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Networking to Restore Accountability in HealthCare & Government

MedicalTuesday, Vol IV, No 3, May 10, 2005

IMPORTANT: It's time for your MedicalTuesday break in your routine to reflect on the world of health care. This should be of vital concern to you. If you're pressed for time, PRINT this valuable newsletter to share with your friends and relatives and SAVE to your MedicalTuesday folder for future reference.

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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. 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 or single-payer health care felt these meetings were counter productive, and they essentially disappeared. Rationing, a common component of government medicine throughout the world, was introduced in the United States with Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), under the illusion that this was free enterprise. Instead, the consumers (patients) lost all control of their personal and private health-care decision making, the reverse of what was needed to control health care costs and improve quality of care.

We welcome you to the reestablishment of these MedicalTuesday interchanges, now occurring on the world wide web and currently reaching physicians and health care professionals in twenty-one countries on six continents and your own desktop. If this newsletter has been forwarded to you or you have not been on our email list, please go to www.MedicalTuesday.net and subscribe to continue to receive these free messages on alternate MedicalTuesdays. At this site, you can also subscribe to the companion quarterly newsletter, HealthPlanUSA, designed to make HealthCare more accessible and affordable for all Americans. Please FORWARD this message to your friends and your professional and business associates.

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In This Issue:

1.    Five Myths vs Realities About Changing Behavior in Health Care

2.    Endless Email Messaging Rots the Brain Worse than Pot

3.    General Motor's Health Care Costs Equal $1,527 per Car

4.    Critical Condition: Politics and Our Health Don't Mix in Sacramento

5.    Eighty Percent of Health Care Costs are Consumed by Five Behavioral Issues

6.   

7.    Letter From a Member of the American Medical Writers Association in Response to Dr Herb Rubin's statement in the April 12 issue: Lifetime Health Insurance from Birth

8.    The MedicalTuesday Recommendations for Restoring Accountability in HealthCare, Government and Society

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1.    Five Myths vs Realities About Changing Behavior in Health Care

Alan Deutschman, writing in the current issue of Fast Company, discusses the problems with changing behavior. He gives us five realities to counter myths we feel may prevent the next coronary or disease. [Deutschman elaborates further in section five below.]

Myth: Crisis is a powerful impetus for change

Reality: Ninety percent of patients who've had coronary bypasses don't sustain changes in the unhealthy lifestyles that worsen their severe heart disease and greatly threaten their lives.

Myth: Change is motivated by fear

Reality: It's too easy for people to go into denial of the bad things that might happen to them. Compelling, positive visions of the future are a much stronger inspiration for change.

Myth: The facts will set us free

Reality: Our thinking is guided by narratives, not facts. When a fact doesn't fit our conceptual "frames" -- the metaphors we use to make sense of the world -- we reject it. Also, change is inspired best by emotional appeals rather than factual statements.

Myth: Small, gradual changes are always easier to make and sustain

Reality: Radical, sweeping changes are often easier because they quickly yield benefits.

Myth: We can't change because our brains become "hardwired" early in life

Reality: Our brains have extraordinary "plasticity," meaning that we can continue learning complex new things throughout our lives -- assuming we remain truly active and engaged.

To review the entire Change or Die article, go to Fast Company at http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/94/open_change_or_die_fasttake1.html#startcontent.

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2.    Endless Email Messaging Rots the Brain Worse than Pot

Benjamin Pimentel reports in the San Francisco Chronicle that endless messaging rots the brain worse than pot.

"A study commissioned by Hewlett-Packard has found that excessive day-to-day use of technology -- whether it's sending e-mails or using mobile phones -- can be more distracting and harmful to the IQ than smoking marijuana.

"The research conducted for HP by scientists from the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London warns of the "abuse of always-on technology" in which "workers are literally addicted to checking e-mail and text messages during meetings, in the evening and at weekends."

"The study called this condition info-mania.

""This is a very real and widespread phenomenon," psychologist Glenn Wilson said in a statement. "We have found info-mania, if unchecked, will damage (workers') performance by reducing their mental sharpness."

"But the study said "an average worker's functioning IQ falls 10 points when distracted by ringing telephones and incoming e-mails ... more than double the four-point drop seen following studies on the impact of smoking marijuana."

". . . Debra Meyerson, professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, echoed the study's finding that "being accessible all the time is a source of stress."

""The boundaries between work and nonwork are now constructed by people turning technology on and off," said Meyerson, who is involved in a study on the impact of technology on everyday life.

". . . HP said the study was part of the Palo Alto company's effort to help businesses deal with improper use of technology."

To read Pimentel's entire article, go to http://sfgate.com/cgi_bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/04/BUGOSCJGA41.DTL&type=printable

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3.    General Motor's Health Care Costs Equal $1,527 per Car

Jack Sirard, a reporter for the Sacramento Bee, wrote: "Last month, General Motors rocked Wall Street by announcing a staggering first-quarter loss of $1.1 billion. That was its largest setback since 1992 when GM lost $21 billion after accounting rules were changed to require companies to include health care costs for both its employees and retirees as part of their earnings.

". . . GM blamed its dismal problems on weaker sales plus rising costs for employee health care and raw materials to build its vehicles.

". . . Fabian, who drives a Chevrolet Suburban to haul his four children and six surfboards, says the company's health care liabilities for its 1.1 million current and retired employees will cost about $6 billion over the next year. He says that $1,527 in the price of each car sold goes to pay for the company's health care costs.

"Philip Guziec, an analyst with Morningstar Inc. in Chicago, agrees that GM's biggest problems are the financial issues related to health care expenses." Guziec thinks, "If GM was able to totally eliminate their health care problems, we estimate the stock could be worth over $100 a share."

To read the full Sirard article in last week's Sacramento Bee, go to http://www.sacbee.com/content/business/v_print/story/12819973p_13670144c.html.

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4.    Critical Condition: Politics and Our Health Don't Mix in Sacramento

This is what Jill Steward reports in the San Francisco Chronicle. AB1670, proposed by Assemblymen Joe Nation, D-San Rafael, and Keith Richman, R-Northridge, ". . . was a market-based plan requiring all Californians to buy catastrophic insurance, akin to mandatory auto insurance. One goal, Richman notes, was to make Californians cost-aware via high deductibles.

""When consumers don't have it all paid by a third party, they avoid unnecessary costs, and the market responds by dropping prices -- as with laser-eye surgery that was $3,000 per eye and is now $300 because insurance didn't mask the cost," says Richman.

"Kuehl's plan, known as a single-payer program, SB840, goes the opposite direction. It guts Blue Cross, Blue Shield and other insurers, wiping out thousands of white-collar jobs and placing all Californians in a single government-run scheme for approving and paying coverage. It would require a huge tax increase to provide its extensive "free" care to all. Consumers would not be cost-aware.

"In a sense, Kuehl's idea harks back to a time when fewer politicians understood economic principles and many thought preventive care and constant access to doctors would improve care and reduce costs. Now economists know that much preventive care is wasted on healthy people seeking nonessentials that prevent nothing. Unfortunately, we're not having this overdue discussion in California.

". . . Kuehl's plan will probably die, too, because of its heavily left-tilted politics and denial of numerous economic principles. The bill is not Kuehl's idea, exactly. It is part of a thus-far unsuccessful nationwide single-payer effort called Health Care for All in several states.

"Oregon voters rejected a single-payer plan, 79 percent to 21 percent. Assemblyman Nation notes that in Canada, 71 percent of Canadians now demand major reform.

". . . She believes ready access to free comprehensive care will drive costs down, not up. She denies knowledge of the growing debate on over-utilization of care by the fully insured (seeing the doc for sniffles because the co-pay is so cheap and doctors rarely say no).

"I am not at all sure that those who are insured in any way over-utilize, " says Kuehl, "I have not heard that. People, I think, are quite smart about utilizing health care, and that is what my plan acknowledges."

"Few economists would agree. Dana Goldman, director of health economics at Rand Corp., who has advised Richman and Nation, dismisses the single-payer theory. "Why is anyone still discussing this?" he says.

". . . Clearly, Sacramento is not yet ready for a sensible economic debate. A Kuehl aide became agitated when I asked how they planned to control the juggernaut of technology costs, demanding to know why I was focused on cost containment."

To read Jill Stewart's entire article, go to http://www.sfgate.com/cgi_bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/01/INGCGCFQKA1.DTL&type=printable.

When we have Senators who are so uninformed they think that free comprehensive care is driving costs down, that there is no health-care over-utilization problem, and they don't understand why people talk about cost containment, we would do well to remember an aphorism of Thomas Sowell:

People use to say, "Ignorance is no excuse."

Today, "Ignorance is no problem. Our schools promote so much self-esteem that people confidently spout off about all sorts of things that they know nothing about."

Thomas Sowell - www.tsowell.com 

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5.    Eighty Percent of Health Care Costs are Consumed by Five Behavioral Issues

Alan Deutschman reports further on behavioral issues in Fast Company: "This revelation unnerved many people in the audience last November at IBM's "Global Innovation Outlook" conference. The company's top executives had invited the most farsighted thinkers they knew from around the world to come together in New York and propose solutions to some really big problems. They started with the crisis in health care, an industry that consumes an astonishing $1.8 trillion a year in the United States alone, or 15% of gross domestic product. A dream team of experts took the stage, and you might have expected them to proclaim that breathtaking advances in science and technology - mapping the human genome and all that - held the long awaited answers. That's not what they said. They said that the root cause of the health crisis hasn't changed for decades, and the medical establishment still couldn't figure out what to do about it."

"Dr. Raphael "Ray" Levey, founder of the Global Medical Forum, an annual summit meeting of leaders from every constituency in the health system, told the audience, "A relatively small percentage of the population consumes the vast majority of the healthcare budget for diseases that are very well known and by and large behavioral." That is, they're sick because of how they choose to live their lives, not because of environmental or genetic factors beyond their control. Continued Levey: "Even as far back as when I was in medical school" - he enrolled at Harvard in 1955 - "many articles demonstrated that 80% of the healthcare budget was consumed by five behavioral issues." Levey didn't bother to name them, but you don't need an MD to guess what he was talking about: too much smoking, drinking, eating, and stress, and not enough exercise."

To further review the entire section in Fast Company, go to http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/94/open_change_or_die.html.

Government Is Not the Solution to Our Problems

Understanding the Behavior and Economics of Health Care Is.

If Health Care Premiums Reflected the Increased Cost of Risk Behavior

Then Those That Persist in Adverse Behavior Would Pay Their Own Costs.

And Health Insurance for the Rest of Us Would Be Very, Very Cheap.

* * * * *

6.    Medical Myths: Cooking the Books? Trillion Dollar Cover-up? Hospitals Call it Peer_review! http://www.healthcarecom.net/RV_Profile.htm

"Are our hospitals any different from ENRON and WORLDCOM in their proclivity to hide the truth? Doctors are supposed to keep the medicine clean by performing "peer review" on each other and taking actions where they find problems. But in many hospitals, the power elite (administrators and physicians acting in concert) simply use this system to hide the mistakes of their friends.

"For a long time, the medical establishment has argued that the doctors can only review each other with honesty and candor if such reviews are protected from the public eye. Most states have bought this argument in a gullible fashion and have enacted laws that protect these reviews from being publicly questioned for accuracy and effectiveness.

"Politically powerful doctors can easily do unnecessary surgery or make serious medical errors. They simply get reviewed by their colleagues in an "understanding" manner. However, if you do not have the political clout but simply practice good medicine, the same secretive process is used to blackball and eliminate you.

"Abuse of peer review is more prevalent than admitted by the medical establishment. It has serious adverse effects on public health but nobody is paying any attention to this problem. The Center for Peer Review Justice is one of the concerned organizations (www.PeerReview.org).

"This situation needs to be addressed quickly and effectively in order to reduce medical errors, control malpractice costs and promote public health. This nation can not afford to pay 1.4 trillion dollars per year and still spiraling, medical price tag for long."

* * * * *

7.    Letter From a Member of the American Medical Writers Association in Response to Dr Herb Rubin's statement in the April 12 issue: Lifetime Health Insurance from Birth (http://www.medicaltuesday.net/archives/Apr1205.html)

...The health insurance would stay with the policyholder for a lifetime, more than likely never needed, like most insurance.

Wha?

This article is an interesting proposal, but the above sentence damages its credibility very early. People who more than likely never need health insurance?! To quote Jerry Seinfeld, "Who *arrre* these people?"

Either this wording exists solely to elicit responses, or an editor didn't catch it. If the latter, I can recommend the services of a good medical writer/editor...

Dear Medical Writer/Editor:

Thank you for your response. This section produced the largest response we've seen in the four years of MedicalTuesday. I think most people have come to think of health insurance as a prepayment plan rather than an insurance plan.

Insurance, as I'm sure you'll agree, is for the emergencies or expenses we can ill afford. It should never pay for routine maintenance, whether on your car, your home, your business or your health.

The new Health Savings Account (HSA) is a return to health insurance as it should be. With a $5000 deductible, the insurance kicks in only if you exceed that. So the $400 and change one puts into the account each month to cover the deductible would likely become an investment for those people who never reach the insurance threshold. You can't buy health insurance for a family for less than that.

That would make health insurance the same as other insurance, you hope you never have to use it.

Personally, I would hope that I never have to use my –

1. Home insurance, as long as it doesn't burn down, or is destroyed in an earthquake, hurricane, tornado or flood.

2. Medical Liability insurance, as long as I don't get sued - heaven forbid that I ever should.

3. Car insurance, unless I’m involved in a collision which I hope to continue to avoid.

4. Life insurance, unless I die and I'm trying my best to avoid that.

5. Disability insurance, unless I become disabled which I will also try my best to avoid.

6. Office commercial package insurance, unless I get embezzled or a patient has an injury in my office or something unforeseen which I'm also watching out for.

7. Worker's compensation insurance for my staff, and I do follow all safety procedures so I hopefully will never have to use this, which would increase the premiums.

8. Health insurance, unless I have to be hospitalized which is what health insurance should cover. This should not include the $150 x-ray or $800 MRI and other tests that we should pay for out of our own pockets, as we do a $2500 car transmission replacement or a $10,000 roof repair on the house, etc, et al.

Even though the office commercial package is my cheapest insurance item costing me $700 a year, my health and disability insurance each costs me $4,000 a year and the most expensive, my medical liability insurance, costs me $8,000 per year, I would consider myself fortunate if I never have to use any of them. The very idea that we think we have to use our health insurance policy for routine health maintenance is absurd and costly. One insurance man who also responded to this topic felt that the American concept of health insurance is A) that it’s not insurance, and B) it increases the cost of health care two to three fold.

At a recent family reunion, I found that my sister's husband has not been to a doctor in more than 30 years. He never had surgery or a hospitalization. But he had health insurance for emergencies, such as when my sister broke her hip.

So AMWA member, I think, without even a tongue in cheek, it was a very credible statement by Dr Herb Rubin. If we all paid the first $5,000 of our health care (similar to car care or house care or business care), very few of us would ever have to dip into our major catastrophic health plans. But it would be there if we needed it, just like all the other insurance we carry.

Although we will pass at this time, we appreciate your kind offer for Medical Writing services.

* * * * *

8.    MedicalTuesday Recommends the Following Organizations for Their Efforts in Restoring Accountability in HealthCare, Government and Society:

The National Center for Policy Analysis, John C Goodman, PhD, President, who, along with Devon Herrick, wrote Twenty Myths about Single-Payer Health Insurance which we reviewed in this newsletter the first twenty months, issues a weekly Health Policy Digest, a health summary of the full NCPA daily report. You may log onto www.ncpa.org and register to receive one or more of these reports. Read today's report on "Patients are bypassing doctors and insurers," according to a new study by NCPA Senior Fellow Devon Herrick, and fundamentally changing the health care delivery system. To read the report, go to http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st276/#a.

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. To peruse the prestigious faculty as a gateway to important topics, go to http://www.mercatus.org/scholars.php?menuid=1.

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 onto their website at www.galen.org. A new 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. To read her most recent newsletters about the current data on HSAs, go to http://www.galen.org/ccbdocs.asp?docID=797.

Greg Scandlen, Director of the "Center for Consumer-Driven Health Care" at the Galen Institute, has a Weekly Health News Letter: Consumer Choice Matters. You may subscribe to this informative newsletter that is distributed every Tuesday by logging onto www.galen.org and clicking on Consumer Choice Matters. This is the flagship publication of Galen's new Center for Consumer-Driven Health Care and is written by its director, Greg Scandlen, an expert in Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Archives are now located at http://www.galen.org/ccm_archives.asp where you can select from the recent issues.

The Heartland Institute, www.heartland.org, publishes the Health Care News, Conrad Meier, Managing Editor Emeritus. Read Merrill Matthews report on how "State Mandates Drive Up Insurance Cost" explaining that "Five numbers tell us a lot about health insurance and the health care issue in the United States." Read what the number 4,044; 1,188; 1,823; eight; and 4662 mean at http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16867.

The Foundation for Economic Education, www.fee.org, has been publishing The Freeman - Ideas On Liberty, Freedom’s Magazine, for over 50 years, has Richard M Ebeling, PhD, President, and Sheldon Richman as editor. Having bound copies of this running treatise on free-market economics for over 40 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 fifty years ago. Treat yourself this week by reading Melvin D. Barger, a retired corporate public relations representative and writer, who states "The first time I ever read anything by Leonard Read—in the late 1950s—I thought he was arbitrary, opinionated, and reactionary. Within a few years, however, I was following his ideas with close attention and was also contributing to The Freeman. And when I met him personally in March of 1961, I had come to view him as principled, focused, and visionary. Today, nearly thirteen years after his passing, I view him as a great pathfinder in my own life, and, more importantly, as a social philosopher who will shape the future." Read why he changed his viewpoint at http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=3483.

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." See how "Yet again, the Commonwealth Fund is missing the true point of HSAs: consumer empowerment" at http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/newsroom/article.asp?id=562.

The Health Policy Fact Checkers is a great resource to check the facts for accuracy in reporting and can be accessed from the preceding CAHI site or at www.factcheckers.org/. To access their Fact File, go to http://www.factcheckers.org/showArticleSection.php?section=factconsumer&archive=.

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. This site will also give valuable information on the teaching profession which is in an even worse state empowering students than we are in empowering patients. Read her latest newsletter http://www.i2i.org/HCPC_APRIL_2005.aspx.

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.

Martin Masse, Director of Publications at the Montreal Economic Institute, is the publisher of the webzine: Le Québécois 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. This month, understand why economics and morality are so closely intertwined at http://www.quebecoislibre.org/05/050415_16.htm.

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. Log on at www.fraserinstitute.ca for an overview of the extensive research articles that are available. Mark Mullins reports this week that Ontario hospital payrolls for those making at least $100,000 rose more than 18 percent last year. In addition, ". . . hospital deficits grew to $600 million, staff positions have been eliminated, and waiting times between specialist appointment and hospital treatment increased by 15 percent. The study finds no statistical relationship between pay increases and nine measures of hospital performance. It appears that the extra pay did not buy better health care." Read the entire report at http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore.asp?sNav=nr&id=661.

The Heritage Foundation, www.heritage.org/, founded in 1973, is a research and educational institute whose mission is 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. The Center for Health Policy Studies supports and does extensive research on health care policy that is readily available at http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/index.cfm.

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. The state's intervention in health care has been attributed to failure of the Medical MarketPlace. To understand what market failure is, read Gil Guillory’s article last week at http://www.mises.org/story/1806. You may also log onto Lew’s premier free-market site at www.lewrockwell.com to read some of his lectures to medical groups. To learn how state medicine subsidizes illness, see http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/sickness.html; or to find out why anyone would want to be an MD today, see http://www.lewrockwell.com/klassen/klassen46.html.

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 articles at http://www.cato.org/people/cannon.html.

The Ethan Allen Institute www.ethanallen.org/index2.html is one of some 41 similar but independent state organizations associated with the State Policy Network (SPN) http://www.spn.org/newsite/main/ The mission is to put into practice the fundamentals of a free society: individual liberty, private property, competitive free enterprise, limited and frugal government, strong local communities, personal responsibility, and expanded opportunity for human endeavor.

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 nondiscrimination and equal opportunity. The price of freedom is never cheap. You may log onto www.hillsdale.edu to register for the annual week-long von Mises Seminars, held every February, or their famous Shavano Institute. Please log on and register to receive Imprimis, their national speech digest that reaches more than one million readers each month. This month, read Michael Medved on "War Films, Hollywood and Popular Culture" at http://www.hillsdale.edu/imprimis/. The last ten years of Imprimis are archived at http://www.hillsdale.edu/imprimis/archives.htm.

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Stay Tuned to the MedicalTuesday.Network and Have Your Friends Do the Same

The MedicalTuesday website 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 Admin@MedicalTuesday.net, and your name will be removed. Please be sure that Remove, Your Name and your Email address appear in the subject line 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 it is available to be forwarded or reformatted as new when the occasion arises. Then, save the message to a folder in your Inbox labeled MedicalTuesday.

Del Meyer

Del Meyer, MD, Editor & Founder

DelMeyer@MedicalTuesday.net

www.MedicalTuesday.net

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Words of Wit and Wisdom

Shakespeare on Friendship in Hamlet: The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are.

C. S. Lewis on Reading: If only one had time to read a little more: we either get shallow and broad or narrow and deep.

P. J. O'Rourke: When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first thing to be bought and sold are legislatures.

Will Rogers: I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

Aphorisms

The miracle of radio is that you can always tune in on another voice.

The movies are larger than life, and any resemblance is sometimes entirely coincidental.

Music is the international language because everybody responds to its notes.

Some Recent Postings

Who Owns Your Body by Madeleine Cosman, PhD, JD, Esq, reviewed by Del Meyer http://www.delmeyer.net/bkrev_WhoOwnsYourBody.htm.

A Fable For Our Time by John Hendry, MD, http://www.healthcarecom.net/JHFableforOurTime.htm.

Moby Book by John Hendry, MD. http://www.healthcarecom.net/JHMobyBook.htm.

On This Date in History - May 10

Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of Great Britain, on this date in 1940.

First transcontinental railroad link completed on this date in 1869.

 

 

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