Featured Article: It’s a good day for BABIES
Or so says Rep Bette Grande, who introduced the bills.
North Dakota has all but enacted what would be two of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. .
Even those in North Dakota who normally balk at government spending don't seem concerned about spending money on a fight over the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.
"We have a lot of important things to spend money on," said Sen. Dwight Cook, a Republican from Mandan who chairs the Senate Finance and Taxation Committee and calls himself a fiscal conservative. "But I didn't give any consideration to the cost (of abortion litigation)."
Lawmakers on Friday sent Gov. Jack Dalrymple two anti-abortion bills, one banning the procedure as early as six weeks into a pregnancy and another prohibiting women from having the procedure based on the fetus' gender or because it has a genetic defect, such as Down syndrome. Abortion-rights activists have vowed to fight the measures in court. The battle is likely to be closely-watched by abortion foes and supporters of legal abortion across the U.S. Read more . . .
Dalrymple hasn't offered any hints as to where he stands on the abortion bills. . . "I think plenty of people in the party would love to push this to the Supreme Court and they would love to be the state that overturns Roe v. Wade," said Mark Jendrysik, a University of North Dakota political science professor who expects Dalrymple to sign the abortion measures into law. . .
Cook, who has served in the Legislature for 17 years, said he expects Dalrymple to sign the legislation.
"He's as pro-life as I am, and to what degree he looks at cost, I don't know," Cook said. "If I had to bet, I'd bet he signs them."
North Dakota is one of several states with Republican-controlled Legislatures and GOP governors that is looking at abortion restrictions. Arkansas passed a 12-week ban earlier this month that prohibits most abortions when a fetal heartbeat can be detected using an abdominal ultrasound. . .
A fetal heartbeat can generally be detected earlier in a pregnancy using a vaginal ultrasound, but Arkansas lawmakers balked at requiring women seeking abortions to have the more invasive imaging technique. North Dakota's measure doesn't specify how a fetal heartbeat would be detected.
North
Dakota is uniquely positioned to undertake an expensive legal fight.
Fueled by the unprecedented oil bonanza in the western part of the
state, North Dakota now leads the nation in population growth,
boasts a nearly $2 billion budget surplus and has the lowest
unemployment rate in the nation. . .
Read more:
http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/ND-governor-faces-choice-on-abortion-restrictions-4359538.php#ixzz2NklgbJCl
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another person, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide (such as manslaughter). As the loss of a human being inflicts enormous grief upon the individuals close to the victim, and the commission of a murder is highly detrimental to the good order within society, most societies both present and in antiquity have considered it a most serious crime worthy of the harshest of punishment. In most countries, a person convicted of murder is typically given a long prison sentence, possibly a life sentence where permitted, and in some countries, the death penalty may be imposed for such an act – though this practice is becoming less common.[1] In most countries, there is no statute of limitations for murder (no time limit for prosecuting someone for murder). A person who commits murder is called a murderer.[2]
States have adopted several different schemes for classifying murders by degree. The most common separates murder into two degrees, and treats voluntary and involuntary manslaughter as separate crimes that do not constitute murder.
First degree murder is any murder that is willful and premeditated. Felony murder is typically first degree.[5][6]
Second degree murder is a murder that is not premeditated or planned in advance.[7]
Third degree murder is a catch all for all other murders in some states.
Voluntary manslaughter (often referred to as Third degree murder) sometimes called a "Heat of Passion" murder, is any intentional killing that involved no prior intent to kill, and which was committed under such circumstances that would "cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed." Both this and second degree murder are committed on the spot, but the two differ in the magnitude of the circumstances surrounding the crime. For example, a bar fight that results in death would ordinarily constitute second degree murder. If that same bar fight stemmed from a discovery of infidelity, however, it may be mitigated to voluntary manslaughter.[8]
Involuntary manslaughter stems from a lack of intention to cause death but involving an intentional, or negligent, act leading to death. A drunk driving-related death is typically involuntary manslaughter. Note that the "unintentional" element here refers to the lack of intent to bring about the death. All three crimes above feature an intent to kill, whereas involuntary manslaughter is "unintentional," because the killer did not intend for a death to result from their intentional actions. If there is a presence of intention it relates only to the intent to cause a violent act which brings about the death, but not an intention to bring about the death itself. [9]
The Model Penal Code classifies homicides differently, without degrees. Under it, murder is any killing committed purposefully and knowingly, manslaughter is any killing committed as a result of recklessness, and negligent homicide is any killing resulting from negligence.[10]
Fetal Homicide in the United States
Under the common law, an assault on a pregnant woman resulting in a stillbirth was not considered murder; the child had to have breathed at least once to be a human being.[citation needed] Remedies were limited to criminal penalties for the assault on the mother and tort action for loss of the anticipated economic services of the lost child and/or for emotional pain and suffering. With the widespread adoption of laws against abortion, the assailant could be charged with that offense, but the penalty was often only a fine and a few days in jail.
When the Supreme Court greatly reduced laws prohibiting abortions in Roe v. Wade (1973) those sanctions became harder to use. This meant that an assault which ensured that the baby never breathed would result in a lesser charge. Various states passed "fetal homicide" laws, making killing of an unborn child murder; the laws differ about the stage of development at which the child is protected.
After several well-publicized cases, Congress passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which specifically criminalizes harming a fetus, with the same penalties as for a similar attack upon a person, when the attack would be a federal offense. Most such attacks fall under state laws; for instance, Scott Peterson was convicted of killing his unborn son as well as his wife under California's pre-existing fetal homicide law.
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In the News: ObamaCare Tax Increases: Onward and Forever Upward
Tax Prof Blog: ObamaCare Tax Increases Are Double Original Estimate
The Joint Committee on Taxation recently released a 96 page report on the tax provisions associated with Affordable Care Act. The report describes the 21 tax increases included in Obamacare, totaling $1.058 trillion – a steep increase from initial assessment, according to the Tax Prof Blog. The summer 2012 estimate is nearly twice the $569 billion estimate produced at the time of the passage of the law in March 2010. Read more . . . .
|
Provision |
2010 Estimate, 2010-2019, $billion |
2012 Estimate 2013-2022, $billion |
|
0.9% payroll tax on wages and self-employment income and 3.8% t tax on dividends, capital gains, and other investment income for taxpayers earning over $200,000 (singles) / $250,000 (married) |
210.2 |
317.7 |
|
“Cadillac tax” on high-cost plans * |
32 |
111 |
|
Employer mandate * |
52 |
106 |
|
Annual tax on health insurance providers * |
60.1 |
101.7 |
|
Individual mandate * |
17 |
55 |
|
Annual tax on drug manufacturers/importers * |
27 |
34.2 |
|
2.3% excise tax on medical device manufacturers/importers* |
20 |
29.1 |
|
Limit FSAs in cafeteria plans * |
13 |
24 |
|
Raise 7.5% AGI floor on medical expense deduction to 10% * |
15.2 |
18.7 |
|
Deny eligibility of “black liquor” for cellulosic biofuel producer credit |
23.6 |
15.5 |
|
Codify economic substance doctrine |
4.5 |
5.3 |
|
Increase penalty for nonqualified HSA distributions * |
1.4 |
4.5 |
|
Impose limitations on the use of HSAs, FSAs, HRAs, and Archer MSAs to purchase over-the-counter medicines * |
5.0 |
4 |
|
Impose fee on insured and self-insured health plans; patient-centered outcomes research trust fund * |
2.6 |
3.8 |
|
Eliminate deduction for expenses allocable to Medicare Part D subsidy |
4.5 |
3.1 |
|
Impose 10% tax on tanning services * |
2.7 |
1.5 |
|
Limit deduction for compensation to officers, employees, directors, and service providers of certain health insurance providers |
0.6 |
0.8 |
|
Modify section 833 treatment of certain health organizations |
0.4 |
0.4 |
|
Other Revenue Effects |
60.3 |
222** |
|
Additional requirements for section 501(c)(3) hospitals |
Negligible |
Negligible |
|
Employer W-2 reporting of value of health benefits |
Negligible |
Negligible |
|
Total Gross Tax Increase: |
569.2 |
1,058.3 |
|
* Provision targets households earning less than $250,000. ** Includes CBO’s $216.0 billion estimate for “Associated Effects of Coverage Provisions on Tax Revenues” and $6.0 billion within CBO’s “Other Revenue Provisions” category that is not otherwise accounted for in the CBO or JCT estimates. |
||
|
Source: Joint Committee on Taxation Estimates, prepared by Ways and Means Committee Staff |
||
Donna Andrews March 13, 2013 at 9:28 AM
And who, exactly, did NOT see this coming?
Who???? Me for one. I thought it would be much more than double
It will Bud, just wait a little longer.
Anyone who ever thought that Obamacare was about health care is an idiot. This was never about your healthcare....NEVER. From its very conception, this was about nothing more than control and money. Obama and Company couldn't care less about your health. They just want to control how you live. I challenge anyone to name for me one thing, just ONE thing, that the government cannot force you to do in the name of "healthcare". Just one little thing! It's time for Atlas to shrug.
Onward and Forever Upward!
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International Medicine: Canadian Health Care
The
Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care
David
Gratzer
Socialized medicine has meant rationed care and lack of innovation. Small wonder Canadians are looking to the market.
Mountain-bike enthusiast Suzanne Aucoin had to fight more than her Stage IV colon cancer. Her doctor suggested Erbitux—a proven cancer drug that targets cancer cells exclusively, unlike conventional chemotherapies that more crudely kill all fast-growing cells in the body—and Aucoin went to a clinic to begin treatment. But if Erbitux offered hope, Aucoin’s insurance didn’t: she received one inscrutable form letter after another, rejecting her claim for reimbursement. Yet another example of the callous hand of managed care, depriving someone of needed medical help, right? Guess again. Erbitux is standard treatment, covered by insurance companies—in the United States. Aucoin lives in Ontario, Canada.
When Aucoin appealed to an official ombudsman, the Ontario government claimed that her treatment was unproven and that she had gone to an unaccredited clinic. But the FDA in the U.S. had approved Erbitux, and her clinic was a cancer center affiliated with a prominent Catholic hospital in Buffalo. This January, the ombudsman ruled in Aucoin’s favor, awarding her the cost of treatment. She represents a dramatic new trend in Canadian health-care advocacy: finding the treatment you need in another country, and then fighting Canadian bureaucrats (and often suing) to get them to pick up the tab.
But if Canadians are looking to the United States for the care they need, Americans, ironically, are increasingly looking north for a viable health-care model. There’s no question that American health care, a mixture of private insurance and public programs, is a mess. Over the last five years, health-insurance premiums have more than doubled, leaving firms like General Motors on the brink of bankruptcy. Expensive health care has also hit workers in the pocketbook: it’s one of the reasons that median family income fell between 2000 and 2005 (despite a rise in overall labor costs). Health spending has surged past 16 percent of GDP. The number of uninsured Americans has risen, and even the insured seem dissatisfied. So it’s not surprising that some Americans think that solving the nation’s health-care woes may require adopting a Canadian-style single-payer system, in which the government finances and provides the care. Canadians, the seductive single-payer tune goes, not only spend less on health care; their health outcomes are better, too—life expectancy is longer, infant mortality lower. . .
I was once a believer in socialized medicine. I don’t want to overstate my case: growing up in Canada, I didn’t spend much time contemplating the nuances of health economics. I wanted to get into medical school—my mind brimmed with statistics on MCAT scores and admissions rates, not health spending. But as a Canadian, I had soaked up three things from my environment: a love of ice hockey; an ability to convert Celsius into Fahrenheit in my head; and the belief that government-run health care was truly compassionate. What I knew about American health care was unappealing: high expenses and lots of uninsured people. When HillaryCare shook Washington, I remember thinking that the Clintonistas were right.
My health-care prejudices crumbled not in the classroom but on the way to one. On a subzero Winnipeg morning in 1997, I cut across the hospital emergency room to shave a few minutes off my frigid commute. Swinging open the door, I stepped into a nightmare: the ER overflowed with elderly people on stretchers, waiting for admission. Some, it turned out, had waited five days. The air stank with sweat and urine. Right then, I began to reconsider everything that I thought I knew about Canadian health care. I soon discovered that the problems went well beyond overcrowded ERs. Patients had to wait for practically any diagnostic test or procedure, such as the man with persistent pain from a hernia operation whom we referred to a pain clinic—with a three-year wait list; or the woman needing a sleep study to diagnose what seemed like sleep apnea, who faced a two-year delay; or the woman with breast cancer who needed to wait four months for radiation therapy, when the standard of care was four weeks. Read more . . .
I decided to write about what I saw. By day, I attended classes and visited patients; at night, I worked on a book. Unfortunately, statistics on Canadian health care’s weaknesses were hard to come by, and even finding people willing to criticize the system was difficult, such was the emotional support that it then enjoyed. One family friend, diagnosed with cancer, was told to wait for potentially lifesaving chemotherapy. I called to see if I could write about his plight. Worried about repercussions, he asked me to change his name. A bit later, he asked if I could change his sex in the story, and maybe his town. Finally, he asked if I could change the illness, too.
My book’s thesis was simple: to contain rising costs, government-run health-care systems invariably restrict the health-care supply. Thus, at a time when Canada’s population was aging and needed more care, not less, cost-crunching bureaucrats had reduced the size of medical school classes, shuttered hospitals, and capped physician fees, resulting in hundreds of thousands of patients waiting for needed treatment—patients who suffered and, in some cases, died from the delays. The only solution, I concluded, was to move away from government command-and-control structures and toward a more market-oriented system. To capture Canadian health care’s growing crisis, I called my book Code Blue, the term used when a patient’s heart stops and hospital staff must leap into action to save him. Though I had a hard time finding a Canadian publisher, the book eventually came out in 1999 from a small imprint; it struck a nerve, going through five printings.
Nor were the problems I identified unique to Canada—they characterized all government-run health-care systems. Consider the recent British controversy over a cancer patient who tried to get an appointment with a specialist, only to have it canceled—48 times. More than 1 million Britons must wait for some type of care, with 200,000 in line for longer than six months. A while back, I toured a public hospital in Washington, D.C., with Tim Evans, a senior fellow at the Centre for the New Europe. The hospital was dark and dingy, but Evans observed that it was cleaner than anything in his native England. In France, the supply of doctors is so limited that during an August 2003 heat wave—when many doctors were on vacation and hospitals were stretched beyond capacity—15,000 elderly citizens died. Across Europe, state-of-the-art drugs aren’t available. And so on.
Read the entire report . . .
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Canadian Medicare does not give timely access to healthcare, it only gives access to a waiting list.
--Canadian Supreme Court Decision 2005 SCC 35, [2005] 1 S.C.R. 791
http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2005/2005scc35/2005scc35.html
* * * * *
Medicare: Medicaid: Another loss of access caused by Obamacare: When will it end?
The significant promotion of Obama’s Health Plan initiative was to provide greater access to health care for the poor and poorly covered Americans. California was at the forefront of placing their Medicaid recipients into HMOs. These patients were thrilled with having a health insurance card like most middle class American. They did not notice the GMS at the end of their ID numbers which they interpreted as still being part of the government Medical service. We didn’t either when we were asked to have 500 of these added to our panel. We have always had an average of 20 percent of our practice from Medicaid rolls as our fair contribution to the down and trodden since the reimbursement never equaled our cost of caring for them. Read more . . .
We were asked by our IPA (independent practice association) to accept 500 of these Medicaid/Welfare --recipients into the HMO portion of our practice, which was approximately half of our practice. We were promised improve reimbursement to the Medicare fee system for the first visit and a 10% improvement for the follow up visits. We had assumed that several of these would enter our practice on a weekly basis. It should not have been a problem with our single employee practice in the final years before retirement. She was my receptionist, publicists, patient scheduler, buyer/purchaser of all office supplies, inventory control officer, accounts manager, and my sole office manager for a very controlled practice. There were the usual phone calls from a half dozen patients to schedule appoints, reps to be scheduled for five minutes of my time, daily charts to be processed, and filed. She was busy.
The very first day after these 500 welfare patients were added to our obligations, we had 65 messages on the phone the next morning instead of the usual three or four. These messages came in at all hours of the day and night. It took her two hours to record all the messages and another three hours to process all the messages. This rate continued on a daily basis. It was then that we realized that these patients did not have jobs. But they all had cell phones and could call from any place they were, day or night. We found that most of these had not been to a physician for three to 15 years. So there were no significant records to be transferred most of the basic informational data which greatly reduces the initial consultation in the usual new patient. It takes about twice as much time to obtain a complete medical history from the medically unsophisticated. Just to record the dates of a patient’s operations takes seconds to record from a prior record or from the medically informed as it does from a medical illiterate who begins to answer such a question with let’s see, we were living in Oklahoma at the time, my eldest was just starting the first grade, and . . . . . the year of her cholecystectomy took five minutes instead of five seconds. So the first initial office consultation, examination, ordering lab testing, x-ray requests and prescription writing grew from 45 minutes to 75 minutes. But we got paid Medicare rates of $85. But when these patients returned for their office visits to review their status, response to drugs, go over their lab and x-ray data, make plans for their future care, the office call increased from 15 minutes to 25 minutes. But remember we would get a 10% boost in payment. It took a few months before the data came in and we noticed that the HMO vs Medicaid reimbursement for office visits had increased from $18 to $19.80 under the HMO coverage.
We also found out that our referral arrangements were no longer valid. Some of them noted the GMS at the end of their ID number and tracked them immediately and found the reimbursement was not significantly different than Medicaid and refused to see them. So these patients had far less access to care in their new arrangements than they had with Medicaid. The HMO had to find consultants for these patients in more remote areas. We felt uncomfortable to refer patients to consultants we didn’t know. This increases our liability also. When the HMO said that they could not find any consultants in one specialty that we needed for our patient in the Sacramento area, and gave us the name of a physician in San Francisco, about a hundred miles west of here, we were convinced that Obama’s promised of improved access in his plan was a blatant lie, we sorrowfully knew we had to make plans for withdrawal from this component of humanity.
These patients also gave us greater cause for concern. I always greeted these patients in the waiting room, welcomed them to my practice with a nice warm and friendly hand shake. One patient complained that I held her hand too long. Another asked me at the end of her exam, what could she do about her obesity, I pointed to her abdomen and gave my usual spiel (which is identical to the one Weight Watchers uses) that to maintain her weight of 180 pounds, she was eating 1800 calories. If she would reduce that by 500 calories a day, then in a 7 day week, she would lose 3500 calories which equals one pound. She complained to her HMO that I had called her a fatty, which then directs it to the State Department of Health Services, and hours can be spent on clearing this complaint that never happened. The state feels they need to pacify their “members” and makes such recommendations as “we have advise your doctor to take a course in sensitivity training” or take a course on “HIPAA Compliance.” Such little items on an evaluation form can cause great jeopardy to one’s license and we knew we had to make changes.
We also have completed 40-years of hospital and critical care pulmonary medicine practice having had as many as ten patients on life support in several hospitals at the same time. About five years ago, we moved our office into suburban Sacramento in Carmichael and continued with an ambulatory practice. This was reasonable since the hospitals had all established hospitalists to take care of inpatients. This has been common practice for decades for most physicians. However, our IPA and HMO were so desperate to become an Accountable Care Organization under Obamacare, that they used force to place patients. We were threatened to accept a patient on a gurney. We tried to reason with the HMO that such patients do not belong in an ambulatory care setting, but in a practice that saw hospital patients on a regular basis.
And so after six months, when my one person office staff gave me notice, I had to give my IPA notice that we had to withdraw from the remainder of the 500 welfare patients and extended to the President our apologies that his plan was not working. Their access to care was far worse despite our valiant attempts to improve it, they took more than twice as much professional time to deliver less than a quality of care that they did not understand and generally did not appreciate, that their hostility to my services were hazardous to my professional health, and the reimbursement for our professional care was less than their cost to me.
We should have followed the practice of Sandy Marcus, MD, President of the Physician’s Union, who accepted welfare as 10 percent of his practice, but never added the cost of billing and general harassment from Medicaid which he felt would exceed the 10% contribution to welfare by seeing these patient free.
So we decided it was good policy to see our long term welfare patients, which are 20% of our practice, avoid the cost of billing and make it a true charity. As long as physicians accept any welfare payments, no one recognizes our work. By eliminating accepting payment, the public recognizes this as charity, gains respect and profession status, with no loss in income.
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Government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem.
- Ronald Reagan
* * * * *
Medical Gluttony: Second opinions from a second emergency room are costly.
Josie came to the office recently under duress. She hadn’t been seen for more than 18 months. She was trying to get not only refills, but new medications by phone without evaluation for their need. This not only is a violation of the medical practice act by obtaining refills without a current exam which has generally been interpreted as one year for the same type of illness, but also malpractice by requesting a new medications without an appropriate medical history and examination. For instance, if a new medication is given and the patients explanation for the need is not medically correct and the patient has an adverse event, in a malpractice case, the doctor will always be held responsible to which the patient would agree in the court room situation, even if she had agreed in the phone consultation without an exam. Read more . . .
On interviewing Josie, she had been to the Emergency room of one hospital the previous month and didn’t like their evaluation and obtained a second Emergency room evaluation at another hospital a few days later. When seen, she was unhappy with the second evaluation also. Now I was supposed to be the final arbitrator. I could tell from her stern look, it was not just being forced in for an exam, it was more like a “Do or Die” look. So I gave her the time of two appointments, knowing pushing the entire day’s schedule back 20 minutes would be the least risky approach.
I had some excellent charts on the anatomy of the ears, sinuses and nasal passages and how nasal allergies, congested ears of a serous otitis situation, diminished hearing from the fluid behind the ear drum, slight vertigo from this congestion involvement of the balance semicircular canals in the middle ear, can make this very difficult to treat without a multipronged approach. I suggested she moisturize her nasal and sinus passages with saline, use antihistamine and steroid nasal spray, nocturnal antihistamines plus antimicrobial cleaning would be necessary. Since the primary problem occurred at night, there must be something in her bedroom to which she was allergic. She was sleeping on a feather pillow and her pet was sleeping on her bed and these two issues also needed to be address.
I could tell that this didn’t sit well with her, and that I would be her next complaint of a doctor now knowing how to diagnose and treat. So I completed a rather thorough exam, refill all her other medications for another three months, asked her if she had any questions. She said it wouldn’t do any good, anyway. I then told her that it appeared that all her medical needs had been address, and she should call her HMO that after noon or in the morning at the latest, and get herself reassigned to another physician.
Observations: My IPA (independent practice association) which contracts with various HMOs stated in a recent meeting. The average statement from most emergency rooms was in the $thousands, they were usually able to settle for $600 or slightly more. To go from one ER to another is a cost that welfare patients as well as regular HMO patients do not understand. Hence, there is no limit to their gluttony. Oversights from the HMOs have not made a serious dent in this cost. Our clinical data from years of observations has found that a 20% co-payment for emergency care, at the time of registration, would reduce over half of the unneeded ER costs which would not diminish the quality of care. In other words, collecting $120 at the ER registration desks makes the patient instantly re-evaluate whether she really has an emergency. In our surveys, approximately three-fourths, would cancel their registration and go home. They will see their own physician the next day, or use basic treatment in their medical cabinet and feel better the next day.
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Medical Gluttony thrives in Government and Health Insurance Programs.
It Disappears with Appropriate Deductibles and Co-payments on Every Service.
* * * * *
Medical Myths: Whistle Blowers Keep Doctors in Line?
WASHINGTON,
DC . . . the whistleblowers and persons of conscience will hold the
fifth annual gathering on Capitol Hill, focused on signature issues
of Judicial Accountability, Medical Integrity and expanding
education and awareness of whistleblower issues, particularly in
light of consideration of the preventable **disasters that have
beset the United States. Advocates from around the country to meet
in the Nation's Capitol and encourage their lawmakers to pass the
protection for whistleblowers.
As the Nation's budget crisis
continues to grow, lawmakers must be encouraged to look towards the
activities of corporate and federal whistleblowers in assuring
proper spending.
Registration and details at
http://internationalwhistleblower.org/
Dear Scoop Readers and Writers,
Scoop has been crucial to the public interest, and in exposing matters of critical interest to the nation. Now, all of us are having a National Meeting to press our agenda to Congress. OEN has consistently pursued the public interest and whistleblower rights. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to make our voices heard, and to meet and make the public aware of the crisis in rights
We Need Every Single OEN reader and writer to attend. Please send this invitation everywhere. We need all interested citizens. Please examine:
http://internationalwhistleblower.org/
The IAW is non-political, and non-aligned. The IAW seeks to provide a forum for citizens of conscience to meet, network, and seek new relationships and mentoring in the struggle to bring integrity to healthcare.
Now is
the time for all public minded and enlightened citizens to band
together.
The
International Association of Whistleblower Caucus
will be held in Washington, DC: Read
more . . .
Included
in the IAW Caucus are many signature panels and events:
1. A
ceremony to Honor Absent Heroes; a "empty chair" panel
will represent four outstanding whistleblowers that cannot attend
the meeting because they are in prison or are deceased:
a)
Martin
Salazar, former Dept. of Energy employee
b) Bradley
Birkenfeld, former UBS banker
c)
Mordechai
Vanunu, former Israeli nuclear technician
d)
Karen
Silkwood, Kerr-McGee technician (deceased)
Other absent
heroes will also be honored in a roll call of those lost while
serving the nation's interests.
2.
Atlanta
Whistleblowers will discuss the alarming problems in Georgia
including the eruptions of scandals in schools, hospitals and
courts. Dr. Helen Salisbury and her colleagues will ask: "Can
the Patient Quality Care Project Bring Integrity back to
Medicine?"
3.
Medical
Whistleblowers will report on need for improvements at the nation's
for-profit hospital chains.
4.
A
special session will be provided by OpEdNew's own Rob Kall and Joan
Brunwasser and Tapping the Power of Media "How can we use the
power of story, and new internet media, to promote social justice?
More events can be seen on the IAW website. Whistleblowers from all walks of life are welcomed. Membership is being enlarged. The IAW will also host social events and booksignings. Every single person attending will have the opportunity to have their story recorded for U-tube. This event is "of, by and for the whistleblower."
"Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known."
We encourage all 264 organizations and corporations that signed the Whistleblower letter to join us! We are already bonded by a shared principle that "whistleblower protection is a foundation for any change in which the public can believe. It does not matter whether the issue is economic recovery, prescription drug safety, environmental protection, infrastructure spending, national health insurance, or foreign policy."
http://www.internationalwhistleblower.org/whistle-blower-news/
Medical Truth: Whistleblowers will restore integrity in medicine by bringing hospitals in line.
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Medical Myths originate when someone else pays the medical bills which eliminates Market forces.
Myths disappear when Patients pay Appropriate Deductibles and Co-payments on Every Service. This returns utilization and pricing to their lowest level as determined by market forces, essentially halving costs and utilization.
* * * * *
Overheard in the Medical Staff Lounge: Don’t Bill Medicaid Patients. You lose in two ways.
Dr. Rosen: What’s new in Obamacare this week with the welfare patients being placed in HMOs?
Dr. Dave: The oppression is beginning early. We had eliminated referrals from what appeared like HMOs except for the little Medical mark after the HMO name.
Dr. Rosen: We had an outside business consultant review our finances. My attorney had advised me to close my practice since it was no longer profitable. I would like to practice another ten years or so.
Dr. Ruth: Did you find any useful information? Read more . . .
Dr. Rosen: We found out our HMO was paying us about 70 percent of our fee. We found that Medicare was paying us about 60%. Most private insurers were paying us between 50% and 70% of our usual and customary fee.
Dr. Dave: What’s surprising to me is that Medicare is still paying you more than 50%. The last time we looked at our surgery reimbursements, Medicare was at less than 50%.
Dr. Patricia: We’re getting about the same from Medicare. It’s always over 50% and it fluctuates to over 60% at times.
Dr. Sam: That’s why I don’t participate in any government plan whether it’s Medicare or Medicaid. The arrogance of their paying bills at whatever level they wish. Aren’t we the only profession that tolerates such discrimination?
Dr. Rosen: Sam, putting the discussion in that frame of reference, reminds me that the biggest surprise was the Medicaid program. We didn’t average even 10% of our fee.
Dr. Sam: Looks like you’re finally waking up to government medicine.
Dr. Rosen: It even gets worse. Of the seven Medicaid patients we saw the last quarter, our total income was $25.
Dr. Ruth: That’s not even the cost of billing!
Dr. Rosen: That’s precisely the point I was leading up to. We then decided not to bill the state for their welfare patients. We will see them totally as charity.
Dr. Patricia: That’s the only way that the patients will see it as charity. As long as you bill, they’ll think that you’re making money. They can’t conceive that you’re losing money. In fact they think that your $25 for seven patients is income. That doesn’t covering one hour of staff time to provide their services.
Dr. Rosen: When Dr. Sanford, who was the president of the Union of American Physicians and Dentist, spoke to our group in the 1970s, Medicaid patients receive two small stickers about a quarter inch by a half inch per month, he said he would never stoop to such an insulting menial task as the paste these to an insurance form and told all his Medicaid patients that he would see them free as often as they needed him.
Dr. Milton: I also remember him saying that they were more appreciative of his services when it was real charity.
Dr. Ruth: It’s basically charity either way. But as long as you’re losing the cost of billing, and each patient costs you the price of billing with essentially no income from them, the patient is a liability.
Dr. Milton: The patients don’t see it that way.
Dr. Ruth: The State doesn’t see it that way either. They see a $100 fee and pay the doctor $10. This obviously means that doctors are charging their patients ten times what they’re worth and that’s why doctors are rich.
Dr. Rosen: So I think we’ve come to the consensus that it’s probably not financially advisable to even bill the State for Medicaid patients. And it’s even a bad public relations endeavor. Maybe that’s also why we see such hostility from state employees.
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The Staff Lounge Is Where Unfiltered Opinions Are Heard.
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Voices of Medicine: Authentic Medicine - Douglas Farrago MD, Editor, Creator & Founder
SPEAKING HONESTLY AND OPENLY ABOUT OUR BROKEN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM SINCE 2002
The mission of Authentic Medicine is to rediscover how much the art of medicine means and allow us to reconnect to our roots once again. It is about fighting back against those things that are taking us away from the direct care of patients while still pointing out the lunacy and hypocrisy of this job. Be part of the movement that will take back the healthcare system from the idiots who are ruining it.
Douglas Farrago MD is a full-time practicing family doc in Auburn, Maine. He is board certified in the specialty of Family Practice. He is also the inventor of a product called the Knee Saver which is currently in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Knee Saver, and its knock-offs, are worn by many major league baseball catchers.
From 2001 – 2011, Dr. Farrago was the editor and creator of the Placebo Journal which ran for 10 full years. He was featured in the Washington Post, US News and World Report, the AP, and the NY Times.
Authentic Medicine was born out of concern about where the direction of healthcare is heading and the belief that the wrong people are in charge. Only when physicians regain control and connect back to the roots of this profession will we ever have AUTHENTIC MEDICINE again. Read more . . .
about this site
Authentic Medicine is about connecting us back to the roots of medicine. This online “magazine” will constantly be updated with informative and challenging opinions and ideas. The goal is to fight back against those things that are taking us away from the direct care of patients while still pointing out the lunacy and hypocrisy of this job. It is the evolution of what I was really trying to accomplish by the end with the Placebo Journal.
Physicians and patients need to join together to form the “Authentic Medicine Movement”. This is not about being Republican or Democrat. It is about opening up a dialogue and keeping that conversation going. You may hate some of the things I say. I may hate some of your comments. It doesn’t matter.
The wrong people (politicians, businessmen, and administrators) are running and ruining this healthcare system. We need to speak up and be part of the NEVER ENDING DEBATE.
Issues that I am concerned about:
Why we are moving to an era of Industrialized Medicine
The Quality Movement and why it is a scam
The ever expanding Medical Axis of Evil
Medical Dogma and the Alphabet Soup (JC, HIPAA, etc.)
Bureaucratic Drag and the distractions from treating patients
Burnout and depression amongst healthcare professionals
Humor in caring for the patient and the caretaker
I would be honored if you can check out the site and tell me what you like or dislike so far. Come back regularly as new items are added daily (at least).
Email Dr. Farrago – doug@authenticmedicine.com
Subscribe at http://authenticmedicine.com/
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VOM Is an Insider's View of What Doctors are Thinking, Saying and Writing about
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Book Review: Love in the time of Algorithms
Online dating is awash with deviance. There are perverts, scammers and misanthropic entrepreneurs all hellbent on profiting from loneliness. But then there are women like Laura Brashier, a 37-year-old hairdresser from California and a survivor of cervical cancer. Her treatment left Ms Brashier unable to have sex. Read more . . . Rather than endure the anxiety of conventional dating she decided to set up a dating site for people like her. 2Date4Love describes itself as the site for “people who cannot engage in sexual intercourse to meet and experience love, companionship and intimacy at its deepest level. Since its creation in 2011, it has enrolled thousands of members who might otherwise have struggled to find romance.
WSJ Jan 29, 2013, A13 Bookshelf.
This book review is found at .
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The Book Review Section Is an Insider’s View of What Doctors are Reading about.
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Hippocrates & His Kin: GOP senator backs same-sex marriage
U. S. Senator Rob Portman, is the first GOP senator to back same-sex marriage, after announcing that he has a gay son and could no longer justify his opposition to same-sex marriage. That statement, in and of itself, would normally remove him from any objectivity in the debate. He was a sponsor of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which was reviewed by the Supreme Court. That case, he said, was a factor in his decision to speak out. Read more . . .
Or is this a factor in delaying his “coming out of the closet” announcement?
Britain investigates price fixing for the Shock Absorber Bra
The Shock Absorber Bra was once advertised by tennis player Anna Kournikova under the slogan: “Only the balls should bounce.” It is now being investigated for price fixing.
Was it really that the “price that was fixed” or that the “mammae were not fixed?”
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Hippocrates
and His Kin / Hippocrates Modern Colleagues
The Challenges of
Yesteryear, Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow
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The National Center for Policy Analysis, John C Goodman, PhD, President, who along with Gerald L. Musgrave, and Devon M. Herrick wrote Lives at Risk, issues a weekly Health Policy Digest, a health summary of the full NCPA daily report. You may log on at www.ncpa.org and register to receive one or more of these reports.
Pacific Research Institute, (www.pacificresearch.org) Sally C Pipes, President and CEO, John R Graham, Director of Health Care Studies, publish a monthly Health Policy Prescription newsletter, which is very timely to our current health care situation. You may signup to receive their newsletters via email by clicking on the email tab or directly access their health care blog.
The Mercatus Center at George Mason University (www.mercatus.org) is a strong advocate for accountability in government. Maurice McTigue, QSO, a Distinguished Visiting Scholar, a former Member of Parliament and cabinet minister in New Zealand, is now director of the Mercatus Center's Government Accountability Project. Join the Mercatus Center for Excellence in Government.
To read the rest of this column, please go to www.medicaltuesday.net/org.asp.
The National Association of Health Underwriters, www.NAHU.org. The NAHU's Vision Statement: Every American will have access to private sector solutions for health, financial and retirement security and the services of insurance professionals. There are numerous important issues listed on the opening page. Be sure to scan their professional journal, Health Insurance Underwriters (HIU), for articles of importance in the Health Insurance MarketPlace. The HIU magazine, with Jim Hostetler as the executive editor, covers technology, legislation and product news - everything that affects how health insurance professionals do business.
The Galen Institute, Grace-Marie Turner President and Founder, has a weekly Health Policy Newsletter sent every Friday to which you may subscribe by logging on at www.galen.org. A study of purchasers of Health Savings Accounts shows that the new health care financing arrangements are appealing to those who previously were shut out of the insurance market, to families, to older Americans, and to workers of all income levels.
Greg Scandlen, an expert in Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), has embarked on a new mission: Consumers for Health Care Choices (CHCC). Read the initial series of his newsletter, Consumers Power Reports. Become a member of CHCC, The voice of the health care consumer. Be sure to read Prescription for change: Employers, insurers, providers, and the government have all taken their turn at trying to fix American Health Care. Now it's the Consumers turn. Greg has joined the Heartland Institute, where current newsletters can be found.
The Heartland Institute, www.heartland.org, Joseph Bast, President, publishes the Health Care News and the Heartlander. You may sign up for their health care email newsletter. Read the late Conrad F Meier on What is Free-Market Health Care? Be sure to read the Paul Ryan report. . .
The Foundation for Economic Education, www.fee.org, has been publishing The Freeman - Ideas On Liberty, Freedom's Magazine, for over 50 years, with Lawrence W Reed, President, and Sheldon Richman as editor. Having bound copies of this running treatise on free-market economics for over 50 years, I still take pleasure in the relevant articles by Leonard Read and others who have devoted their lives to the cause of liberty. I have a patient who has read this journal since it was a mimeographed newsletter sixty years ago. Be sure to read the current lesson on Economic Education.
The Council for Affordable Health Insurance, www.cahi.org/index.asp, founded by Greg Scandlen in 1991, where he served as CEO for five years, is an association of insurance companies, actuarial firms, legislative consultants, physicians and insurance agents. Their mission is to develop and promote free-market solutions to America's health-care challenges by enabling a robust and competitive health insurance market that will achieve and maintain access to affordable, high-quality health care for all Americans. "The belief that more medical care means better medical care is deeply entrenched . . . Our study suggests that perhaps a third of medical spending is now devoted to services that don't appear to improve health or the quality of care–and may even make things worse."
The Independence Institute, www.i2i.org, is a free-market think-tank in Golden, Colorado, that has a Health Care Policy Center, with Linda Gorman as Director. Be sure to sign up for the monthly Health Care Policy Center Newsletter.
Martin Masse, Director of Publications at the Montreal Economic Institute, is the publisher of the webzine: Le Quebecois Libre. Please log on at www.quebecoislibre.org/apmasse.htm to review his free-market based articles, some of which will allow you to brush up on your French. You may also register to receive copies of their webzine on a regular basis.
The Fraser Institute, an independent public policy organization, focuses on the role competitive markets play in providing for the economic and social well being of all Canadians. Canadians celebrated Tax Freedom Day on June 28, the date they stopped paying taxes and started working for themselves. Log on at www.fraserinstitute.ca for an overview of the extensive research articles that are available. You may want to go directly to their health research section.
The Heritage Foundation, www.heritage.org/, founded in 1973, is a research and educational institute whose mission was to formulate and promote public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values and a strong national defense. -- However, since they supported the socialistic health plan instituted by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts, which is replaying the Medicare excessive increases in its first two years, and was used by some as a justification for the ObamaCare plan, they have lost sight of their mission and we will no longer feature them as a freedom loving institution and have canceled our support and contributions. A non-profit foundation that loses sight of limited government, individual freedom, and traditional American values should not and cannot make such an egregious error.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute, Lew Rockwell, President, is a rich source of free-market materials, probably the best daily course in economics we've seen. If you read these essays on a daily basis, it would probably be equivalent to taking Economics 11 and 51 in college. Please log on at www.mises.org to obtain the foundation's daily reports. You may also log on to Lew's premier free-market site to read some of his lectures to medical groups. Learn how state medicine subsidizes illness or to find out why anyone would want to be an MD today.
CATO. The Cato Institute (www.cato.org) was founded in 1977, by Edward H. Crane, with Charles Koch of Koch Industries. It is a nonprofit public policy research foundation headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Institute is named for Cato's Letters, a series of pamphlets that helped lay the philosophical foundation for the American Revolution. The Mission: The Cato Institute seeks to broaden the parameters of public policy debate to allow consideration of the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets and peace. Ed Crane reminds us that the framers of the Constitution designed to protect our liberty through a system of federalism and divided powers so that most of the governance would be at the state level where abuse of power would be limited by the citizens' ability to choose among 13 (and now 50) different systems of state government. Thus, we could all seek our favorite moral turpitude and live in our comfort zone recognizing our differences and still be proud of our unity as Americans. Michael F. Cannon is the Cato Institute's Director of Health Policy Studies. Read his bio, articles and books at www.cato.org/people/cannon.html.
The St. Croix Review, a bimonthly journal of ideas, recognizes that the world is very dangerous. Conservatives are staunch defenders of the homeland. But as Russell Kirk believed, wartime allows the federal government to grow at a frightful pace. We expect government to win the wars we engage, and we expect that our borders be guarded. But St. Croix feels the impulses of the Administration and Congress are often misguided. The politicians of both parties in Washington overreach so that we see with disgust the explosion of earmarks and perpetually increasing spending on programs that have nothing to do with winning the war. There is too much power given to Washington. Even in wartime, we have to push for limited government - while giving the government the necessary tools to win the war. To read a variety of articles in this arena, please go to www.stcroixreview.com.
Hillsdale College, the premier small liberal arts college in southern Michigan with about 1,200 students, was founded in 1844 with the mission of "educating for liberty." It is proud of its principled refusal to accept any federal funds, even in the form of student grants and loans, and of its historic policy of non-discrimination and equal opportunity. The price of freedom is never cheap. While schools throughout the nation are bowing to an unconstitutional federal mandate that schools must adopt a Constitution Day curriculum each September 17th or lose federal funds, Hillsdale students take a semester-long course on the Constitution restoring civics education and developing a civics textbook, a Constitution Reader. You may log on at www.hillsdale.edu to register for the annual weeklong von Mises Seminars, held every February, or their famous Shavano Institute. Congratulations to Hillsdale for its national rankings in the USNews College rankings. Changes in the Carnegie classifications, along with Hillsdale's continuing rise to national prominence, prompted the Foundation to move the College from the regional to the national liberal arts college classification. Please log on and register to receive Imprimis, their national speech digest that reaches more than one million readers each month. This month, read ? Choose recent issues. The last ten years of Imprimis are archived.
John and Alieta Eck, MDs, for their first-century solution to twenty-first century needs. With 46 million people in this country uninsured, we need an innovative solution apart from the place of employment and apart from the government. To read the rest of the story, go to www.zhcenter.org and check out their history, mission statement, newsletter, and a host of other information
PATMOS EmergiClinic - where Robert Berry, MD, an emergency physician and internist, practices. To read his story and the background for naming his clinic PATMOS EmergiClinic - the island where John was exiled and an acronym for "payment at time of service," go to www.patmosemergiclinic.com/ To read more on Dr Berry, please click on the various topics at his website. To review How to Start a Third-Party Free Medical Practice . . .
PRIVATE NEUROLOGY is a Third-Party-Free Practice in Derby, NY with Larry Huntoon, MD, PhD, FANN. (http://home.earthlink.net/~doctorlrhuntoon/) Dr Huntoon does not allow any HMO or government interference in your medical care. "Since I am not forced to use CPT codes and ICD-9 codes (coding numbers required on claim forms) in our practice, I have been able to keep our fee structure very simple." I have no interest in "playing games" so as to "run up the bill." My goal is to provide competent, compassionate, ethical care at a price that patients can afford. Private Neurology also guarantees that medical records in our office are kept totally private and confidential - in accordance with the Oath of Hippocrates. Since I am a non-covered entity under HIPAA, your medical records are safe from the increased risk of disclosure under HIPAA law.
FIRM: Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine, Lin Zinser, JD, Founder, www.westandfirm.org, researches and studies the work of scholars and policy experts in the areas of health care, law, philosophy, and economics to inform and to foster public debate on the causes and potential solutions of rising costs of health care and health insurance. Read Lin Zinser’s view on today’s health care problem: In today’s proposals for sweeping changes in the field of medicine, the term “socialized medicine” is never used. Instead we hear demands for “universal,” “mandatory,” “singlepayer,” and/or “comprehensive” systems. These demands aim to force one healthcare plan (sometimes with options) onto all Americans; it is a plan under which all medical services are paid for, and thus controlled, by government agencies. Sometimes, proponents call this “nationalized financing” or “nationalized health insurance.” In a more honest day, it was called socialized medicine.
Michael J. Harris, MD - www.northernurology.com - an active member in the American Urological Association, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Societe' Internationale D'Urologie, has an active cash'n carry practice in urology in Traverse City, Michigan. He has no contracts, no Medicare, Medicaid, no HIPAA, just patient care. Dr Harris is nationally recognized for his medical care system reform initiatives. To understand that Medical Bureaucrats and Administrators are basically Medical Illiterates telling the experts how to practice medicine, be sure to savor his article on "Administrativectomy: The Cure For Toxic Bureaucratosis."
Dr Richard B Willner, President, Center Peer Review Justice Inc, states: We are a group of healthcare doctors -- physicians, podiatrists, dentists, osteopaths -- who have experienced and/or witnessed the tragedy of the perversion of medical peer review by malice and bad faith. We have seen the statutory immunity, which is provided to our "peers" for the purposes of quality assurance and credentialing, used as cover to allow those "peers" to ruin careers and reputations to further their own, usually monetary agenda of destroying the competition. We are dedicated to the exposure, conviction, and sanction of any and all doctors, and affiliated hospitals, HMOs, medical boards, and other such institutions, which would use peer review as a weapon to unfairly destroy other professionals. Read the rest of the story, as well as a wealth of information, at www.peerreview.org.
Semmelweis Society International, Verner S. Waite MD, FACS, Founder; Henry Butler MD, FACS, President; Ralph Bard MD, JD, Vice President; W. Hinnant MD, JD, Secretary-Treasurer; is named after Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, MD (1818-1865), an obstetrician who has been hailed as the savior of mothers. He noted maternal mortality of 25-30 percent in the obstetrical clinic in Vienna. He also noted that the first division of the clinic run by medical students had a death rate 2-3 times as high as the second division run by midwives. He also noticed that medical students came from the dissecting room to the maternity ward. He ordered the students to wash their hands in a solution of chlorinated lime before each examination. The maternal mortality dropped, and by 1848, no women died in childbirth in his division. He lost his appointment the following year and was unable to obtain a teaching appointment. Although ahead of his peers, he was not accepted by them. When Dr Verner Waite received similar treatment from a hospital, he organized the Semmelweis Society with his own funds using Dr Semmelweis as a model: To read the article he wrote at my request for Sacramento Medicine when I was editor in 1994, see www.delmeyer.net/HMCPeerRev.htm. To see Attorney Sharon Kime's response, as well as the California Medical Board response, see www.delmeyer.net/HMCPeerRev.htm. Scroll down to read some very interesting letters to the editor from the Medical Board of California, from a member of the MBC, and from Deane Hillsman, MD. To view some horror stories of atrocities against physicians and how organized medicine still treats this problem, please go to www.semmelweissociety.net.
The Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (www.AAPSonline.org), The Voice for Private Physicians Since 1943, representing physicians in their struggles against bureaucratic medicine, loss of medical privacy, and intrusion by the government into the personal and confidential relationship between patients and their physicians. Be sure to read News of the Day in Perspective: Don't miss the "AAPS News," written by Jane Orient, MD, and archived on this site which provides valuable information on a monthly basis. Browse the archives of their official organ, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, with Larry Huntoon, MD, PhD, a neurologist in New York, as the Editor-in-Chief. There are a number of important articles that can be accessed from the Table of Contents.
The AAPS California Chapter is an unincorporated association made up of members. The Goal of the AAPS California Chapter is to carry on the activities of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) on a statewide basis. This is accomplished by having meetings and providing communications that support the medical professional needs and interests of independent physicians in private practice. To join the AAPS California Chapter, all you need to do is join national AAPS and be a physician licensed to practice in the State of California. There is no additional cost or fee to be a member of the AAPS California State Chapter.
Go to California Chapter Web Page . . .
Bottom line: "We are the best deal Physicians can get from a statewide physician based organization!"
PA-AAPS is the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a non-partisan professional association of physicians in all types of practices and specialties across the country. Since 1943, AAPS has been dedicated to the highest ethical standards of the Oath of Hippocrates and to preserving the sanctity of the patient-physician relationship and the practice of private medicine. We welcome all physicians (M.D. and D.O.) as members. Podiatrists, dentists, chiropractors and other medical professionals are welcome to join as professional associate members. Staff members and the public are welcome as associate members. Medical students are welcome to join free of charge.
Our motto, "omnia pro aegroto" means "all for the patient."
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Words of Wisdom
Party loyalty lowers the greatest of men to the petty level of the masses. –Les Caracteres.
The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds. –John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-63), U.S. Statesman. Speech, Rice University, 12 Sept 1962.
In my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now. –Samuel Johnson, Life of Johnson (J. Boswell), Vol I
Some Recent Postings
In The February Issue: