Author: Guillermo Miguel Perez-Santalla

A businessman with a passion for sharing the good news that still exist in this world.

Hospital Revenues as a Marker?

This is very scary; it does not go into how many lives are saved.

Capitalism Gone Mad!

It just so happened that this past weekend a friend of mine had a heart bypass surgery. I am hoping that I can go see him on Saturday. So, I asked one of his colleagues if they knew at what hospital he had the surgery. I knew he was in New Jersey. I was informed it was Robert Wood Johnson. Being a lifelong resident of NJ I recognized it and new it was in New Brunswick. I googled it all the same to see where exactly and how to get there.

I was using the Brave browser which is powered by Google but runs a Brave AI which gives a quick summary at the top of the page on the topic you searched. Below is the summary:

Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ is a 965-bed hospital with campuses in New Brunswick and Somerville. It is the flagship hospital of Robert Wood Johnson Health System, which has $1.5 billion in revenue, more than 10,100 employees, 3,250 medical staff members, and 1,733 beds.0 The hospital is a general medical and surgical facility and a teaching hospital. It is nationally ranked in 2 pediatric specialties and rated high performing in 2 adult specialties and 12 procedures and conditions.1 The hospital is home to the Heart Center of New Jersey, the Vascular Center of New Jersey, and central New Jersey’s only Level I Trauma Center.0 The Clinical Neurosciences Center at the hospital is dedicated to the research and treatment of a wide range of neurological disorders.2

This is very scary; it does not go into how many lives are saved. Nor how many babies are born or how many illnesses treated. Its topic of focus was the business side of the entity. An entity that should exist for the goal of healing and curing, not for making money for its investors. However, the sad reality is that the more than 90% of hospitals are run like businesses and no longer as a home for the sick to be cured or helped.

The health industry has been falling apart since charity and reason were thrown out the window for business and money. Below is my rudimentary timeline for the way I see things based on my personal memory

1970s through the 1980s

Judges award ridiculously high penalties for lawsuits against doctors.

1990s through to Current Day

Insurance Companies come to the rescue of doctors driving cost of medical care through the roof.

Doctors now work for the insurance industry, and no one knows what the costs of services provided are or what they should be.

Early 2000s to present day

Greedy Private Equity Firms Control Many Hospitals

Hospitals are no longer in the business of caring for patients but for making money for investors. Patients are just cash machines.

We live in a sad country where hospitals make it a business to make money. I have even learned that the supposed Not for Profit hospitals are not providing health services back to the communities at reasonable prices for the benefit they receive for tax exemptions.

We live in a world where our government is corrupted by powerful corporations whether they be in the pharmaceutical industry, hospitals, or private equity firms. The evil and theft of the average citizen abounds. I as an individual, who has always taken the right to vote as my single most important civic function, am at a loss. The government is no longer for the people and the people need to wake up to this reality. Until such time, the corruption and eventual decimation of the citizens will come at a faster pace than ever before.

I believe in the government formed and established by our founding fathers. Unfortunately, it looks like our government officials do not and have ceased working for the people and instead work for their own best interest. It is not much different than all the banana republics such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua etc.

I believe in the capitalist system as the only one that gives an individual a fair chance but not without the guard rails that the government is supposed to impose. They have stopped enforcing monopoly laws and so we have incredibly powerful corporations such as Blackstone, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft to name a few.

We the people need to wake up and push back and we need to makes sure that our politicians are not in the pockets of major corporations and foreign governments or the sad reality we face will make us become servants of the state as the elites want us to be.

NorthJersey.com

An article on Kahlil Gibran

Recently, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Hannan Adely of the online newspaper NorthJersey.com. She contacted me because she saw that I had read The Prophet for my blog. I was pleasantly surprised that she stumbled across it and called me.

I am happy to say that she quoted me in her article about Kahlil Gibran. It was even surprising how much of what I said made into the article. Maybe, it was just because I live in North Jersey that it was important to the readers to get the pulse of the man on their street.

Either way, whatever the reason I am happy that I was able to contribute to the history of this great artist, author and poet and that maybe, just one more person maybe influenced by the beauty of his writing.

American Women Quarters Program

Surprising that the US government does know what women are in other situations.

It seems that to become an important part of our nation’s history does not take as much sacrifice as one would think. But of course, maybe its because quarter dollar coins are of little worth and most likely will not be remembered especially when the US mint is churning out new issues as quickly as possible.

I guess I still am holding onto a false belief that this country was founded for greatness on the world’s stage that I am mostly disappointed at this whole program. Maybe, I should just accept that this government is corrupt and in decay at a faster pace than any in global power in previous history.

2024 Quarters

I should look at the bright side at least they did not vote a male of our species to represent a female woman!

Below is light review of the US government’s representation of US women. My response in BOLD is for those I don’t believe should be on a coin. In Italics are those I understand but still am on the fence about and in regular type are those that are obvious choices. I created this just to give food for thought.

The Womens’ State Quarters program

2022

Maya Angelou – celebrated writer, performer, and social activist. –She was an accomplished woman for sure. I guess her writing a poem for President Bill Clinton helped get her on a coin.

Dr. Sally Ride – physicist, astronaut, educator, and first American woman in space. Legitimate choice

Wilma Mankiller – first woman elected principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. Why is the USA celebrating an official of another government?

Nina Otero-Warren – suffrage leader and the first woman superintendent of Santa Fe public schools – A woman from a well to do family. Wealthy woman politically involved, how is that someone who should be on a state quarter? There were many suffrage leaders.

Anna May Wong – first Chinese American film star in Hollywood. No actor or actress should be on a government issue currency, sorry.

2023

Bessie Coleman – first African American and first Native American woman licensed pilot. How about the first multiracial pilot, she can’t be both. Not that a person should get on a currency just because of their physical characteristics.

Edith Kanakaʻole – indigenous Hawaiian composer, custodian of native culture and traditions. I guess this is important for Hawaii.

Eleanor Roosevelt – leader, reformer, first lady, and author. She is definitely a powerful political and historical figure and wife of a former president.

Jovita Idar – Mexican American journalist, activist, teacher, and suffragist- Legitimate for the now very large Mexican American Community in the USA

Maria Tallchief – America’s first prima ballerina. Its wonderful that she was such an accomplished ballerina, but I don’t believe artists or entertainers of any kind should be on the currency unless they did good works for the country.

2024

Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray – poet, writer, activist, lawyer, and Episcopal priest. Why are her accomplishment as an Episcopal priest something to get her on US currency?

Patsy Takemoto Mink – first woman of color to serve in Congress. First woman of color in Congress? What color is that? She is Japanese American, I would think that it should be more important than the color of her skin, especially after the suffering of our Japanese American citizens experienced at the hands of their own government during WW2.

Dr. Mary Edwards Walker – Civil War era surgeon, women’s rights and dress reform advocate. A very legitimate choice.

Celia Cruz – Cuban-American singer, cultural icon, and one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century. I am Cuban American and am happy she is on the quarter though I still don’t believe entertainers should be put on currency. Though she at least made a political statement by rejecting the Cuban Communist-Socialist revolution to live in a then free country of the USA.

Zitkala-Ša – writer, composer, educator, and political activist. Also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, her big contribution was getting voting rights for the Native Indigenous Americans. She was definitely a well-educated and admirable person.

The Prophet By Kahlil Gibran Final Audio

On Death & The Farewell

I want to add that it has been one hundred years since this book was released. There should be a movement to resurrect its reading in schools. Kahlil Gibran was an important character that is being ignored in modern society. The Prophet was a bestseller and is still loved. May God bless his memory and his soul in heaven.