So the hospital just confirmed that Steve Jobs was near death, essentially. You must remember that every Apple press release and Jobs' personal release until now has been that he's fine, okay, dandy, peachy, doing well. Maybe Apple and Steve should remember that next time, and just be honest from the beginning.
I hope he has a healthy life that can be fulfilling.
BTW MetroMan, the surgery occurred in April and he didn't take medical leave until January, of which he wasn't reported to be in Memphis until later. Its obvious you are dead set on making sure his reputation is saved, regardless what happened, I'll just leave my comments as stated before: I wish him a full recovery.
I don't regret discussing the health portion, because as you know America has a lot of health care issues its dealing with right now as the system is literally falling apart at the core. Few people have access to proper health services these days and its getting exponentially worse each year.
And I still have doubts, even hospital reports can be botched if enough money is involved. This is America, and this is a Memphis hospital... Like I said, I grew up in Tennessee and have family in the medical field. I'm familiar with how things work down there, and pay-to-play is the name of the game. There are patients all over the state - people who have lived in Tennessee their entire lives and spent their entire care in that system - who have waited years for a liver and have died while waiting, so I still question how someone from out of state can fly in, in 2-3 months get on the list and get treated, then fly back out. I know you're preoccupied with Apple stock, Jobs' personal image. I'm more concerned with America's health system that is so gamed and pay-for-play its not even funny.
You must understand that 41 day 'average wait' time is an abstract number that doesn't mean a great deal, just like Canadian 'wait times' don't mean a great deal. Things run on triage in theory and supposedly in practice in any hospital system, people still wait for many months or years under an 'average' 41 day wait.
Although I can see why Tennessee could possibly have low waits: average high number of deaths via auto accidents and etc. expanding the donor pool, low popularity in the medical community. Most people don't think of medical science when they think of Tennessee, so most wouldn't seek care unless they are a local.
California's 'average' 300+ day wait is probably because there are far more people and far more out of state travel to get services in Cali's technologically renowned health services.
Methodist hospital is a high capacity transplant center, however, and I knew that since I lived blocks from the hospital in 2001-2002. I already made that call before it was 'official' and they were talking about Memphis, go back and read my posts and you'll see I already claimed it was Methodist hospital before it was official.
If you want a fairly balanced article on transplants in the United States, I hope you get a chance to read this:
http://news.health.com/2009/06/23/steven-jobs-new-liver/
It really doesn't focus only on Steve Jobs, it focuses on the system.
Page 3 has a most interesting quote:
According to the most recent estimates, the cost of a liver transplant is $519,600—a price tag that excludes roughly one-third of Americans because they don’t have sufficient insurance (or any insurance), Caplan estimates. According to data collected for UNOS, only about 5% of liver transplants are paid for out of pocket.
