Sun editorial:

Unhealthy consequences

Illegal surgery center shows what can happen when people don’t have insurance

Thursday, July 2, 2009 | 2:07 a.m.

Health officials raided two Las Vegas stores last week, alleging that they served as illegal surgery centers, and served cease-and-desist orders. The stores, Botanica Maya and Botanica San Francisco, were licensed to sell health food and vitamins.

Authorities staged the raid after learning of a woman who bled uncontrollably because of a botched gynecological surgery. The woman reportedly had a procedure done at Botanica Maya on East Lake Mead Boulevard.

As Marshall Allen reported Friday on lasvegassun.com, Republic Services employees found bloody rags, pill bottles, empty bottles of injectable medicine and used syringes and needles. Inside the store, health authorities and police investigators found a crude medical suite.

On the shelves were bottles with injectable and intravenous medicine, many with Spanish labels. There was also a log with people’s names and the dates of their surgeries.

Authorities said Adam Padilla is the owner of both Botanica stores. He told the Sun that he owned Botanica Maya and his father owned the other location, adding that his stepmother, Patricia Padilla, operated Botanica Maya. On the Internet, his stepmother was billed as “Patricia Padilla, MD,” although she is not licensed as a doctor in Nevada. Adam Padilla said his stepmother did not advertise as a doctor and said he knew nothing about any surgeries taking place at the store.

Authorities are pressing forward with their investigation, and we hope they move quickly to determine what really happened. It goes without saying that illegal backroom surgery centers pose a serious health hazard — from the dangerous surgeries to the needles and medical waste deposited in the trash.

These types of “clinics” tend to sprout up in immigrant communities and other areas where there is limited access to health care. With the high unemployment rate, the cost of health insurance and the lack of universal care, we sadly may see more of these in the future.

Discussion: 10 comments so far…

By Gregory

7/2/09 at 3:04 a.m.

Suggest removal

I believe members of Congress will become familiar with this story in Las Vegas as they sit down with the lobbyist-attorneys and consultant-experts who represent healthcare industry corporate executives operating above the industry glass ceiling.

It's time to change the game, and Rahm will push the ball forward on national healthcare reform and a public option.

Though over 70 percent of American support a public option, it will not be easy, so long as

(a) there is a sliding glass door between members of Congress and well paid lobbyists, attorney and consultants, and

(b) members of Congress have federally funded medical and dental coverage for life, coverage many Americans cannot afford.

A new study by Harvard and Ohio Universities was just releases stating over 62 percent of all personal bankruptcies in 2007 were "medical bankruptcies, up 50 percent from 2001. Two thirds of those filing for bankruptcy had insurance at onset of illness.

For more information reference: www.amjmed.com and www.pnhp.org

Large self-funded, self-insured corporations believe healthcare is a federal problem, they are waiting for federally-funded solutions.
In the meantime, they are biding their time practicing cost containment, when there are clear openings (legal) to do so.

This is very true in Nevada. Nevada is deficient in care, cost structure, healthcare leadership, and regulations with funded enforcement, and as such would GREATLY benefit from a federal solution which took healthcare out of private sector control and delivery, excepting the doctor-patient relationship.

If the Canadians, French, Germans, English, Japanese and others can do it, then we should be able to do it for even less money per capital, with a larger population base, and we should do it BETTER, because we are Americans.

This is not a white-brown issue, or an indigent issue, it is an issue that has become a tax on the life savings-equity of middle class American families, and you can bet Congress knows it.

They have been looking for taxable equity anywhere they can find it the past eight years, to pay for tax cuts and two still unfinished wars. Finally, new leadership is acknowledging that healthcare reform is crucial to the economic and moral compass of the country.
By jlb101

7/2/09 at 6:19 a.m.

Suggest removal

As a taxpayer, it is not my resposibility to pay anyone's doctor bill except those of my family.
By Patrick_R_Gibbons

7/2/09 at 9:32 a.m.

Suggest removal

Greg I don't like the racism there. Just because we are Americans does not mean we can ignore economic laws of supply and demand. We can't defy gravity either by the way. Simply put, socialized medicine does not work no matter who you are.

1) The Harvard study you cite says 75% of those who had bankruptcy problems due to medical bills had health insurance at the start.

2) From the Cato Institute: "If what President Obama said were true, there would be approximately 1.05 million health care related bankruptcies in this country every year. However, in 2007 (the last full year for which there is data available, there were a total of only 815,000 non-business bankruptcies nationwide. Moreover, according to a study by Dr. Ning Zhu at UC-Davis, only 5 percent of bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. That suggests that in 2007 there were about 41,000 health care related bankruptcies. Too many, to be sure, but a far cry for 1.05 million."

--meaning, yet another study suggests that only 5% of bankruptcies were due to medical bills.

3) Research at the Harvard University Initiative for Global Health find that diet and exercise (most important - not smoking and not drinking lots of alcohol) and genetics are by far the most important. Access to health care however, did not play a major role. Thus if you are wanting to increase life expectancy for the nation, providing health insurance is going to be one of the more expensive and least effective ways to achieve that goal.

...universal healthcare is not an answer. It only replaces a 3rd party payer system with a third party payer system that controls a monopoly on violence.
By Patrick_R_Gibbons

7/2/09 at 9:37 a.m.

Suggest removal

"With the high unemployment rate, the cost of health insurance and the lack of universal care, we sadly may see more of these in the future."

Wrong,

1) High taxes cripple economic growth.
2) Low economic growth means it is difficult to destroy poverty by BUILDING WEALTH
3) Government has high tariffs on food supplies and subsidizes farmers destroying international competition, sustaining global poverty and harming our own poor.
4) Minimum wages keep poor people from finding jobs.
5) Licensing keeps professionals from doing jobs the government assigns to certain people, meaning restricted competition.
6) Mandates on health insurance increase the cost, making it more and more unaffordable for the poor.
7) Government taxes individual health insurance purchases
8) Government restricts competition between insurance providers.

SO naturally, we have more poverty than we otherwise would, higher medical costs, and expensive insurance. Its governments fault and more government won't make everything better.
By Patrick_R_Gibbons

7/2/09 at 11:38 a.m.

Suggest removal

"There is no such thing as a free lunch," writes John Stossel about universal healthcare...

http://reason.com/news/show/134553.html
By Emthree

7/2/09 at 1:22 p.m.

Suggest removal

Patrick, you keep quoting Ning Zhu at UC Davis for the proposition that "only 5 percent of bankruptcies are caused by medical bills." I've read the report, and that's not at all what it says.

Dr. Zhu is an assistant professor of finance, and the report to which you keep referring is an analysis showing differences in spending habits between a control group and a group of bankruptcy filers from Delaware in 2003. Not surprisingly, he concludes that bankruptcy filers are show a pattern of overconsumption that leaves them with insufficient means to respond to unexpected contingencies.

Dr. Zhu does NOT state that only 5% of bankruptcies are caused by medical problems. Rather, on page 27, he notes that within his control group, 5% experienced a serious medical issue. Among the bankruptcy filers, however, that number was more than 6 times higher: 33.5%. Dr. Zhu even observes that medical issues play a much bigger role in personal bankruptcy filings than unemployment. (Don't take my word for it, readers -- check it out yourself: http://www.gsm.ucdavis.edu/uploadedFiles... .)

Of course, the data in Dr. Zhu's report was from 2003. The American Journal of Medicine published a report three weeks ago concluding that SIXTY PERCENT of all non-business bankruptcies are attributable to medical problems. The study also notes that the share of bankruptcies resulting from medical problems increased by 50% between 2001 and 2007. Here's the abstract:
http://www.amjmed.com/webfiles/images/jo...

From a local perspective, what is the effect of having so many uninsureds and underinsureds? Simple -- Clark County ends up with uncollectable bills for ER visits instead of paying far less for preventative care and regular office visits. Check out yesterday's Sun story on UMC, which has been able to collect less than 1% of its $459 million in past-due receivables.

We taxpayers are already paying for healthcare for the un- and under-insured. We're just doing so in the least effiect manner conceivable.
By KillerB

7/2/09 at 10:25 p.m.

Suggest removal

Patrick -- a good link to John Stossel, thanx.
By Patrick_R_Gibbons

7/2/09 at 11:35 p.m.

Suggest removal

Em,

I quoted Cato so maybe they were wrong when they wrote that blog, I'll have to see what they say about your points. I'll assume you are correct. Still, your solution is government control? How does eliminating competition and having a massive unresponsive bureaucracy solve the problem?

The money to pay for it all has to come from somewhere. That means higher taxes, fewer jobs, more poverty...or we pay for it in other ways such as health care shortages.

Wouldn't it be better to cheapen the cost of health insurance by reducing mandates, not taxing the benefits for individual purchases, and removing competitive restrictions on insurance companies be a better solution?
By Patrick_R_Gibbons

7/2/09 at 11:38 p.m.

Suggest removal

http://www.amjmed.com/webfiles/images/jo...

This one you cite too says 75% had health insurance.

Nevertheless a bankruptcy is not the end of the world. It is a good thing that people who don't have enough money to pay their bills can go bankrupt. Otherwise they really would lose everything. Bankruptcy protects you from losing everything.
By lvsundog

7/3/09 at 1:19 a.m.

Suggest removal

It is always difficult for wealthy people to feel that health care is more than something that belongs only to the rich. If they were intellectually honest, they would not drive on taxpayer funded roads and highways because of the "socialism" that built them.

They pompously spout "free market" slogans, while ignoring the fact that the sickness industry is anything but "free market".

Their arrogant cry is "I've got mine - too bad about you suckers!"

« Previous Ten Next Ten »

Live chat: Tuesday, noon PST; Chat with Krista Creelman; Problem Gambling Center executive director Krista Creelman will answer questions about gambling addiction from Las Vegas Sun readers from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. ... Submit question