WELCOME
TO THE MEDICAL TUESDAY NETWORK
Physicians,
Business, Professional and Information Technology Communities
Networking
to Restore Accountability in HealthCare & Medical Practice
MedicalTuesday
refers to the meetings that were traditionally held on Tuesday evenings where
physicians met with their colleagues and the interested business and
professional communities to discuss the medical and health care issues of the
day. Mondays and Fridays were busy days in most medical practices, and on
Wednesdays and Thursdays physicians traded half days off to compensate for the
night and weekend work. Thus, MedicalTuesday
was the only day of the week that most physicians could get together. As major
changes occurred in health care delivery during the past several decades, the
need for physicians to meet with the business and professional communities
became even more important. However, proponents of third-party health care
felt these meetings were counter productive, and they essentially disappeared.
Rationing was introduced in this country through government-controlled HMOs,
Medicare, Medicaid, under the illusion that this was free enterprise. Instead,
the consumer (patient) lost all control of personal health care decision
making, the very antithesis of freedom.
MedicalTuesday
has reestablished the network between physicians and the business and
professional communities using the world wide web.
We have included the Information Technology community because of its
important application in the provisions of health care. Recently, the
governments involvement with the InfoTech community through HIPAA
produced disastrous results. Patients are recognizing that with this
government control, their private and confidential information is made
available, without their knowledge, to government bureaucracies that should
not be involved in health care. In addition, the free exchange of health care
information between doctors and health care providers necessary for a patients
health and welfare is being obstructed.
If this newsletter has been forwarded to you
or you have not been on our email list and would like to continue to receive
these free messages on alternate MedicalTuesdays, please go to www.MedicalTuesday.net
and register to receive the
newsletter as well as access the archives and other member-only features. You
may invite your friends to receive this newsletter and forward this message to
a friend. You might also consider subscribing to the companion HealthPlanUSA
quarterly newsletter designed to make HealthCare more affordable for all
Americans and their employers. If you do not wish to receive these
messages, you may unsubscribe at the same site by clicking on the Remove
Me link at the end of the text.
In This Issue:
1. Women's Growing Purchasing Power May Speed
Us to Accountable HealthCare
2. HSAs: The Most Important Legislation of 2003
3. NCPA President John Goodman Also Celebrates the HSA Law in a
Brief Analysis
4. This Weeks Review of Socialized or
5.
Medical Gluttony or Excessive Costs of Third Party or Entitlement HealthCare
6. The MedicalTuesday Recommendations for Restoring
Accountability in HealthCare & Government
*
* * * *
1. Women's Growing Purchasing Power is the
Biggest Economic Trend of the Decade
Joanne Cleaver, in the featured article in Entrepreneur
(www.entrepreneur.com), What
Women Want, tells us that women want attention to detail, product design,
the right choice not endless choices, to understand what they are buying, and
services that they can understand. With women's earning power escalating, not
only do they control more than half of all wealth, they control 80 percent of
all household purchases. They are 38 percent of small business owners. Nearly
half of adult women are solely responsible for household savings. The New York
Times Magazine featured the article Women Opt Out which maintained that many
women, having gained management heights in the business world, have Opted Out
of the corporate struggles to return to the more traditional role of rearing,
nurturing and raising the next generation of
Americans and citizens of the world. Last week, Anna Quindlen
gave her own story in her Newsweek editorial. (http://www.newsweek.org/id/3868018/)
At age 30, she suddenly had the urge to give up her New York Times
position and have a family, which was to be a short detour in her career path.
She placed a magnet in the kitchen that said MOM IS NOT MY REAL NAME. During
those decades she continued to write as a journalist from 9 to 3 while her
children were in school. Now she recognizes that the most important title she
ever had was Mom and is proud of what she's leaving to this world. Although
she still writes from 9 till 3, she says, Three rooms empty, full of the
ghosts of my very best self. Mom is my real name. It is. It is. The world will
be a much better place because of it.
As a father of daughters, I have watched them
work twice as hard as their pinstriped counterparts to achieve equal income
and status. Im grateful that these inequalities are diminishing. The concept
that's frequently missing in discussions concerning identical status for men
and women, is that women are more accountable with
financial details. They have saved families from financial ruin in their
management of household income. In the corporate world, they have also become
astute money managers. Although they have frequently been cast as
compassionate socialists, they have learned that cost containment is extremely
important. Costs can never be contained if every worker or individual citizen
is able to write an unlimited check from either the corporate health care
account or the government health care account. They understand that
accountability can never be handed over to a third party and only the consumer
can account for every expenditure. Many of the
leaders in accountable health care are women. We
predict that women will also be at the forefront of accountable
health care in the purchase of family health care, regardless of their career
path. Is there anyone better than the mother in determining when her child and
family really need to see a doctor or when a little aspirin and fruit juices
for a day or two will suffice. That one small step
in personal accountability will save at least 30 percent of all health care
costs.
*
* * * *
2. HSAs Are the Most Important Legislation
of 2003
Martin
Feldstein weighs-in on HSAs in The Wall Street Journal last week. He calls it
"the most important piece of legislation of 2003." He says,
"The new HSA law (a part of the recent Medicare reform bill) eliminates
the preferential subsidy for comprehensive insurance by giving the same tax
treatment to individuals who set aside income to pay cash for a larger share
of their own health care." He provides an illustration of how they work
by citing premiums for a
*
* * * *
3. NCPA President John Goodman also Celebrates
the HSA Law in a Brief Analysis.
Dr Goodman of the
*
* * * *
4. This Week's Review of Socialized or
Single-Payer Medicine--NHS Hospitals in Italy
In a recent issue of The Lancet (www.thelancet.com),
Italian health minister Girolamo Sirchia
has drawn up a bill entitled "Fundamental Principles in the National
Health Service" which seeks to phase out the super
manager role of regionally appointed general managers in hospitals. The
crux of the reform is the hospital appointment of one chief doctor as
clinical coordinator, nominated by fellow heads of departments. The new
role will be to advise general managers in clinical governance matters and
develop diagnostic and therapeutic strategies, paying particular attention to
whether clinical objectives such as the reduction of waiting lists are being
achieved. Sirchia said its main objective was to
allow doctors to become much more involved in . . . clinical activity and
strategic decisions. . We are aiming to correct the
dysfunction and misuse of power that has often led to head doctors being marginalized
in the management of clinical activity. The other measure was to increase the pensionable
age for chief doctors to 70 years from 65 years because they complete their
training later than other professions. This came under fire from the head of
the doctors union who was otherwise satisfied with the new proposals stating,
Finally the doctor is going back on a level plain with the general manager. We
will continue to make sure that doctors are not dominated by their local
managers or constrained by economic criteria that insist on telling them that
they're prescribing or spending too much. The bill still has to pass through
the Italian senate and parliament and may find resistance. Some still feel
that lay ministers should have more power in taking care of patients than
doctors.
*
* * * *
5. Medical Gluttony or Excessive Costs of
Third-Party or Entitlement HealthCare
I saw a patient last week whom I first saw three
years ago as a homeless patient on welfare, living under a tarp behind a bar,
obtaining drinking water and taking showers at the local YMCA. Two years ago,
he gave up his tarp and moved into an old car which offered greater shelter
from the weather. Last year he got a job as a truck driver making $33,000 per
year, had clean clothes, a nice car and a cell phone. His pulmonary function
tests had improved dramatically. This year I noted that he still has his
welfare card and is still on social security disability income. I asked him
how he had managed to have three sources of benefits. He said that when his
five-year disability term expired in 2002, he
made sure he got a five year extension; therefore, his next disability
evaluation would be in 2007. He said he was able to keep his Medicaid card and
benefits because he had no private health insurance. Thus, he received nearly
$3,000 a month driving a truck, $700 a month from welfare, and a Medicaid
card, an unlimited health care credit card. (Use of this card is essentially
writing a check on the government treasury.)
This just points out again that the federal
government can never finely tune entitlements. People will always manipulate
them to their own financial benefit at taxpayers expense. Health care and
welfare entitlements should be state or local programs, solely. The federal
government should limit its concerns to areas of national interest, such as
the departments of state, defense, treasury and justice. Human greed will
always exceed human need and covering such costs will never be sustainable.
*
* * * *
6. MedicalTuesday Supports These
Efforts in Restoring Accountability in Medical Practice by Restoring the Doctor
& Patient Relationship Unencumbered by Bureaucracy:
Dennis Gabos, MD,
President of the Society for the Education of Physicians and Patients (SEPP), www.sepp.net,
for making efforts in Protecting, Preserving, and Promoting, the Rights,
Freedoms and Responsibilities of Patients and Health Care Professionals, with
a special page for our colleagues in nursing. Several free newsletters are
available. Be part of protecting and preserving what is right with American
Healthcare physicians, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, all health
professionals, and all concerned individuals are urged to join.
Dr Vern Cherewatenko
for success in restoring private-based medical practice which has grown
internationally through the SimpleCare model
network, www.simplecare.com.
Any patient or provider may become a member of SimpleCare.
Dr David MacDonald started
Robert J Cihak,
MD, former president of the AAPS, and Michael
Dr Richard B Willner,
President, Center Peer Review Justice Inc, reports his latest success
story and the secret of helping doctors keep their medical license. Doctors
are daily reviewed, suspended, lose their medical licenses, and go to jail on
trumped up charges that most attorneys don't understand. Stay posted at http://www.peerreview.org.
The Association of American Physicians &
Surgeons (www.AAPSonline.org), The
Voice for Private Physicians Since 1943,
representing physicians in their struggles against bureaucratic
medicine and loss of medical privacy. The AAPS News written by Jane Orient,
MD, is archived on this site providing valuable information on a monthly
basis. Their official organ is the Journal of American Physicians and
Surgeons, with Larry Huntoon, MD, PhD, a
neurologist in
* * * * *
URL References for your
perusal or study at leisure.
You may want to Bookmark these or add to your Favorites.
Single-Payer Initiatives: http://www.healthcarecom.net/EditorialNov94.html
David Gibson, MD, National Health Care
Consultant: http://www.healthplanusa.net/DavidGibson.htm
Single Payer: http://www.healthplanusa.net/DGSinglePayer.htm
Why are the uninsured, uninsured: http://www.healthplanusa.net/DGUninsured.htm
What's behind health care costs: http://www.healthplanusa.net/DGRisingHealthCareCosts.htm
Pharmacy costs: http://www.healthplanusa.net/DGPharmacyCosts.htm
*
* * * *
Tammy Bruce: The Death of
Right and Wrong (Understanding the difference between the right and the left
on our culture and values.) http://www.townhall.com/bookclub/bruce.html
Reviewed by Courtney Rosenbladt
*
* * * *
Stay Tuned to the MedicalTuesday.Network
and Have Your Friends Do the Same
The
MedicalTuesday site has now been fully automated. Each individual on our
mailing list is now able to be invited, register, or de-enroll as desired. If
you were added in error or you are not interested in or sympathetic to a
Private Personal Confidential Affordable HealthCare system, we have made it
easier for you to unsubscribe simply by clicking the Remove
Me link below. If you encounter difficulties, please send an email to
Remove@MedicalTuesday.net,
and your name will be removed. Please be sure that Remove and your Email
address appear in the subject line and Name in the body of the email or our
spammator will not forward it to us. You may want to copy this message to your
Template file so that they are available to be forwarded or reformatted as new
when the occasion arises. Then, save the message to a folder in your Inbox
labeled MedicalTuesday.
If you would like to participate in this
informational campaign on behalf of your patients or the HealthCare community,
please send your resume to Personnel@MedicalTuesday.net.
If you would like to participate in the
development of the affordable HealthPlan for All Americans and their
employers, please send your resume to Personnel@HealthPlanUSA.net.
We appreciate the international response we
are receiving and look forward to meeting some of you at international
meetings. Apparently, professionals throughout the world look up to
Del Meyer
Del Meyer, MD, CEO & Founder
www.MedicalTuesday.net