Eigth Amendment: The Right to Health Care (the free vs. the incarcerated)

From 12/1/2003

The United States Constitution protects the rights and freedoms of all Americans. Even those Americans who are in prisons for convicted crimes. The Eighth Amendment states that "excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment." Under the Eighth Amendment punishment must generally be proportional to the crime committed.

The Supreme Court has also ruled that the Eighth Amendment prohibits inhumane prison conditions. Even though it was inhumane acts of violence that got them into prison in the first place. Prisons are also responsible for inmates' health care, held the Court in Estelle v. Gamble (1976).

According to a feature story ABC news (columnists Judy Muller and Peter Imber) conducted on Transplants for Prisoners on March 2, 2002, "there is an ongoing debate in US history on the degree of human rights prisoners are entitled to, particularly in regard to health care. This debate is even more controversial in the area of transplantation, since organ transplantation, unlike other medical therapies, requires an actual human supply of resources."

CBS conducted a feature story on health care in February 2002 about an incident that occurred in Sacramento, California in January 2002. A prison inmate serving 14 years for robbery received a taxpayer-supported transplant costing approximately $1 million with follow-up care, while 500 law abiding Californians and 4,000 other Americans waited for hearts. The operation saved the 31-year-old thief from dying of a viral heart condition. What about the father of three working two jobs to support his family and pay for his wife's medical bills due to her heart condition, knowing that she will only survive if she gets a new heart in less than a year.

"You have to wonder if a law-abiding, taxpaying citizen drew one last breath while Jailhouse Joe was getting a second wind," wrote Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez. According to Dr. Lawrence Schneiderman, medical professor at the University of California, San Diego, commented on the case stating "Medically, we have no reason to deny him. Socially, he violated society, but not so severely that he gives up his right to experience medical care. Doctors in medical practice don't have a right to make social decisions. If it's a limited resource, our choice should be who it will help the most."

Because apparently it will help an inmate so much more than a hardworking, free American who has to raise three children.

The inmate who received the heart was involved in a 1996 robbery in Los Angeles County, eight months after he was released from prison for burglary, and he wasn't eligible for parole until 2008.

So my fellow Americans, it seems as though to get a push up the waiting list for organs you need to commit a couple of crimes and become incarcerated. How inspiring!

The practice of giving convicts transplants is giving them more benefits than the general public. The denial of transplants should be part of the sentence or punishment for the crime which the prisoner has been sentenced.

"Prisoners forfeit their rights when convicted of committing crimes - their freedom, the right to vote, etc. -- why should they gain a new right to health care when they are imprisoned."

One in four (free) Americans do not have health care. But all 6.6 million men and women that made up the correctional population at the end of 2001 did under federal law which entitles prisoners to adequate medical care.

"Every civilized country provides health care to their inmates," said Ron Shansky, a consultant on health care for the California Department of Corrections. "The problem is all the other civilized countries guarantee health care for ALL their citizens."

And we think Canadians are weird?

In reality many inmates receive much better medical care when they are incarcerated than they had when they were free.

The reality of this situation was not lost on 41-year-old Frank Salgado of Las Vegas, Nevada. http://www.viewnews.com/2002/VIEW-May-01-Wed-2002/Summerlin/18592358.html

At the time of this initial report he was suffering from congestive heart failure and initially couldn't get on the transplant list because of money. When Salgado tried to get financial clearance for the procedure from his health insurance company, it claimed he had not been forthcoming with information about how serious his heart disease actually was in his application and his insurance company cancelled it.

He then raised $150,000 through fund raisers to get a place on the list. "I've paid my taxes for over 20-something years, been a good citizen, a good person in the community and I don't qualify for any help at all," Salgado said. "If I rob a bank and I get away with it, then hopefully I'll have the money for a heart transplant. If I get caught I'll go to jail and because I need a heart transplant they will take care of me. I'll get a heart and it will be paid for."

Whether Salgado ever received his life-saving transplant, I do not know, as no current information on him was located.

Prisoners are in fact less deserving and contribute less to society than honest members of the community and should therefore be passed over in consideration for limited organs.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=90611&page=1

So I survived the road trip to Toronto (barely)....

After 12 hours in the car, three of which we were trapped in traffic on the QEW (Canadian highway) we finally made it to downtown Toronto where our Mapquest directions went haywire. Every street we were suppose to turn down was closed for some reason.

When we did finally make it to our hotel, it looked like something out of a Stephen King horror movie. The hotel looked like a 1970s apartment building from Revere Beach equipped with an intercom system in the room. At that point I was too hungry and too tired to cry. We headed to a Tex-Mex restaurant were I filled up on Coronas in order to stay at that dreadful hotel....The Grange.

Saturday's Sox game was at 1:07pm and we were up at 7am and out of the hotel by 8am roaming the lonely streets of Toronto looking for a Dunkin Donuts. We found a coffee shop and other Red Sox t-shirt wearing fans. At about 11am we headed to the Rogers Centre and found a swarm of Sox fans. Headed to Wayne Gretzky's bar down the street and chatted up some British Sox fans.

It was an awesome day for a baseball game. Warm weather and clear blue skies. And the Sox won Friday night's game so we off to a great start. The stadium was great (but no Fenway Park). Our seats were great, nothing we could have ever gotten at Fenway for the price we paid. Although 16 ounce beers were $9.25.

Our road trip was cursed from the traffic jams getting there, the horrible hotel and of course, the Sox lost the only game we had tickets to; its was a 3-6 loss to the Blue Jays. And then there was the highway closure. A major highway equivalent to 128/95 being closed for an ENTIRE WEEKEND. What? Who does that? Apparently Canadians. Toronto decided to close down the QEW that exact weekend we were in town. It was closed from midnight on Friday until 5am on Monday morning - - well too bad we were leaving Sunday morning and had no idea what other highway to take to get out of that city.

After the Sox game we headed back to Wayne Gretzky's bar. And did I mention the hotel was dreadful? So of course I had to load up on Coronas Saturday night to head back to The Grange. So by 7am Sunday morning we were back on the road looking for a highway out of Toronto and back to Massachusetts. Next time I'm flying and staying at the Ritz.

At least the Sox won Sunday!

Help is on the way, but why bother saying Thank You

A blind man fell down the steps exiting the train the other day and no this isn't the start of a joke, I wish it was. But I had to pick him up; the guy was dead weight. Absolutely no help to himself. As he went crashing down the stairs a few people ran over to help, one of them even happened to be another man. But do you think he could have lifted him, NO. So, being the Good Samaritan, that I wish I wasn't I went down to the ground, bent my knees and lifted the blind man. I thought I was helping when I realized I was actually doing it all on my own while still holding my pocketbook. As I lifted him I ended up falling myself (which was pretty funny if you could have seen the look on my face I know I was making as I went crashing down).

After I lifted the blind man, with no help to himself or the other man; I didn't even get a freakin' "Thank You."

Ever spend 8 hours straight in a car with your loved one? How about 9 or even 10 hours?

Well.. I have and its not always fun.

Two years ago my boyfriend and I drove to Baltimore from Boston for a weekend for a Sox game and we swore we would never do that again. Mapquest said 8 hours, it took us 10 to get there and 9 to get home. It was sooooo long and the car ride was uncomfortable. We rented some little plastic Kia and sat in NYC traffic in the same spot for two hours! On the way home I bought an atlas so we could map out an alternate route to avoid NYC and its congestion. It took us 60 miles longer but we saved an hour, go figure!

So now, two years later, two years wiser and two years more together we are venturing out of state for another Sox game. This time to CANADA! We're heading to Toronto which is a lovely 9 hours away, that's right, no typo 9 hours! What are we thinking? The cost of airfare and hotel was over $1,000 EACH...that's why we chose to try and have another ROAD TRIP.

Hopefully I will make it and blog about our adventures next week....

Future Runaway Bride

MARRIAGE!! EEKKK!

I know my friends and I are in the age and life stage to be getting hitched, but does EVERYONE I know have to be getting married within the next couple of years.

It makes me and my lack of desire to do so feel out of place. The thought of sharing a bank account and running life-changing decisions by someone else gives me anxiety worse then when I was in grad school full-time trying to work full-time.

Am I immature to not want to get married anytime soon or if ever? Am I destined to become a cat-lady? My boyfriend doesn't think so, ha ha poor guy. You can tell he wants to tie the knot and I would rather fly solo and be irresponsible forever. With all my friends settling down it's only a matter of time before they'll be discussing family issues and kids, when I will be wanting to talk about the wild weekend I had in San Fran.

Tour de Boston

As a native of Massachusetts I hardly, if ever, do anything “touristy”; it’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just I don’t think to. So when the opportunity to take part in a bike tour with Urban Adventours and BostonNightLife.TV came up, I jumped on it.

We met Sam, our tour guide at Landry’s Bicycles at 890 Comm Ave in Boston. It was one of those non-seasonal summer nights we’ve been having and it felt like early October. Perfect weather for a 10-mile bike tour. I randomly bike to the gym or around Watertown but I am a far cry from an avid biker. I had no idea what to wear! I rocked my UNLV hoodie and gym pants along with my JanSport backpack to hold my wallet and cell phone. Since the tour was at 7:30pm and it was getting dark I had to wear my glasses so I didn’t crash into anything. I looked like the biggest geek (which you can see from the photos taken).

We got going at 7:30ish and headed for Fenway (thankfully there wasn’t a game). We peddled up through Lansdowne Street, stopped for a photo op, and then proceeded towards the Christian Science Plaza. I have never heard of the Christian Science Plaza let alone ever been there until Wednesday. It was a really nice area. Two churches, a reflecting pool and a lot of open space and room for us to bike our way through. Since Doug and I were both natives of Massachusetts and live in the Boston-area, Sam didn’t go into too much tourist-information detail on a lot of the places we stopped at. He was very informative though when we did have questions. He told us that when the John Hancock building was built all the windows fell out. It had something to do with the material the windows were made out of and not taking the right measurements; when the doors opened they were testing the air conditioning and the reaction of hot and cold air caused the windows to actually shrink, hence causing them to ALL fall out.

We received a basic tour of Boston stopping at Copley, Boston Common, Downtown Crossing, the Garden and lastly cruising along the Charles River passing the hatch shell (and noticing for the first time ever that there are Gondola rides on the Charles).

Our tour was about an hour but they do have longer tours that cover a lot more terrain. The offer City View tours, Funway to Fenway, Paul Revere Ride to Freedom, Greening the Greenway, Tour de Boston and Sunday Cycle. We got a little taste of each tour. Normally their tours take place during the day, but the chance to bike Boston at night was awesome. Seeing things you would not have probably noticed on your own or during the day made Boston seem new again to a couple of veteran city-dwellers.

Eco-friendly Urban Adventours offers people the chance to tour Boston the “green” way. Their bio-diesel bike delivery truck runs on recycled vegetable oil from Boston’s North End. Their tours which offer an original perspective of Boston and not just the tourist stops are offered 7 days a week, at 10am and 2pm and average 2-3 hours in length. Anyone from 3 to 93 is welcome and encouraged to ride.

For those you aren’t interested in a tour but still want to bike Boston on their own, Urban Adventours offers 24-hour bike rentals just call 800-979-3370 to make reservations.

How Civil Engineering Firms Influence Corporations in the Pre-Purchase Stage of the Buying Process

Civil Engineering is a discipline within the field of engineering that deals with the creation of design, implementation of construction and on-going maintenance of the physical and natural built environment, including structures such as canals, dams, buildings, bridges and roads (Dictionary.com). Civil Engineering firms and civil engineers develop and maintain human-created structures to coincide with the world.

Their projects and developments are constructed to allow an easier lifestyle and function of daily life for the people with which are residing in the area of their projects. Within the discipline of civil engineering there are ten sub-disciplines that include construction, environmental, geotechnical, hydraulic, materials science, structural, surveying, wind, geographic information system and transportation engineering. Civil engineers typically apply the principles of geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, environmental engineering, transportation engineering and construction engineering to residential, commercial, and industrial and public works projects of all sizes and levels of construction.

Civil Engineering Clients and Consumers

Civil engineering firms’ clients consist of corporations or the government to design and develop structures. Firms bid for the projects that are to be set in motion. Individual consumers do not hire civil engineers to build fix projects on their land. All structures designed and constructed by civil engineers are regulated and must abide by a set of state and federal laws. Safety is the number one concern for all engineering, civil in particular since it handles the erection of fixtures such as bridges and roads that are traveled on daily by civilians.

Factors that Influence Client Expectations

As discussed on day two of Professor Hodges’ Professional Services Marketing class, the factors that influence client expectation are desired and predicted services as with all professional services, civil engineering has to apply these factors when marketing to their clients. For example, the civil engineering firm, Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. notes on their site that “Kimley Horn ranks among the 20 largest US firms in ‘pure’ design, transportation, general building, retail, multiunit residential, airports, highway, wireless communications and mass transit.” This explicit service promise declared by Kimley-Horn gives a non-personal statement to the client viewing their site that they are ranked among select firms in the United States to provide a “pure” product with their services. Their implicit service promises will lead clients or potential clients to assumptions about what the service should and will be like, especially the cost factor since most corporations and government organizations are on a budget for projects.

Kimley-Horn also needs to be concerned with their WOM status or word-of-mouth statements made by current and past clients. Bad WOM can be detrimental to a professional services firm. How they service their clients now will determine how the client reflects on the past experience with the firm and if they were satisfied or utterly impressed with the firm.

Influencing Corporations in the Pre-Purchase Stage of the Buying Process

Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. has worked on projects for retail conglomerates like Wal-Mart/Sam’s Club and CVS. For example, Kimley-Horn was working on the Wal-Mart/Sam’s Club/Sam’s Gas project in Glendale, Arizona and the team at Kimley-Horn was almost finished with the project when a new ordinance went into effect. They had to move quickly and work with brokers, attorneys and city staff to get the project up and running again only to be side-tracked once again by a decision to bridge adjacent dry wash to the building, which significantly changed how the site worked. According to their site they led the team to obtain all necessary approvals, redesign on- and off- facilities, and completed the project with minimal delay (Kimley-Horn.com). Having a successful recovery testimonial like this one can lead Wal-Mart/Sam’s Club to rely and trust Kimley-Horn in the future when other unexpected occurrences may arise. When Wal-Mart approaches the time of choosing a civil engineering firm on their next retail facility construction and while going through the “deciding on alternatives” approach in their pre-purchase stage, the executives at Wal-Mart headquarters will remember this success story and be more prone to hire Kimley-Horn once again.

Wal-Mart will have a more willingness to continue patronizing Kimley-Horn over the long term as well as other great word-of-mouth referrals to other colleagues looking for a civil engineering firm. This quick recovery effort and customer-needs orientated service provided by Kimley-Horn is partly due to the fact that the employees are well appreciated internally. Kimley-Horn had the communication and team resources readily available that will positively affect the future buying behavior of the Wal-Mart Corporation. Wal-Mart has a reputation of being an organization to warrant low rates and bids when working with other organizations and firms. As Mark Busny stated in his lecture on May 15, 2008 “internal communication and employee satisfaction is vital to the success of a firm.” An article from FastCompany.com in April 2007 explains just how satisfied the Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. employees are.

The article states that at any time, for any reason, without permission, any employee can award a bonus of $50 to any other employee. “Any employee who does something exceptional receives recognition from their peers within minute,” says Barry Barber, Human-Resources Director at Kimley-Horn. To implement the award, a form is downloaded by an employee looking to recognize another. On the form he/she explains their thinking, signs it, and if able delivers the form to the recipient. The recipient sends the form to payroll to cash it in. “When we think of what our clients received for that $55 (the extra $5 is to cover taxes),” Barber says, “We know it is money well spent.” This is a great example of how the firm rewards and appreciates their employees internally knowing that happy employees provide exceptional customer relations managing and service.

Recommendations and Suggestions on Marketing Strategy and Tactics

After researching civil engineering at the firm Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. I have concluded on a few marketing communication strategy recommendations and suggestions. First, their website needs a “face-lift”; whether it is to attract new hires and engineers or current clients the page of “locations” is non-existent and their “contact us” page only provides a link to email a department, no names or telephone numbers or even an address. Build on search engine optimization to increase likelihood of being placed on the first two pages of an engine search for civil engineering firms. I strongly recommend Human Resources and Development to focus on recruitment; recruiting the best of the best for their firm.

Along with continuing to support and service their already existing clients they should expose themselves to new client acquisitions, as Dr. Blasé mentioned, “a business will not succeed if driven for the mere fact to make money; a business will succeed when it strives to survive.”

• Improve and update website


• Recruitment
  
• Increase exposure for new client acquisitions


• Continue to service existing clients
  

Conclusion

I believe it was Kotler that said “marketing communications alone can not create positive feelings and purchases; service itself must provide value to clients. Bottom line: Service sold.” As long as Kimley-Horn continues to provide exceptional service to its clients and has its strategic marketing efforts in place then it will continue to thrive as one of the top 20 firms in the United States.