data entry, did the COBOL programming, made the production runs at the computer center, and sorted the boxes of summary reports that went back out to the state EMS field trainers, & then back to the local volunteer fire & rescue who are now Real Texas EMS folks, >>>>> for a feedback loop <<<<< on how well they were improving.

You know how much good simple feedback does for a local volunteer fire department.  Worlds!

(I made a large number of friends across the state by being so pushy for the “feedback loop” to locals,  but the few enemies that stopped a lot of the feedback were more powerful than me:  Some dumbass state senators in charge of budgets, who “cut & run” & hid from me when I went downtown to jump their sorry asses:  Snelson of Midland & Farrabee of Wichita Falls, whose major campaign donor was a little wienie, whiny owner of -guess what- a private  ambulance service.)

Now before getting ‘set back’ by petty politics by “conservative” democrats….on the other hand….the City of Austin, Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, El Paso, Abilene, Amarillo, Midland – Odessa, the Valley, and yes, even East Texas, and others saw the value of measuring outcomes and progress and feedback, and began setting up their own systems.

It was getting good…for them and those they served.  You know, We the People.

In 1981 the data summary went to the national EMS conference in Chicago, and everyone there was blown away by what we had done,  which inspired all the national and  and state leaders of EMS to do even more.

Nobody had numbers like we had. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation liked it a lot.  Yes. Good does sometimes begat good.

Overall, this success story had so far lasted to the mid-1990’s and somewhat beyond.

Then the recession of 1993 started a downward curve in funding for essential health care services, and continued when the new Congress arrived in 1994-95.

Homeland Security declined precipitously around then also, with the de-briefing of the Russian defectors Pasechnik & Alibekov, and the failure to act on their revelations. Which revealed what?

(This paragraph is designed to scare you into a personal Be Prepared mode)

It revealed a monster double-cross by the Russkies. After they helped the Swiss Red Cross and W.H.O. and UNESCO to eliminate smallpox worldwide, Biopreparat was ramped up at 2 billion rubles a year to produce extra nasty anthrax & smallpox — by the ton.

And other biological mayhem.

They even built refrigerated nose cones for ICBM’s, so that germs wouldn’t become toast upon re-entry.

A visionary saw this, scratched his head, and penned a bit of poetry: “Cold, Lethal, Globes of Death; arrows arcing across the sky.” Sounds scarier in Old French.

He even used a Russian-sounding word, “Samarobryn”, a seed pod with fluffy wings  that today looks like a satellite with solar panels.

Consider the movie, “Space Cowboys” with C. Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, J. Garner, D. Sutherland.  In the Real World, were those old Russian satellite warheads nukes, or germs?

Real Texas: OK. That part does sound like Mel Gibson in the movie Conspiracy Theory.  But I really like some of your other ideas.  How do things stand now coming up on the year 2010 to 2012?

John Werst: The overall EMS system situation is good to excellent. Fire department calls for fires are down by half, (but property insurance companies will not let cities reduce fire dept. budgets without big money penalties on premiums), so fire stations have now taken on a medical response mission where EMS has been underfunded. Medical calls to 911  outnumber fire calls more than 5 to 1 in some areas.

Firemen are complaining about becoming “primary care physicians” for the poor & uninsured & unemployed.

However, ER and hospital access has deteriorated in our largest cities over the last 15 years as pointed out by a 30-year trauma neurosurgeon in the largest medical complex in the world, in Houston.(His real life stories about people you know or have heard about could be a new TV series)

Dr. Guy L. Clifton, at www. flatlined.org  and in his book “Flatlined: Resuscitating American Medicine”  describes the meltdown that is our present system.   His book was written as a (Very) Senior Senate Intern in the office of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R – Utah).   Sen. Hatch is our protector against the FDA for herbals & alternatives because Utah business makes a lot of them.

Thanks for listening, all you Real Texans
We saw a problem back then and  “Got ‘er Done!”

John J. Werst
2410 Shelby Oak Lane
(South) Austin, Texas 78748-5236

(by way of small town West Texas newspaper family)
— Research & Information Analyst, American Studies
— UTexas Cray Y-MP SuperComputer Center, Tech Editor & Publisher
— Programmer / Analyst, Texas Supreme Court & Appeals Courts
— Systems Programmer / Analyst EMS
— Nuclear Technical Specialist, AFTAC
— IRS 1966 & 1999; Census 2000

Claimer / Disclaimer:

I don’t know how the aforementioned private and public agencies are going to coordinate payments & co-pays, (their Web sites don’t say much about coordination), but I’ll get shafted in the end, because we do a lot of alternatives such as herbals, natural food remedies, etc. from Whole Foods, Sun Harvest, NewFlower Markets, Fiesta, HEB & Central Market for most prevention efforts, as does most of New Age Austin, and most of the Real Texas folks who come here for those products.

Fortunately, we personally don’t consume that much health care; we do most of it ourselves, as our Grandma’s showed us out in Real Texas.

But, remember, when we can’t do it ourselves with diet, exercise, and alternatives, there’s this, costly system: (Can’t we bring some of this back to local Real Texas?)

— VA: Veteran’s Healthcare System (EXCELLENT plus lab & follow-up here & in San Antonio)  I had a Triple ByPass at Audie Murphy VA hospital in May 2001, excellent health & gardening stamina for an old guy nearly 65 in Feb. 2010)

—  Atomic Veteran in AFTAC Nuc Detection Monitoring Lab, — but can’t get through the bureaucratic Bull Shit to get on the active VA list.
— TRS: TX Teacher Retirement System, (so-so) contract awarded to Aetna
(really dumb people; not too good)
— MediCare:  Early next year for me, Wife’s already on it.(too low reimbursements to primary care MD’s)
— HCA / Columbia South Austin Hospital:  Cardiac stent did not work in Sept. 2000; still paying for it. Bad experience. CEO (not a Real Texan) in my opinion should be in jail for incompetence & greed,  but he’s on TV ranting about how reform would hurt his own Dear & Glorious Empire.
— Now part of St David’s Network, South Austin Hospital (good, better)

Part 2:  Politics of how to sell a public option.  (Humor works) Remember, we’ve already been through this in Texas EMS.  “Would you trust a Funeral Home / Private Ambulance at Your Car Wreck / Heart Attack?”

“Harry & Louise called a Private Ambulance? Run by a Funeral Home? Harry is now deader than a Horny Toad on the Road”

Real Texas knows  that Police, Fire, EMS, First Responder, Volunteer Units  are all “public”, and they are government-run (Local), or subsidized volunteers.

Real Texas: So, does any of this proposal of yours  smack of socialism like we hear scattered among the town hall meetings?

John Werst: Did I say local government all the way through most of this?   If you get your “Jollies” calling anything government-run “socialist”, be my guest. Every Veteran knows all too well what “real” military socialism is, and how it works.

Call it whatever you like:  Whatever Blows your Skirts Up and Makes You Happy.  Just remember to apply the term to everything else in the city, county, & district, & state.   Like the “Socialist” Southlake Carroll High School Dragons, or the “Socialist” US Intersate 10,   or the “Socialist” Reagan Memorial Hospital, or the “Socialist” county park.

Hell, even Forrest Gump knows the difference.  Just because health care or a volunteer fire department  is  assisted by local government does not make it socialist.

Real Texas: That was all a lot to think about . . . what’s next?

John Werst: To come next:  “Be Prepared” tips & solutions. Personal & Family. Things our extended folks & families & friends are doing right now. While we still can.  “Old Homesteading” book reviews, cookbooks, & summaries will be shared.

— Air — Go to Lowe’s, Home Depot, Wal-Mart to get your ionizing, UV-C virus-killing air purifiers. Put them in every bedroom, schoolroom, office cubicle. Get a portable, plug-in for your Real Texas Pick-em-Up truck.
— Water — ditto for water purifiers.
— Food — fill your top closet shelves with reserve cans, de-hydrated camping food supplies, like the LDS & Mormons do. Howard Ruff in the 60’s used his stash during un-employment, too.
—Home Garden. Raised beds with new dirt will grow anything, anywhere there’s sunlight & water.
— Clothing — Be ready: rain, snow, sleet, heat, & Dark of Night, like the Postman used to be. LED lights.
— Shelter — Fix all air, water, waste water, electrical, now. Paint your roof White or Light Green. Insulate.
— Medical — Heritage Products, Virgina Beach, VA. Tri-iodide solution. Multi-vitamin every day. Hydrogen Peroxide. Internet education. Aspirin. Herbals. Fresh Juice.

—Prevent & cure cancer with flax seed, oil and cottage cheese.  Google “Dr. Johanna Budwig”. Save 1 life besides your own. Share.

— Mental Health —
Don’t Worry, Be Happy. Stress Kills.
Good Music, Good Friends, Good Texas Beer. Chocolate.
Don’t feel guilty. Fat old Dutch boys live longer on chocolate every day.

Football Season is finally Here, “Great Gawd Almighty, Here At Last”,
“I Have a Dream”, too, but I’m not a Baptist preacher; just a Texas Native.
Keep your famous Real West Texas sense of humor & objectivity & realism.
(Parents, grand-parents did it; so can we; so did the Buffalo Soldiers right here)

Think about it.

You know, Mazlo’s Hierarchy of Needs you learned in Psych 101, and forgot, ’cause you were hung over that day in class. This time it’s for massive hangover & headache prevention.

In Japan, they call it “Sun, Air, Water, Rice”.  They should know, ’cause their landscape was wiped barren, and radioactive, too, and they had to start over from scratch.

We have to do the job & “git ‘er done”, our own selves, right here in River City, Mr. Music Man.

The Feds and Private, Godless, Atheistic, Corporations  are hopelessly disabled, dysfunctional, lost.”Looney Tunes”.  Paddy House Potomac Water has been spiked with LSD, and mutagenic alterants.

Real Texas: I knew there was somethin’ in the water up there.  Normal folks just don’t act like they do.  What else?

John Werst: For bigger systems I’ll talk more:  Scenarios for Irion, Tom Green, & Reagan Counties, and Concho Valley Council of counties, cities, & medical districts,  with real live numbers, (not the 1017 page sausage pack, of Babbling, “Mandates”, Non-Specific for Us, the victims of Financial Depredations, Lawyer/Lobbyist Riddled, Loophole Hiding, Baloney coming out of the Beltway:  What are they trying to hide from us? How do we get screwed this time? Will we enjoy it?).

I’ll talk on how a Local public option healthcare system would work, using your local, state, hospital district & your federal tax dollars, & including Wall Street Damage Reparation Payments, including bond interest rebates, & to include regional trauma centers, clinics, & chronic & long-term care & wellness facilities.

Why not have an upgrade to an Audie Murphy Hospital in all 5 geographic areas of Texas?  We do have several good ones such as in Kerrville VA.

In the olden days of Texas, conservative ranchers in the Legislature voted taxes on themselves to build TB hospitals all over.  Whole towns & communities were built around the seed “kernels”. Know where Carlsbad, TX is located?

Parts of cost-sharing systems like this are already in place,  and have been for decades, for counties to share costs for indigent care and regional trauma and urgent care. Let’s extend that to fully leaded, full service stations like we once did for transportation.

The recent financial meltdown, & losses of trillions,  with commercial real estate next in line to fall, means we are all — indigents —  now, except for 2%,  in the same boat, the same ship of state, USA, or maybe just Texas . . who knows.

Jobs, jobs, jobs  for  Survival, survival, survival of an Unpredictable, but somewhat knowable Future.

At least I think I know, and will share, 55 of 65 years of study & real experience on how to “Be Prepared”. Stay Tuned.

More Answers coming soon, including strength, resilience, hopes & dreams, self-reliance, & time-tested solutions for bonding together as “Helping Our Brothers Out”, HOBO’s.

Real Texas: Whew!  That WAS a lot to digest.  But I did like some of your finance and flat tax ideas.  Texas could really benefit from that.  How ’bout another rant on the flat tax idea?

John Werst: Yes, I’ve been on that rant for a long time….but it’s time has come now.  We are being eaten alive with taxes and regulations that are strangling us all.  Not all are bad or ‘socialist’ but some are.  Tax reform could happen with relative ease with a flat tax.

Tagged as: david werst, public option, Real Texas, texas flat tax, texas healthcare