From Lorra of Pantherville...
Our Founding Fathers did not know the meaning of compromise. Each of these men knew they were signing their own death warrants. They sacrificed their lives, their fortunes, and their honor for freedom. I can only hope that when the time comes for me to lay it all on the line that I will NOT shy away from such a duty.
There are not enough words that can be written to express the value of these men's actions....to the many who sacrificed so much...Happy 4th of July to all!!
The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government — lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.
Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry
It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains.
Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry
The Sacrifices Made by the Men Who Signed the Declaration
Michael Sabo
When reading the Declaration of Independence, it is easy to focus only on the sweeping language of the second paragraph and skip over the names and mutual pledge of the signers at its conclusion.
Though the principles enunciated in its opening paragraphs, such as the self-evident truth that all men are created equal, provide the moral and philosophical foundation on which the American regime rests, it is important to acknowledge that declaring principles alone secures nothing.
Principles need to be enforced by individuals who have the habits of character necessary to fight for them, and perhaps even die for them, if need be. In a time where talk of rights dominates our political discourse, a focus on duties is indispensable in order to teach citizens the responsibilities they owe toward each other and their posterity.
The signers’ mutual pledge to themselves to sacrifice their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor for the cause of independence shows that these men took seriously their duties to the people of the new nation.
Of the 56 men who signed the declaration, 12 fought in battles as members of state militias, five were captured and imprisoned during the Revolutionary War, 17 lost property as a result of British raids, and five lost their fortunes in helping fund the Continental Army and state militias battle the redcoats.
Below we will explore the sacrifices the signers made on behalf of the American cause.
Thomas Heyward Jr., Edward Rutledge, and Arthur Middleton
Thomas Heyward Jr. of South Carolina was a signer of both the declaration and the Articles of Confederation. Heyward drew the ire of the British when, as a circuit court judge, he presided over the trial of several loyalists who were found guilty of treason. The prisoners were summarily executed in full view of British troops. In 1779, he joined the South Carolina militia as a captain of artillery.
Heyward’s compatriot in the South Carolina delegation, Edward Rutledge, also served in the state militia. At age 26, Rutledge was the youngest signer of the Declaration of Independence. After returning home from attending the Second Continental Congress in 1777, he joined the militia as captain of an artillery battalion.
Both Heyward and Rutledge aided their country in the battle at Port Royal Island, where they helped Gen. Moultrie defeat British Maj. William Gardiner and his troops.
Arthur Middleton, the last of the South Carolina delegation who served in the militia, took up arms against the British during the siege of Charleston in 1780. His fellow signers, Heyward and Rutledge, fought in that battle as well.
Upon the surrender of Charleston, all three men were captured by the British and were sent to a prison in St. Augustine, Florida, which was reserved for people the British thought were particularly dangerous. They were held there for almost a year before being released. On route to Philadelphia for a prisoner exchange in July 1781, Heyward almost drowned. He survived his fall overboard by clinging to the ship’s rudder until he could be rescued.
During the British occupation of Charleston, Commandant Nisbet Balfour ordered the seizure of many estates in Charleston, including those owned by Heyward and Middleton.
During his imprisonment, Heyward’s wife died at home, and his estate and property were heavily damaged. Rutledge’s estate was left intact, but his family had to sell many of their belongings in order to make the trip to Philadelphia to reunite with him after his release. Middleton’s estate was left relatively untouched, but his collection of rare paintings was destroyed during the British occupation of his home.
Thomas Nelson Jr.
Thomas Nelson Jr. of the Commonwealth of Virginia was appointed to the position of brigadier general and commander-in-chief of the Virginia militia by Gov. Patrick Henry in August 1777. At that time it was thought that the British would be making a full scale invasion of the state. Nelson was able to muster only a few hundred men to defend Virginia, but the British instead decided to attack Philadelphia.
Nelson inherited a vast family fortune, much of which he used to support the American effort. He personally paid for the return journey home of 70 troops he had led to meet the British in Philadelphia during the summer of 1778. In the spring of 1780, Nelson signed his name to a loan for $2 million that was needed to purchase provisions for the French fleet that was coming to America’s aid in the war.
As then-governor of Virginia, during the Battle of Yorktown he ordered American troops to fire upon his mansion, which had been commandeered by Gen. Cornwallis and his men.
Richard Stockton
A member of the New Jersey delegation, Richard Stockton, had his estate commandeered by the British for use as a headquarters. As they left, British troops burned all his personal effects—including his library, private papers, furniture, and clothes.
Though Stockton was in hiding at the time, he ultimately did not escape capture; a traitor led the British to his position in November 1776. He was held captive in Amboy, New Jersey, and was then sent to New York City where he was imprisoned in a jail reserved for common criminals. Incensed by his treatment, Congress worked with British Gen. William Howe to obtain his release.
George Walton
Because of his small build and stature, George Walton was thought to be the youngest of the signers of the declaration (he was actually in his mid-30s). He hailed from Georgia and served as colonel in the first regiment of the state militia in 1778. During the siege of Savannah, a cannonball broke Walton’s leg, which led to his being captured. He was held captive for nine months and was released in the early fall of 1779 in a prisoner exchange for a British navy captain.
At the same time Walton was held prisoner, his wife Dorothy was captured by the British. She was imprisoned on an island in the West Indies and was eventually freed after a prisoner exchange. During the Waltons’ confinement, the British ransacked their home.
George Clymer
British troops destroyed the home of George Clymer of Pennsylvania in September 1777 when they captured Philadelphia. Though his home was outside of the city, it was right in the middle of the path of the British march. American loyalists pointed out to the British homes belonging to patriots, which of course included Clymer’s estate.
Clymer also contributed to the war monetarily. He converted his entire fortune into continental currency, a risky move considering the likelihood that the currency would be rendered worthless. He also told wealthy friends to contribute to the American cause.
Robert Morris
A delegate from Pennsylvania, Robert Morris helped insure Washington’s victory at Yorktown by using his own credit to obtain the supplies necessary to defeat the British. He spent more than $1 million (not adjusted for inflation) of his own money to accomplish this.
While serving as superintendent of finance of the United States, Morris regularly used his own financial resources to obtain much needed supplies. Using his own funds, for example, he purchased one thousand barrels of flour for Washington’s men in late spring of 1778.
Lewis Morris
Lewis Morris of New York served as a major general in the state militia. Morris devoted himself to recruiting men to serve in the militia and to help keep supplies up, which was a constant problem. For almost the entire length of the war, the British occupied his home, Morrisania, and used it as their headquarters. This forced Morris to live off of his close friends and associates until the war ended in 1783.
John Hancock
John Hancock of Massachusetts, the man with the largest signature on the declaration, served in the militia as major general in 1778. Hancock was put in command of approximately 6,000 men during the Rhode Island campaign. That campaign was ultimately unsuccessful because the French failed to carry out their end of the bargain.
Caesar Rodney
Caesar Rodney served in the Delaware militia as well, attaining the rank of brigadier general. Rodney famously road on horseback straight from Dover to Philadelphia to cast his vote in favor of declaring independence (the Delaware delegation was split). He was with his men in the field during the brutal winter of 1776, helped quash an uprising in Delaware (there were a large number of loyalists within the state), and helped in George Washington’s effort to defend Philadelphia from being taken by the British.
Carter Braxton
Carter Braxton of the Virginia delegation accumulated massive personal debts helping the American effort in the war. He loaned 10,000 pounds sterling to Congress, which was never repaid. He also spent much of his wealth outfitting American ships so that they could carry more cargo. Due to the British capturing some of his vessels and others being lost out on the high seas, he suffered great financial calamity. These accumulated losses left him bankrupt by war’s end.
Oliver Wolcott
A delegate from Connecticut, Oliver Wolcott served as captain and then major general in the state militia. In 1776, he was appointed to lead 14 regiments in defense of New York City. He also commanded thousands of men in the Battle of Saratoga. Wolcott worked tirelessly to recruit for the Connecticut militia, which, like the army in general, was sorely lacking in numbers within its ranks.
William Whipple
William Whipple of New Hampshire served as brigadier general in the state militia. He fought against Gen. Burgoyne at the battles of Stillwater and Saratoga (commonly pointed to as the turning point for Americans in the war) in 1777. The following year, Whipple participated in the retaking of Rhode Island.
Thomas McKean
Thomas McKean of Delaware served as colonel in the Delaware state militia. Once McKean was appointed to the office of President of Delaware in 1777, he was targeted by the British (the British captured John McKinley, the previous president). He had to move his family on five occasions because of raids by both the British and local Indian tribes.
Francis Lewis
Francis Lewis of New York signed the declaration on August 2, 1776. Although he was present when independence was declared a month earlier, the New York delegation did not get permission from the state’s legislature to sign the document. A few months after affixing his signature on the declaration, British troops destroyed the Long Island estate of Lewis. They took Lewis’ wife and put her in prison where she was tortured on a regular basis. Under the direction of George Washington, she was finally returned in a prisoner exchange two years later.
Benjamin Franklin
Known as the sage of Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania was the oldest of the signers of the declaration. Prior to setting sail for France in late 1776 to ask the French for assistance in the war, Franklin gave his entire fortune to Congress to help fund the war.
John Hart
Hessian mercenaries plundered signer John Hart’s 400-acre farm outside of Hopewell, New Jersey. Prior to his farm being captured, Hart was forced to leave his family because of advancing British troops. During his absence, his wife died, and his children were sent to live with neighbors.
William Ellery
The estate of William Ellery of Delaware was burned down during the British occupation of Newport, Rhode Island. Ellery served in the Second Continental Congress until the British left Newport, which they held for three years. He returned home in order to salvage what was left of his property.
Joseph Hewes
With his fortunes built on trade, Joseph Hewes of North Carolina was a vigorous proponent of the decision of the First Continental Congress to cut off all imports and exports with the British. This of course had the effect of drying up his wealth. Interestingly, Hewes also renounced his Quaker religion in order to support the war.
James Smith
A delegate from Pennsylvania, James Smith served in the Pennsylvania militia as captain, colonel, and then as brigadier general. He was one of the first to raise men for the possibility of defending his home state, a duty he took up beginning as early as 1774.
Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison of Virginia, whose son and grandson both served as U.S. presidents, complained in a letter to Gov. William Livingston of New Jersey that his debts had accumulated substantially because of the “ravages” and “plunderings” of the British.
William Floyd
While William Floyd of New York served as a delegate in the Second Continental Congress, the British sacked his estate, forcing his family to flee. Though they made it safely to Connecticut, his family was left without a home for the duration of the war.
William Hooper
William Hooper of North Carolina outlasted British raiders who were looking to capture him and his family. In 1782, he and his family fled Wilmington after it fell to the British. Though much of his property was destroyed, he and his family were reunited at the conclusion of the war.
Lyman Hall
The British destroyed the home and plantation of Lyman Hall of Georgia. Luckily, his family escaped before the British arrived and moved up North to be with him
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It has happened here in the small town of Pantherville. The two privately run clinics are now
completely under the control of the Seventh-day Adventist system. The doctors in those two clinics do whatever Seventh-day tells them they can or can't do. They have no say in the staff that works in their clinics. Gone... is the doctor/patient relationship. Gone... are the treatments, medicines, procedures, surgeries the doctors think would be best to treat their patients, that is now all decided by Seventh-day Adventist medical panels.
July 12, 2016
Obamacare and the Private Practitioner: 2016
By Keith Jackson
Private practice medicine in the United States is rapidly going away. In the past few years, the percentage of doctors who own their own businesses has plummeted. The middle class, the supposed beneficiaries of Obamacare, can't afford their deductibles and are avoiding necessary treatments and tests because of costs, leading doctors to have to care for them at more advanced stages of disease. Doctors (and nurses), the highest trained and most knowledgeable providers of patient care, are mostly data input vehicles for the massive electronic medical records systems. And the amount of money that has been shoveled into the great abyss of the new government bureaucracy is enough to have bought all of us excellent private care, yet our care and our coverage for that care is worse.
Before Obamacare, the percentage of physicians owning their own businesses was around 70%. It is now hovering around 30%. The reason for the shift is not widely reported. As costs to run their businesses have been going up, reimbursements to doctors are going down, making the margin for being able to stay open smaller and smaller. Meanwhile, hospitals are doing comparatively better. Why? Because they can charge more for a service than doctors can charge. Hospitals can do this because they have traditionally taken care of the uninsured, and states have written into their books a differential in the reimbursement to make things "fair." This differential allows hospital corporations the ability to afford to buy doctors' practices.
This affects costs adversely. (Get ready for a lesson in medical billing "transparency"). As an example, if Dr. Jones charges $535 for a C.T. scan of the sinuses as a private practitioner and submits the bill to an insurer, he may receive as payment $235. If a hospital owns the practice, and the billing is done through the hospital's auspices, they can charge $895 and may get $695. If the doctor then looks down your throat through your nose with a fiber-optic endoscope, he charges $180 and receives $60 in payment from the insurers, while the hospital can charge $365 and get $285.
Because of these differentials, the hospital can negotiate with the doctors to buy their medical and surgical practices with the ability to stabilize their drop in take-home income and allow their offices to remain open. Doctors who used to be staunch advocates of private practice health care have little choice and join "the Borg." Your costs go up. Private practice goes away.
(Interestingly, hospital corporations still don't get what they pay for, as doctors often work less diligently as a part of a conglomerate, and even when they do, the costs of running the practices are frequently higher than hospitals predict. They make up for this by restricting that surgeries be done only at their facilities, as surgeries can make up the profit differential, as anyone who has gotten a surgery bill will attest.)
The middle classes and upper middle classes are bearing the brunt of Obamacare, and it negatively impacts physicians and their ability to care for them. In order to afford insurance, people often choose very high deductible plans, usually with no health care savings account to assist them with unexpected costs. And as every American knows, we tend to live right on the edge of what our paychecks allow. As a result, because it is essentially a cash proposition to go to the doctor until that deductible is met, and since billing for health care is done with the knowledge that most bills are negotiated down by insurers and are inflated as a result, affording a visit to the doctor is financially untenable. Because we don't have cash stashed away for this contingency, we tend to allow disease to progress farther before it is addressed.
A typical example of the plight of the middle and upper middle class with high insurance deductibles is seen in hospital infusion centers. When checking in, these groups frequently are counseled that they need to see the financial department to go over their situation. Americans with a good income may buy a house that is just around the maximum allowed by the banks. They may choose to send their kid to a private school. They know that if they work hard, they can eventually pay the bill, because that formula has worked for them in the past. Then they get cancer. An $8,000.00 deductible and owing 20% of the bill has them staring bankruptcy right in the face. This negatively effects care and makes the job of the private practitioner nearly impossible, with "can I do something less expensive?" a chronic refrain. Many choose no care at all.
Surgeons who used to do frequent semi-elective procedures in communities with relative above average wealth have seen their number of surgery cases plummet, as people will live with their "bum knee" or "sinus" rather than pay to have the problem improved. (As a result, it would probably not be all that surprising if health care costs are going down, as people are not doing things for their health that used to be commonplace. After all, a surgeon doing less surgery saves a bunch of money.)
If you have been to a hospital in the past few years, you have probably noticed that nurses and doctors are not in patient's rooms like in the past. They are camped out at portable computer stations, inputting data so that proper billing is justified. They are the only people in the system who truly know what care has been delivered and how it should be coded into the electronic medical record system. From a bureaucratic point of view, this would seem optimal. Reasonably and practically, however, it is a nightmare.
To adequately fill in all of the checked boxes to justify levels of care for billing purposes would take more time than can reasonably be extended to a patient than the practitioner has available. Then there is the necessary impersonality of having to look at the computer while talking to the patient so that you don't have to catch up later, making the patient think that you are not listening and are not relatable. When a patient doesn't trust the doctor, the compliance to the recommended care plan is gone. That doctor's effectiveness in helping the patient suffers, as does the patient.
The impact of the electronic medical records systems (EMRs) is profound. Doctors see fewer patients. They end up bringing more work home. The resulting notes that are sent to the referring physicians are cumbersome and almost unreadable. Unless editing is done by some provider with a lot of time on their hands, misdiagnoses are forever listed under "patient problems," as are medications that were never received. Doctors who spend 45 minutes discussing what another provider might take 5 minutes to do frequently miss out on differential reimbursement because they are not up to speed on the latest coding changes. Cleaning up a chart to reflect all that had been asked and done could take two or three ancillary assistants that the doctors cannot afford to employ. Doctors incrementally do less health care for their patients and more data entry facilitation, decreasing the joy and accomplishment of the profession and decreasing the quality of the encounter.
In addition, the whole point of EMR is to data-mine. The reason for data-mining is essentially to help third parties decide what service that they will pay less for in the next billing cycle. So by checking the interminable boxes in the medical record, the doctor is complicit in his own financial demise.
The instillation and management of Obamacare is so entrenched now as to be almost unassailable. It has cost us untold monies. It promised us much more than it delivered. It has not been worth the investment. Yet with the number of people dependent on the government-run elements of covered care, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Tricare, the possibility of reversing the course back to private care delivery from private hands is about zero.
When the BBC came to America before voting on Obamacare, they sought out people to interview who didn't have health coverage and asked about their concerns. One woman in Georgia with a strong breast cancer family history was afraid to see the doctor because of cost. The BBC essentially shamed us for the situation, castigating our system as unfair. At the time, however, the chance of that uninsured American surviving her breast cancer diagnosis was substantially higher than a corresponding "covered by the National Health Service" woman in England. No one ever mentioned this fact.
Private practice medicine run by doctors who could "adjust the bill," make payment plans more suitable for indigent patients and create "lost leaders" – taking a financial hit on one service knowing that they could make up for it with the better reimbursement from another service – were a much better means to provide care. The government-initiated efforts to save us money and increase affordability were dumb from the beginning and have taken away from us one of the greatest things about American health care, namely doctors working with patients to provide care that the doctor and patient both deem is best for that individual. They have skyrocketed costs and impersonalized care.
Who in his right mind would want to "hang up a shingle" in this environment?
Keith Jackson is a otolaryngology, head, and neck surgeon in Atlanta, Georgia.
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