California leads the way

[dieseltaylor]

California's registered nursing board has discovered that some 3,500 of its nurses have been punished for misconduct by other states — hundreds even had their licenses revoked — while maintaining clean licenses in the state.

As many as 2,000 of these nurses now will face discipline in California, officials estimate. That's more registered nurses than the state has sanctioned in the last four years combined.

The board's discovery was prompted by a Los Angeles Times/ProPublica investigation last year [2] that found hundreds of instances in which California nurses had been sanctioned elsewhere for sexual abuse, neglect, rampant drug use and criminality but could work freely in California.

The "massive" onslaught of new disciplinary cases is going to be "a very significant challenge," said Paul Riches, a deputy director for the state Department of Consumer Affairs, which oversees the agencies that license and police health professionals.

After last year's report by ProPublica and The Times [2], California ran its list of 376,000 active and inactive nurses against a database maintained by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, to which nearly all states voluntarily report their disciplinary actions. Among the matches were nurses who had been disciplined by multiple states, sometimes for the same incident.

California officials said they couldn't disclose the names of any nurses who turned up in the search [3] until a formal disciplinary charge is filed. While those cases are pending, the nurses remain free to practice in California.

http://www.propublica.org/feature/california-eyes-discipline-for-2000-nurses-sanctioned-by-other-states

Yep its true they will hire any nurse from anywhere in the US. What I find amazing is that in a country that makes a big deal about the art of management, that states can opt out of a national register of nurses thereby ensuring a flawed system.

http://projects.propublica.org/nurses

The other thing is the average time for a disciplinary is 1200 days - is this a tribute to legal suffocation of commonsense?

[gunnergoz]

Hardly surprising. California, formerly the Golden State, is now the Really Tarnished State after years of political infighting. I can hardly recognize the place as the semi-paradise I moved to some 46 years ago. Now it is just a landed fish, struggling for air and trying to reach the water again. Sad, really. Were it not for the climate where I live, we'd be long gone...

[Michael Emrys]

I regretfully abandoned CA in 1978 because I had detected over the previous decade several trends that led me to believe that matters could only get worse and that soon the state would become uninhabitable as far as I was concerned. That's sad because at one time it really was great and the hope of the nation.

Michael

[JonS]

I regretfully abandoned CA in 1978 because I had detected over the previous decade several trends that led me to believe that matters could only get worse and that soon the state would become uninhabitable as far as I was concerned. That's sad because at one time it really was great and the hope of the nation.

Unfortunately, that same sentiment also applies at a larger scale.

[gunnergoz]

AFAIC, California went downhill starting when Reagan became Governor and the Prop 13 crusaders began beating their insane drum. I recall one of Reagan's aides being invited to give a talk at my college (Sacramento State) soon after the election and he spoke eagerly of wanting to drive us "pinko student liberals off the cliff like so many lemmings" (his actual words, they were burned into my memory at the time.) I assume that was his boss's philosophy as well.

[MeatEtr]

This reminds of a few nurses I, um use to party with. I remember thinking, wow nurses are party animals, I had no idea. The one that stood out most was Kim. She was your typical coc-head, I'd imagine she got into the drug for those long night-shifts nurses work.

My buddies and I use to joke saying "Damn, imagine being in the hospital and Kim was your nurse!". Somewhat of a scary thought. :eek:

Last I heard she was in jail, no shocker there.

[stoat]

California is desperate for nurses. If you want to make a good salary right out of school, complete a nursing program in three years and head west or southwest.

[Michael Emrys]

AFAIC, California went downhill starting when Reagan became Governor...

ISTR a story in the papers about that time. Reagan had been laying out his program after he took office and a group of welfare mothers confronted him on the steps of the Capitol saying, "What about us?" As reported, he was somewhat dumbfounded and irritated as it had never occurred to him that providing help to them where needed was part of his responsibility as governor.

Michael

[Runyan99]

The "What about us" handout mentality, the ever increasing taxation, and the unchecked unskilled immigration are what ails California. You know California has a hugely disproportionate number of the entire nation's welfare recipients? Prop 13 Gunner G? Wasn't that the property tax bill? Oh yeah, I'm sure more property taxes would really ignite the economy in this state. Just more burden on business and homeowners, in order to patronize the teachers and the welfare recipients: cash for votes.

And soon, it's coming to a state near you. It's Greece Redux with a two or three decade lag.

[gunnergoz]

The "What about us" handout mentality, the ever increasing taxation, and the unchecked unskilled immigration are what ails California. You know California has a hugely disproportionate number of the entire nation's welfare recipients? Prop 13 Gunner G? Wasn't that the property tax bill? Oh yeah, I'm sure more property taxes would really ignite the economy in this state. Just more burden on business and homeowners, in order to patronize the teachers and the welfare recipients: cash for votes.

And soon, it's coming to a state near you. It's Greece Redux with a two or three decade lag.

There is nothing wrong with paying taxes to a functioning government that provides properly for its citizens. Yes I was once a California homeowner and I opposed Prop 13 because I could see that it would ultimately kill the states ability to properly fund its educational system in particular. As for the stuff about welfare state, etc, the fact is that a lot of people were attracted to the state's once generous aid benefits and that was not right - it was largely corrected later by welfare to work and other similar programs. There needs to be a balance. AFAIC conservatives have destroyed the state with their demonization of any policy which might further the well-being (not welfare) of its citizens and by backing the policies that inflated property values and permitted bank loans to be written to those who otherwise would not have qualified for them, all in the name of bank and investor profits.

[Runyan99]

That's crazy, the whole paragraph. The good news is, if you want more taxes and more state spending, you will almost certainly get it.

[gunnergoz]

Runyan99 - What's crazy is what California has become because of wealthy individuals who don't care to pay their share towards the state's operating costs. I remember the conservatives arguing against Prop 13 with the logic that it wasn't right for them to have to pay for the education of other people's kids. Then they didn't want to pay for the care of the mentally ill and Ronnie closed all the state mental hospitals, letting loose thousands to become homeless on the streets. And with the falling education revenues gutting the educational system, young people began dropping out in droves, then to fall into a lifestyle of guns, gangs and drugs - establishing a marginal society within California society that just raised more kids who did not appreciate the benefits of education.

California is paying the price for having a core of voters who were simply just not into anything that did not directly benefit them, and who actively promulgated all the malarkey about self-sufficiency and the evils of taxation and public assistance. Today, they retreat daily into their exclusive gated communities to count up their stock dividend proceeds and complain that they still pay too much for services they don't need, like prisons, public libraries and emergency rooms.

You and I clearly will never see eye to eye on this stuff - do you even live in California, I wonder? Either way, I've said my piece, which is based upon my experience paying taxes and living here for the past 46 years and watching it go downhill thanks to people who simply don't care a whit about anything but their own immediate interests.

[Runyan99]

It says Los Angeles right next to my post count.

Don't ignore some demographic realities in your narrative of class struggle. You can confiscate all the property of the rich and pay every LAUSD teacher a million dollars a year, and the children of illegal immigrant Mexican peasants will still drop out of high school at a high rate. There are social and cultural issues at play that your philosophy doesn't comprehend.

[gunnergoz]

It says Los Angeles right next to my post count.

Don't ignore some demographic realities in your narrative of class struggle. You can confiscate all the property of the rich and pay every LAUSD teacher a million dollars a year, and the children of illegal immigrant Mexican peasants will still drop out of high school at a high rate. There are social and cultural issues at play that your philosophy doesn't comprehend.

Yes, blame it on the Mexicans, one sounds really hip and savvy doing that. American corporations, in a bid to make still more bloated profits from corn fields in the Midwest, destroyed the Mexican corn farming industry by having our own elected officials authorize subsidies to their American corporate farms, thus making our corn far cheaper than the Mexican farmers could afford to grow it for. Guess where many of those farmers ended up, looking for work? Demographics may be a lesson in failed government, but that government was working at the behest of the corporations and the wealthy who clamored for more and more profits, no matter what the side effects might be. Now we all have to live with the result of that economic policy choice which benefited only shareholders and CEO's.

[Runyan99]

Alrighty, Comrade Commissar. You are truly representative of the intellectual avant guard that is leading the People's Republic of California into the 21st Century.

[gunnergoz]

So you channel Glenn Beck too?

[Michael Emrys]

Sounds like it. Mis-characterizing people who disagree with them seems to be a favorite tactic of the right. All this while claiming to have a monopoly on realistic thought.

Michael

[Spinoza]

(cough) Sex? Drugs? Nurses? California uber alles !

[Runyan99]

I just cannot comprehend your position Gunnergoz. More important, the California legislature more or less seems to share your view of business, which is to say, it is a source of inequality and evil, which needs to me saddled to government. As I see it, demonizing and crippling business, wealth, and wealth creators isn't likely to improve our lives going forward.

California is broke, more than 80 billion in debt. Taxes are high, about the highest in the nation, excepting possibly NY. At the same time, the economy is stagnant and unemployment is relatively high. And your only solutions are more of the same? Break business and get the government more involved in people's lives? Make sure the government is providing for people? I can't understand that. Putting resources in the hands of the government will not lead to a more prosperous state.

I'm not a big Glenn Beck watcher, but I am sure he and I would agree that sort of philosopy wasn't what this nation was founded on. The government was never designed to provide for its citizens. That's a 20th century idea, tried many times in many places, but it has always led to debt and failure, and in extreme cases poverty.

California is one battleground, but the future of entire nation is at stake in this war of ideas. I'm sure the socialists will win in the long run, because promising voters 'stuff' is a winning electoral strategy, but I'm not optimistic for the outcomes.

[Michael Emrys]

As I see it, demonizing and crippling business, wealth, and wealth creators isn't likely to improve our lives going forward.

Neither do I, but I also do not see that just because someone is labeled a "businessman" is he exempt from the usual stupidity and venality that is the lot of most of the human race. If the wealthy and powerful would do right on their own initiative, acting out of wisdom and morality—or even simple common sense—it would not be necessary for government to regulate them. Alas, that never seems to be the case.

Make sure the government is providing for people? I can't understand that.

The government has to do it because there is no other body both willing and able to do so. Government should really be the provider of last resort, but since the welfare of the people is a chore that most private interests have abdicated, the guardian of last resort is called on to step in and do the providing.

The government was never designed to provide for its citizens.

Whatever the government was designed for, it should in my view establish a level playing field so that one is not denied opportunity to reach one's natural capacity simply by not being born into a wealthy family.

That's a 20th century idea, tried many times in many places, but it has always led to debt and failure, and in extreme cases poverty.

I don't know, the Europeans seem mostly to have done fairly well with it, but they seem to be more community spirited in general. It remains to be seen how well they will continue to do under the circumstances created by immigration from Asia and Africa in recent decades.

...promising voters 'stuff' is a winning electoral strategy...

Which no doubt is why politicians quietly "promise stuff" to large campaign donors. Also why they deliver to them.

...but I'm not optimistic for the outcomes.

Neither am I, but for different reasons.

Michael

[costard]

More important, the California legislature more or less seems to share your view of business, which is to say, it is a source of inequality and evil, which needs to me saddled to government.

Only those businesses without political interests currently in power, surely.

As I see it, demonizing and crippling business, wealth, and wealth creators isn't likely to improve our lives going forward.

I have to agree there.

California is broke, more than 80 billion in debt. Taxes are high, about the highest in the nation, excepting possibly NY. At the same time, the economy is stagnant and unemployment is relatively high. And your only solutions are more of the same? Break business and get the government more involved in people's lives? Make sure the government is providing for people? I can't understand that. Putting resources in the hands of the government will not lead to a more prosperous state.

It would, if you could guarantee good leadership and zero corruption. However, if you can do that, the resources are as well managed in private hands, where competition will lead to innovation and technological advancement, which leads to continuing and further growth.

I'm not a big Glenn Beck watcher, but I am sure he and I would agree that sort of philosopy wasn't what this nation was founded on. The government was never designed to provide for its citizens.

Sorry, you've lost me here - what then is a government's purpose?

That's a 20th century idea, tried many times in many places, but it has always led to debt and failure, and in extreme cases poverty.

Bollocks. Plain bollocks. Where good leadership is fostered by a society, that leadership provides for the care of the society. What we're seeing is the need to change some fundamentals in behaviour expressing itself in the collapse of those structures required to generate and maintain the wealth of the society: those structures have had their foundations mined to make for more superstructure. For example, where commerce and trade are reliant on the exercise of trust, modern commerce and trade holds that screwing the client, as well as the opposition and hell, why not?, suppliers too is the path to success. Where successful communication is reliant on the establishment of reliable paths of communication through the demonstration of a willingness to be honest, modern leadership practice is to lie as much as will convey the benefit (to the leadership, not the led).

It is no wonder this happening: it is the generation now coming to power that has grown up having these values demonstrated to them on a daily basis. Their own lives have been successful in those terms, it's just a little sad that the longevity of the society is stripped in the rush for short term profit.

[Runyan99]

To answer your above question, the strictest role of government as laid out in the US Constitution, is to provide law and enforce said law, and to provide for the defense of the citizens. There isn't anything I see in the Constitution about providing anything beyond that to the citizens.

Of course the creep of services provided, from the Post Office and now healthcare, are in increasing source of both burden and power to the state and federal governments. When to stop?

California, for it's part, has already taken on more services than it can manage or pay for.

[ASL Veteran]

For example, modern commerce and trade holds that screwing the client, as well as the opposition and hell, why not?, suppliers too is the path to success.

It is no wonder this happening: it is the generation now coming to power that has grown up having these values demonstrated to them on a daily basis. Their own lives have been successful in those terms, it's just a little sad that the longevity of the society is stripped in the rush for short term profit.

:eek: Now it is clear how Battlefront continues to be a viable gaming business when so many others have fallen by the wayside. If Battlefront continues to follow these rules for being a successful business there is no limit to how big they could get.

[ASL Veteran]

Runyan99 - What's crazy is what California has become because of wealthy individuals who don't care to pay their share towards the state's operating costs.

So what is the gunnergoz definition of a "wealthy individual", what is their "fair share", and what would you consider to be your "fair share"?

Incidentally I am in full agreement with you on farm subsidies - probably for a different reason than you but I'll take an agreement on an issue where I can get one .

[gunnergoz]

ASL Vet- Thank you for asking and I suppose it is only fair that I define where I am coming from.

A wealthy individual is to me one whose annual exceeds the federal poverty line by a factor of 100. If the poverty line for a single American is $10,000, a wealthy individual by definition earns at least $1,000,000 a year.

I have to make up my own definition because, interestingly enough, the Federal government does not see fit to define "middle class" and "wealthy" individuals in the way they do the poor. Could it be that they did not mind stigmatizing the poor and at the same time did not wish to reveal who was really well of in this country? Worth pondering.

Fair share assumes that wealthy individuals were taxed at the standard rate of 35% and they did not find ways to avoid paying it beyond the same standard deductions that the poor have to restrict themselves to.

It is a fact that many multi-millionaires and most large corporations dodge paying federal income taxes (and state ones too, while we are at it) by setting up overseas headquarters of by using various loopholes in the tax law which were conveniently set up for them by US congressmen whose re-elections they (the wealthy and corporations) underwrite.

My "fair share" in a just America would encompass an income made possible by a job that earned a sufficient amount to live upon, taxes that were proportional to my income and medical care that should be the same for each American, no matter what their income.

As to the latter, let me refine what I believe: I don't see adequate medical care as a privilege or an economic item to be consumed, but a human right.

Finally, I see human altruism as an evolutionary trait that benefits the species and survival of the fittest as a trait that no longer suits a socialized, civilized species (mind you I did not say "socialist.")

Given that latter view, I see one of the essential roles of government in a civilized society as being a force to balance out the influences of increased wealth and power that tend to gather when a few individuals are able to collect a majority of the nation's wealth. Money attracts money and the more you have, the greater your ability to gather more wealth. One role of government, in my mind, is to equalize that force with judicious application of laws that recognize that to have an economy that is lopsided is to enable forces that tend to destroy democratic government at the same time they enable an oligarchy, i.e. a government run by a select few people.

Your mileage may vary, of course, but that is where I am coming from.