June 24, 2026 • 11 mins
Dr. Jim Keany, Chief Medical Officer at Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, joins The Bill Handel Show for 'Medical News'! Dr. Keany talks with Bill about
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is a Wednesday, the twenty fourth of June, and
since it is a Wednesday, at eight thirty, last half
hour of our show, it's doctor Jim Keeney who joins
us er doc extraordinaire, thirty years in the er room,
thirty years with us.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
By the way, Jim, good morning, Good morning Bill. All right,
a story just came out about healthcare.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I've talked about this before many many times, but once
again it's under the microscope, and that is I mean,
it's a given that healthcare in this country sucks, and
it is the most No country spends as much for
healthcare as we do and affordability for a huge portion
(00:45):
of Americans. We are not the best country in the
world for healthcare unless you happen to live in a
major city and have great insurance and are near a
great medical facility.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Comment all right, well, yeah, I mean, I I would
say we do have really good medical care in the
United States. But this is the part that you're right about,
is that you've got to have the money to do that.
You have to have the money to participate. And fifty
percent of Americans in this latest studies show that they
cannot afford healthcare they can't afford to pay for their insurance.
(01:19):
So you know, it is definitely a case of the
haves versus the have not. If you're in the haves group,
you get some of the best healthcare in the world.
If you're in the have not group, well, you know,
you may get lucky, you may live in an area
like you said, that has those resources, but definitely it's
a big difference.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah. One of the things, and we're going to spend
a minute here talking about politics, and that is the
fear somehow that a national healthcare plan, like every other country,
industrialized country in the world, has it.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Paid by the taxpayer.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
It's a if you want to call it a socialized system.
For some reason, the fear that it's socialism I've never understood.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
And because as soon as you hit sixty five and it's.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Medicare, you're in socialist medicare in medical land, and the
very people who hate healthcare jump right onto their medicare.
Any idea why, and I know this is just this
is not medical Just Bill Handle talking to Jim Keiney
right now.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
It's just that's kind of just rhetoric, you know, just talk.
The truth is that a single payer system is not help.
Is not a socialized medicine. Single payer system just means
there's one payer. It happens to be the government. Doctors
can still work in a capitalist environment, working at the
feeper service, and so they're getting paid piece meal essentially,
(02:52):
and it's not socialized medicine. Socialized medicine is when the
government directly employs the physician pays their salary, and typically
they just they pay a salary and things like productivity
markers and everything else are less important. So you do
end up with some somewhat less productivity in a lot
of those situations, but you know, you also end up
(03:16):
a problems with the capitalist system. So there's pros and
cons of both sides. Honestly, in areas where they have
single pay systems where the government pays for health care,
like I got to say, one of the best I've
seen is to buy and yet they still have problems, right,
they still can't afford to treat everyone at the top
(03:36):
level all the time.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Well, the government employment Canada, I believe the doctors are
employed by the government and cannot practice privately. But in
our sense, the it's not single payer. You're right, this
is a single pay issue. It's when the government pays
for all medical care. And then the other side of
(04:00):
it is obviously, if you have an emergency, you know,
you get shot, you have a heart attack. Man, you're
getting right in, so there's no issue. But other than that,
any elective surgery, you're waiting and waiting and waiting. I understand.
In Canada it can take you what three years, four
years to get a knee replacement, I understand. Even an abortion,
(04:22):
It'll take you fourteen months to get an abortion.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yeah, no, I mean, okay, so Canada, we all always
villinize Canada. But the truth is their system works pretty
darn well. There are no you know, they've done studies
to look for these people fleeing across the border from
Canada to the US to get healthcare, and they just
can't find any. I mean, you're right. For joint replacements,
joint replacements are something that occur over decades, right, Your
(04:48):
joints degrade over time, and even in America, you have
a long conversation with your doctor unless you really just
were suffering and suffering and suffering for decades and you
finally saw orcopedic surgeon at the end of the road. Well,
then it's going to be a more of a rush job.
But typically people are complaining of joint pains long before
they need a joint replacement. But in Canada, if you need,
(05:12):
you know, if you have breast cancer, you're going to
have surgery as rapidly as the United States. So it's
really not in Canadians, by the way, are deathly afraid
of stepping into the US health system. They know that
we're the number one cause of bankruptcy in our country
is healthcare, and so they always buy travelers insurance, even
(05:34):
the drive across the border, because they're afraid they'll get
taken to an emergency room and then the bills will
be so high, like they get in a car accident
driving across the border and suddenly they're bankrupt.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Now you know, well, and at r R where you
were for years and years and years mission hospital. Let's
say I go into the emergency room and I'm there
all day and they run the tests, I walk out
the door. How much can it cost?
Speaker 3 (06:01):
You know, it depends on what you're coming in for.
I had a friend who came in for a kidney
stone and he was there for like two hours. But
the tests we ran with cat scans and everything else
and ended up being about a six thousand dollar bill total.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, and I think.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
From what I hear that is dirt cheap, all right,
Jim cosmetic fillers, And I love these stories of it's
always some woman of certain whatever ethnic distraction in the
back of a dumpster someplace and people and she gives
you know, but shots.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So it's actually more common than we know. Let's talk
about that.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Sure as Okay, So the story here was that one
of the executive at fd Lauder ended up getting filler
in his space and drop literally dropped in soon after
at the corner relief that he suffered from a pulmonary embolism.
So that is the bloodslong, the lungs. It can happen.
(07:09):
It's a very rare current after getting siller. But it's
just a reminder that these that minimally invasive doesn't mean
no risk, right, And you still want to get the
right products injected into you if you don't want to
go to some fly by night, you know, back alley.
You want to make sure that people understand anatomy, uh
(07:29):
and that these are well trained individuals that are injecting
this stuff even in your face. There's a lot of
blood vessels in your face, very vascular, and a couple
of ways you can get a blood spot in your
lungs from this is if you either injected you end
up right in a vein, right and you're injecting this
spiller right into the vein. It goes through you, through
(07:50):
to your heart, through the heart to the lungs, and
then that filler will create a blood you know, a
blockage in your lung The other way is in bigger
areas like the butducks. You're mentioning that the common area
for this to happen, you compressed the vessels so much
that the blood platforms, it breaks off and goes to
the laws.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Now that's a that's a sfanity call straight ahead. I mean,
there's no medical reason they have one of these, is there?
Speaker 3 (08:20):
I mean, so there, now there's you're right, there are
some medically legitimate reasons that they initially, like these things
were initially approved for people with muscle wasting, say that
they have HIV with severe muscle wasting in the face.
They could replenish a lot of that muscle wastings. You
didn't have, like that skeleton base things like that, So
(08:43):
you know that's more restorative than cosmetic, but yeah, it's
it's essentially a cosmetic procedure. And well, you know ninety
nine percent of people are using this for cosmetic procedures.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, I mean, I assume you wouldn't do this at all,
but then you have a very good looking But I
must tell you, Jim, I've appreciated. I've appreciated for many years.
Every time I see you, I get would to be
honest with you. Okay, one real quick one, and that
is we talked about this morning. The CDC blocked that
(09:17):
COVID vaccine study and can you think of any reason
that would happen.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Well, they're not the ones that should be even making
the decision, right, it's the it's the peeridy journal that
needs to protect the reputation and only publish studies that
have been peer reviewed and are actually decent quality studies. Right,
No studies one hundred percent perfect, But the study had
to need a certain level of rigor. And yeah, so
(09:45):
this was clearly a political move to stop a study
like this from being published. Ultimately, it was published, and
it kind of runs counter to the current administration. You know,
philosophies on vaccination and on on it specifically and how
effective the vaccine is. And this is the study was
specific to the twenty twenty five twenty six code vaccine
(10:08):
and it definitely showed that people who received the vaccine
were left likely to get COVID and left likely to
be hospitalized, so continues to show a benefit.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Essentially, this did meet the requirements, as you said, in
terms of peer reviewed and the scientific application to it.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Did it not exactly?
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah, so that ultimately the peer review journal had it
peer reviewed and felt that it was a study that
was a good enough rigor that it was it was
worthy to people up in their journals. And you know,
again if they with these people, their reputation is everything.
If they published garbage, nobody's going to the New England
Journal of Medicine starts publishing garbage, nobody's going to read it.
(10:49):
But it's a prestigious journal. I think this one was
published in Gama, another prestigious journal, So it's it's you know,
it's important to them.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
All right, Jim.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Thanks, we'll talk again next Wednesday, as we always do.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Have a good day.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Take care,
It is a Wednesday, the twenty fourth of June, and
since it is a Wednesday, at eight thirty, last half
hour of our show, it's doctor Jim Keeney who joins
us er doc extraordinaire, thirty years in the er room,
thirty years with us.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
By the way, Jim, good morning, Good morning Bill. All right,
a story just came out about healthcare.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I've talked about this before many many times, but once
again it's under the microscope, and that is I mean,
it's a given that healthcare in this country sucks, and
it is the most No country spends as much for
healthcare as we do and affordability for a huge portion
(00:45):
of Americans. We are not the best country in the
world for healthcare unless you happen to live in a
major city and have great insurance and are near a
great medical facility.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Comment all right, well, yeah, I mean, I I would
say we do have really good medical care in the
United States. But this is the part that you're right about,
is that you've got to have the money to do that.
You have to have the money to participate. And fifty
percent of Americans in this latest studies show that they
cannot afford healthcare they can't afford to pay for their insurance.
(01:19):
So you know, it is definitely a case of the
haves versus the have not. If you're in the haves group,
you get some of the best healthcare in the world.
If you're in the have not group, well, you know,
you may get lucky, you may live in an area
like you said, that has those resources, but definitely it's
a big difference.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah. One of the things, and we're going to spend
a minute here talking about politics, and that is the
fear somehow that a national healthcare plan, like every other country,
industrialized country in the world, has it.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Paid by the taxpayer.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
It's a if you want to call it a socialized system.
For some reason, the fear that it's socialism I've never understood.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
And because as soon as you hit sixty five and it's.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Medicare, you're in socialist medicare in medical land, and the
very people who hate healthcare jump right onto their medicare.
Any idea why, and I know this is just this
is not medical Just Bill Handle talking to Jim Keiney
right now.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
It's just that's kind of just rhetoric, you know, just talk.
The truth is that a single payer system is not help.
Is not a socialized medicine. Single payer system just means
there's one payer. It happens to be the government. Doctors
can still work in a capitalist environment, working at the
feeper service, and so they're getting paid piece meal essentially,
(02:52):
and it's not socialized medicine. Socialized medicine is when the
government directly employs the physician pays their salary, and typically
they just they pay a salary and things like productivity
markers and everything else are less important. So you do
end up with some somewhat less productivity in a lot
of those situations, but you know, you also end up
(03:16):
a problems with the capitalist system. So there's pros and
cons of both sides. Honestly, in areas where they have
single pay systems where the government pays for health care,
like I got to say, one of the best I've
seen is to buy and yet they still have problems, right,
they still can't afford to treat everyone at the top
(03:36):
level all the time.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Well, the government employment Canada, I believe the doctors are
employed by the government and cannot practice privately. But in
our sense, the it's not single payer. You're right, this
is a single pay issue. It's when the government pays
for all medical care. And then the other side of
(04:00):
it is obviously, if you have an emergency, you know,
you get shot, you have a heart attack. Man, you're
getting right in, so there's no issue. But other than that,
any elective surgery, you're waiting and waiting and waiting. I understand.
In Canada it can take you what three years, four
years to get a knee replacement, I understand. Even an abortion,
(04:22):
It'll take you fourteen months to get an abortion.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yeah, no, I mean, okay, so Canada, we all always
villinize Canada. But the truth is their system works pretty
darn well. There are no you know, they've done studies
to look for these people fleeing across the border from
Canada to the US to get healthcare, and they just
can't find any. I mean, you're right. For joint replacements,
joint replacements are something that occur over decades, right, Your
(04:48):
joints degrade over time, and even in America, you have
a long conversation with your doctor unless you really just
were suffering and suffering and suffering for decades and you
finally saw orcopedic surgeon at the end of the road. Well,
then it's going to be a more of a rush job.
But typically people are complaining of joint pains long before
they need a joint replacement. But in Canada, if you need,
(05:12):
you know, if you have breast cancer, you're going to
have surgery as rapidly as the United States. So it's
really not in Canadians, by the way, are deathly afraid
of stepping into the US health system. They know that
we're the number one cause of bankruptcy in our country
is healthcare, and so they always buy travelers insurance, even
(05:34):
the drive across the border, because they're afraid they'll get
taken to an emergency room and then the bills will
be so high, like they get in a car accident
driving across the border and suddenly they're bankrupt.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Now you know, well, and at r R where you
were for years and years and years mission hospital. Let's
say I go into the emergency room and I'm there
all day and they run the tests, I walk out
the door. How much can it cost?
Speaker 3 (06:01):
You know, it depends on what you're coming in for.
I had a friend who came in for a kidney
stone and he was there for like two hours. But
the tests we ran with cat scans and everything else
and ended up being about a six thousand dollar bill total.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, and I think.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
From what I hear that is dirt cheap, all right,
Jim cosmetic fillers, And I love these stories of it's
always some woman of certain whatever ethnic distraction in the
back of a dumpster someplace and people and she gives
you know, but shots.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So it's actually more common than we know. Let's talk
about that.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Sure as Okay, So the story here was that one
of the executive at fd Lauder ended up getting filler
in his space and drop literally dropped in soon after
at the corner relief that he suffered from a pulmonary embolism.
So that is the bloodslong, the lungs. It can happen.
(07:09):
It's a very rare current after getting siller. But it's
just a reminder that these that minimally invasive doesn't mean
no risk, right, And you still want to get the
right products injected into you if you don't want to
go to some fly by night, you know, back alley.
You want to make sure that people understand anatomy, uh
(07:29):
and that these are well trained individuals that are injecting
this stuff even in your face. There's a lot of
blood vessels in your face, very vascular, and a couple
of ways you can get a blood spot in your
lungs from this is if you either injected you end
up right in a vein, right and you're injecting this
spiller right into the vein. It goes through you, through
(07:50):
to your heart, through the heart to the lungs, and
then that filler will create a blood you know, a
blockage in your lung The other way is in bigger
areas like the butducks. You're mentioning that the common area
for this to happen, you compressed the vessels so much
that the blood platforms, it breaks off and goes to
the laws.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Now that's a that's a sfanity call straight ahead. I mean,
there's no medical reason they have one of these, is there?
Speaker 3 (08:20):
I mean, so there, now there's you're right, there are
some medically legitimate reasons that they initially, like these things
were initially approved for people with muscle wasting, say that
they have HIV with severe muscle wasting in the face.
They could replenish a lot of that muscle wastings. You
didn't have, like that skeleton base things like that, So
(08:43):
you know that's more restorative than cosmetic, but yeah, it's
it's essentially a cosmetic procedure. And well, you know ninety
nine percent of people are using this for cosmetic procedures.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, I mean, I assume you wouldn't do this at all,
but then you have a very good looking But I
must tell you, Jim, I've appreciated. I've appreciated for many years.
Every time I see you, I get would to be
honest with you. Okay, one real quick one, and that
is we talked about this morning. The CDC blocked that
(09:17):
COVID vaccine study and can you think of any reason
that would happen.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Well, they're not the ones that should be even making
the decision, right, it's the it's the peeridy journal that
needs to protect the reputation and only publish studies that
have been peer reviewed and are actually decent quality studies. Right,
No studies one hundred percent perfect, But the study had
to need a certain level of rigor. And yeah, so
(09:45):
this was clearly a political move to stop a study
like this from being published. Ultimately, it was published, and
it kind of runs counter to the current administration. You know,
philosophies on vaccination and on on it specifically and how
effective the vaccine is. And this is the study was
specific to the twenty twenty five twenty six code vaccine
(10:08):
and it definitely showed that people who received the vaccine
were left likely to get COVID and left likely to
be hospitalized, so continues to show a benefit.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Essentially, this did meet the requirements, as you said, in
terms of peer reviewed and the scientific application to it.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Did it not exactly?
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah, so that ultimately the peer review journal had it
peer reviewed and felt that it was a study that
was a good enough rigor that it was it was
worthy to people up in their journals. And you know,
again if they with these people, their reputation is everything.
If they published garbage, nobody's going to the New England
Journal of Medicine starts publishing garbage, nobody's going to read it.
(10:49):
But it's a prestigious journal. I think this one was
published in Gama, another prestigious journal, So it's it's you know,
it's important to them.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
All right, Jim.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Thanks, we'll talk again next Wednesday, as we always do.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Have a good day.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Take care,
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