|
MEDICAL TUESDAY . |
NEWSLETTER |
|
Community For Better Health Care |
Vol X, No X, |
In This Issue:
1.
Featured Article:
Scientific
Research at the Crossroads?
2.
In
the News: Spinning Gay Data
3.
International Medicine: Central Money
or Medicare –It’s all Funny Stuff
4.
Medicare: Health Care Reform
5.
Medical Gluttony:
Six Unnecessary
Consultations
6.
Medical Myths: The More Doctors, the
Better
7.
Overheard in the Medical Staff Lounge: Who is your
favorite presidential candidate?
8.
Voices
of Medicine: Bad luck? Bad faith?
Obama battles with mythical monsters
9.
The Bookshelf: Presidential Malpractice
10.
Hippocrates
& His Kin: Another $800
Billion of TARP money!
11.
Related Organizations: Restoring Accountability in Medical Practice and Society
Words of
Wisdom, Recent Postings, In Memoriam, Today in History . . .
* * * * *
Always remember that Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the father
of socialized medicine in
Thus we must also
remember that ObamaCare has nothing to do with appropriate healthcare; it was
similarly projected to gain loyalty by making American citizens dependent on
the government and eliminating their choice and chance in improving their
welfare or quality of healthcare. Socialists know that once people are enslaved,
freedom seems too risky to pursue.
* * * * *
1.
Featured
Article: Scientific
Research at the Crossroads?
An Epidemic of False Claims
Competition and conflicts of interest distort too many medical findings
False positives and exaggerated results in
peer-reviewed scientific studies have reached epidemic proportions in recent years. The problem is rampant in
economics, the social sciences and even the natural sciences, but it is
particularly egregious in biomedicine. Many studies that claim some drug or treatment is
beneficial have turned out
not to be true. We need only look to conflicting findings about beta-carotene, vitamin E, hormone
treatments, Vioxx and
Avandia. Even when effects are genuine, their true magnitude is often smaller than originally
claimed. Read more . . .
The problem begins with the public’s rising expectations of science. Being human,
scientists are tempted to show that they know more than they do. The number of
investigators—and the number of
experiments, observations and analyses they produce—has also increased
exponentially in many fields, but adequate safeguards against bias are lacking. Research is
fragmented, competition is
fierce and emphasis is often given to single studies instead of the big picture.
Much research is conducted for reasons other than the pursuit of truth. Conflicts of
interest abound, and they influence outcomes. In health care, research is often performed at the
behest of companies that
have a large financial stake in the results. Even for academics, success often hinges on publishing
positive findings. The oligopoly of
high-impact journals also has a distorting effect on funding, academic careers and market shares.
Industry tailors research agendas
to suit its needs, which also shapes academic priorities, journal revenue and even public funding.
The crisis should not shake confidence in the
scientific method.
The ability to prove something false continues to be a hallmark of science. But
scientists need to improve the way they do their research
and how they disseminate evidence . . .
John P. A. Ioannidis is C. F. Rehnborg Professor in Disease Prevention,
Professor of Medicine and of Health Research and
Policy,
Director of the
Read
the entire article in Scientific American – Subscription required . . .
Feedback
. . .
Subscribe MedicalTuesday .
. .
Subscribe HealthPlanUSA .
. .
* * * * *
2.
In the News: Spinning Gay Data
SF Chronicle August 28, 2011
John Wildermuth, SF Staff writer
New figures show that
“There’s a lot of ‘back of the envelope’ figuring,”
said Gary Gates, a demographer with UCLA’s Williams Institute, a think tank
focused on sexual orientation law and policy. “We don’t even have terms
everyone agrees on when it comes to defining who is gay, lesbian or bisexual.”
Ever since sex researcher Alfred Kinsey estimated in
1948 that 10 percent of the male population was predominantly homosexual, the
number question has been a political football, with gay activists looking for a
large population and antigay forces eager to downplay the size of the gay and
lesbian community.
Gates found out all about that when he pulled together
the best available information and found that about 4 million people, or about
1.7 percent of the country’s adult population, identified themselves as gay or
lesbian. Adding bisexuals to that number roughly doubles the percentage, with
transgender adults bringing the total to 3.8 percent.
Not all are
counted
The number is far from perfect, Gates admitted. It
doesn’t, for example, include closeted gays and lesbians.
“As a demographer, I’m all about the numbers,” he
said. “How do you count people who don’t want to be counted?”
Gates’ estimate brought a firestorm of criticism, much
of it from gay-friendly groups that complained his numbers were far too low.
“I was criticized and called irresponsible,” Gates
said. “Clearly, there are people who think this number is critically
important.”
Count Mario Guerrero as part of that group. As
government affairs director for Equality California, Guerrero needs hard
numbers to back up his
Earlier this year, for example, Guerrero fought to
include gays and lesbians as specific “communities of interest” in the
redistricting process, hoping to ensure that heavily gay areas such as the
Castro district in
Numbers
augmented
While census data showed where same-sex couples lived,
Guerrero and others were forced to augment those numbers with figures from
membership rolls of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender-oriented groups,
lists of registered domestic partners, donors against the Proposition 8
same-sex marriage initiative, and anything else that could possibly indicate a
shared community.
“It’s absolutely important to have a number,” Guerrero
said. “In
Gay groups have to be careful what they wish for,
however. In the
Similar surveys found that the self-identified gay and
lesbian community was 1.9 percent in
Still, there’s a growing effort to include questions
about sexual orientation and gender identity on some of the large statewide and
national surveys, in the hope of determining not only the number of gays and
lesbians, but also identifying some of the specific problems they face.
For example, the California Health Interview Survey, a
UCLA-run study of about 50,000 households done every two years, has long asked
about sexual orientation. Data from the survey showed that gay, lesbian and
bisexuals in
Comment / analysis: It appears that the stats
for the past century have not changed significantly. Many of our friends in the
retail industry are gay but none are married. It would appear that the sexual
research, which has indicated that up to ten percent of men are homoerotic and
one to two percent are homosexual, has not changed significantly for centuries.
It’s the change in civil society with the family unit that is the most
disturbing.
From the SF
Chronicle . . .
Feedback
. . .
Subscribe MedicalTuesday .
. .
Subscribe HealthPlanUSA .
. .
* * * * *
3.
International
Medicine: Central
Money or Medicare –It’s all Funny Stuff
75 years of funny money* EDITORIAL
by Martin Masse
A good start to understanding the real nature of
central banking is the libertarian bumper sticker saying "Don't steal! The
government hates competition." The whole purpose of the bureaucratic
machine called central bank is indeed to steal from us.
How does it do this? By
constantly printing money (or, nowadays, creating it out of electronic bits on
computers) and increasing the money supply, thereby creating inflation. Read more . . .
When you get to the
Bank of Canada's Web site, it says
"We are
Counterfeiting is understandably illegal and
punishable by law. But central bankers do it all the time, the only difference
being that they have a legal stick―their dollars are the only permitted
legal tender―and they deploy a huge propaganda machine to force us to
accept their funny money.
There are big stakes involved. Inflation is a way for governments to spend more
without having to directly impose taxes. A central bank is an essential part of
big government.
Central banking operations also serve as a permanent bailout for debtors.
Interest rates are usually kept lower than they would be in a free financial
market. And by reducing the value of the money being owed, they make life
easier for debtors. So the modern era of central banking is one where debt,
public and private, inexorably grows, to the point where the whole monetary
edifice now threatens to collapse.
Finally, central banks protect the reckless practices of financial
institutions, who lend money that they don't have under the fraudulent
fractional reserve system. With government acting as a lender of last resort,
financial institutions are prone to taking greater and greater risks. As we've
seen recently, wads of cheap cash are always at their disposal to keep them
solvent and profitable. . .
Read Martin Masse’s Entire
Editorial . . .
Feedback
. . .
Subscribe MedicalTuesday .
. .
Subscribe HealthPlanUSA .
. .
Canadian
Medicare does not give timely access to healthcare, it only gives access to a
waiting list.
--Canadian
Supreme Court Decision 2005
http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2005/2005scc35/2005scc35.html
* * * * *
4.
Medicare:
Health Care Reform
Free Our Health Care Now Petition
Because of the NCPA, the Free
Our Health Care Now petition (the largest policy petition ever, with
1.34 million plus signatures) was delivered to Congress against government-run
health care.
Ideas in Progress Read more . .
.
·
Make
health insurance portable
·
Encourage
insurance for pre-existing conditions
·
Create
a national market for health insurance
·
Make
the tax subsidies for health insurance fair
·
Allow
self-insurance for the chronically ill
View
media coverage of the delivery of the Free Our Health Care Now petition.
Feedback
. . .
Subscribe MedicalTuesday .
. .
Subscribe HealthPlanUSA .
. .
Government is not the solution to our
problems, government is the problem.
- Ronald Reagan
* * * * *
5.
Medical
Gluttony: Six
Unnecessary Consultations
The recent increase in welfare recipients being placed
into Medicaid brings back recollections of the old county hospital. The poor
collected in the Emergency Room every evening for the social event of the
community. Mothers with their brood of children without their fathers. Homeless
men. People doubled over for an alleged kidney stone that every intern knew was
one of the most intense pains that humans endure. And then the relief seen in
posture and expression after the narcotic shot was given and they sidled out
the door having had a wonderful fix that didn’t cost anything. Read more . . .
So with the federal push to place all welfare patients
into Medicaid, who can blame them for thinking they now have real insurance and
access to the same care that the rich folks have? Their perception of that kind
of care is that they will have a special consultant for every pain, ache and
condition they have. Only when the reality of the situation appears, do they
begin to understand. Or rebel. Or threaten legal action if specialists for
their heart, liver, intestines, lungs, colon, bones, muscles, diabetic or
thyroid condition, etc., et al, are
not provided.
They don’t understand or maybe don’t care that three
fourths of the medical community is declining to see them. The epithets are
hurled at the personal physician who is unable to provide their demands, which
in turn causes more personal physicians to remove themselves from this
population. And access to care becomes even more difficult, if not impossible.
They have never been able to manage the money the
government has given them and they fail to understand the cost of health care.
Or, perhaps they consider it their entitlement no matter what the cost.
They are not medically sophisticated enough to
understand the difference between basic necessary healthcare and the six
consults that they request. In the same way, they fail to see that driving the
Ford Fusion or the global small car is much less costly than the
There will never be a classless society. Karl Marx and
Stalin couldn’t provide it. Neither can Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney.
We should move forward to the city and county
hospitals of yesteryear where anybody could go in the evening and get their
shots, pills, and immunizations from the cream of the health care team—the
Medical School faculty, residents, fellows, interns and the best of the private
physicians.
Feedback
. . .
Subscribe MedicalTuesday .
. .
Subscribe HealthPlanUSA .
. .
Medical Gluttony thrives in Government and Health Insurance Programs.
Gluttony Disappears with Appropriate Deductibles and Co-payments on
Every Service.
Gluttony also disappeared in the Charity Hospitals of yesteryear.
* * * * *
6.
Medical
Myths: The More
Doctors, the Better
There is another aspect to
having six unnecessary consultations. Not only does the cost of health care
increase six-fold, but the quality of health care diminishes. America has the
highest quality of health care in the world, not because we are all forced to
do everything the same way, but because every physician is allowed to practice
in the best way that he or she was taught and allowed to do. When there are
several doctors involved, each has his or her preferred way of handling a
problem. As soon as one consultation is obtained, the personal physician loses
control. This also provides the battleground where members of the family then
become involved. Perhaps, they haven't spoken to each other for a year or two;
those from afar feel guilty for not having seen Dad for some time. Each has a
different perspective. The nearby family feels that Dad has been failing for
some time and the next step is to say goodbye. The family from out of state
wants everything done to avoid death and not say their last goodbye so soon
after their first hello in years. Read more . . .
I had an 86-year-old patient
in the hospital. He had heart disease and was progressing well. However, he had
an arrhythmia that I wanted some help in managing. I told the family I would
call in a consult with the cardiologist who may want to do a cardiac catheterization.
However, if he mentioned cardiac surgery, they should talk to me before signing
anything. At age 86, he would live longer without surgery than with any major
procedure.
The cardiologist performed
an immediate cardiac catheterization and found some vessels that his friend,
the cardiac surgeon, could jump with a coronary bypass by harvesting vessels
from the patient's legs and arms. In fact, he could do the procedure that
evening or in the morning at the latest.
When I came by later to
review the cardiologist's suggestions, the family told me I was no longer his
doctor because I was incompetent since I had not recommended the surgery.
I followed him from a
distance since I had told the family that in his sedentary lifestyle the
biggest stress on his heart might be his daily bowel movement. His cardiac
output might go from five to six liters, but he would be just fine with a few
drugs to control his heart rhythm. He did not need a cardiac output of 10 or 15
liters like a working man, or 20 liters like a football player, or 30 liters
like an Olympic runner.
After the surgery, he had
several complications including an infection and then a fungus septicemia. He
was dead in 30 days. I don’t suppose the family ever understood that they
hastened his death. I felt he could have enjoyed a number of years with his
doting grandchildren just the way he was.
Many Medical Myths are very
gluttonous. The extra hospital charge for this type of surgery is around
$120,000. Not only was it unnecessary, it was poor and inappropriate health
care, and caused an unnecessary death.
I’m sure the family was
convinced he received the best of care.
And the doctor who may have
deprived the hospital of this financial largess would have been Peer Reviewed
and removed for incompetence. This type of Abusive Peer Review is becoming
rampant in our country. It is also a deterrent to improving health care.
By improving health care, you may lose your
medical license and ability to have an income to pay for house and home. And if
you don’t have an understanding wife, you may become homeless and destitute.
Feedback
. . .
Subscribe MedicalTuesday .
. .
Subscribe HealthPlanUSA .
. .
Medical Myths Originate When Someone Else Pays The Medical Bills.
Myths Disappear When Patients Pay Appropriate Deductibles and
Co-Payments on Every Service.
* * * * *
7.
Overheard
in the Medical Staff Lounge: Who is your
favorite presidential candidate?
Dr. Rosen: Which of the presidential candidates would be best
for medicine, health care, our patients and our country?
Dr. Sam: I still like the Texan. He speaks his mind. Read more . . .
Dr. Paul: I think Mitt Romney is my favorite. What Obama won’t
get done Mitt Romney will.
Dr. Edwards: That’s precisely why I wouldn’t vote for him.
Dr. Paul: Of course, you still believe in private medicine. Get
over it. The government is and will be in charge. And there is nothing that you
can do about it.
Dr. Milton: Yes, I think there is something that we can do about
it. If all physicians would work together, our patients would support our
efforts to help them.
Dr. Paul: You’re a dreamer. You’d have more luck with a herd of
cats working together.
Dr. Ruth: I’m concerned that I can’t get what my patients need
just with the pre-Obama moving of patients into Medicaid. I can’t get approval
for tests and consultations and I’m suffering right along with my patients.
Dr. Yancy: The days of the surgeon are essentially over. I have
several afternoons off because of the lack or patients. I’ve cut my standard of
living and will do consultations when possible. You wouldn’t think that things
could change this dramatically in just three years.
Dr. Michelle: I’m also suffering with my patients. I spend more
time with them and feel I’m doing less for them.
Dr. Rosen: But what Presidential candidate will make your
patients happier?
Dr. Joseph: As a retired surgeon, I think we need a man with some
force, clear ideas and governor experience. I think, despite his stumbling,
that Rick Perry will clean up
Dr. Rosen: Now I could get excited about that myself.
Feedback
. . .
Subscribe MedicalTuesday .
. .
Subscribe HealthPlanUSA .
. .
The Staff Lounge Is Where Unfiltered Medical Opinions Are Heard.
* * * * *
8.
Voices of
Medicine: A Review of Articles by Physicians
Bad luck? Bad faith?
Obama battles with mythical monsters
"We had reversed the recession,
avoided a depression, got the economy moving again. …
But over the last six months, we've had a run of bad luck."
– President Barack Obama,
A troubled nation wonders: How did we get
mired in 9.1 percent unemployment,
0.9 percent growth and an economic outlook so bad that the Federal Reserve
pledges to keep interest
rates at zero through mid-2013 – an admission that it sees little hope on
the horizon? Read
more . . .
Bad luck, explains our president. Out of
nowhere came
Well yes, but what leader is not subject
to external events? Were the minor disruptions of the current Arab Spring
remotely as damaging as the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74? Were the supply
disruptions of Japan 2011 anything like the Asian financial collapse of
1997-98? Events happen. Leaders are elected to lead (from the front,
incidentally). That means dealing with events, not plaintively claiming to be
their victim.
Moreover, luck is the residue of design,
as Branch Rickey
immortally observed. And Obama's design for the economy was a near-$1 trillion
stimulus that left not a trace, the heavy hand of Obamacare and a flurry of
regulatory zeal that seeks to stifle everything from domestic energy production
to Boeing's manufacturing expansion into South Carolina. . .
In Obama's recounting, however, luck is
only half the story. His economic recovery was ruined not just by acts of God
and (foreign) men, but by Americans who care nothing for their country. These
people, who inhabit Congress (guess what party?), refuse to set aside
"politics" for the good of the nation. They serve special interests
and lobbyists, care only about the next election, place party ahead of country.
Indeed, they "would rather see their opponents lose than see
Charging one's opponents with bad faith is
the ultimate political ad hominem. It obviates argument, fact, logic, history.
Conservatives resist Obama's social-democratic, avowedly transformational
agenda not just on principle but on empirical grounds, as well – the economic
and moral unraveling of
Obama's answer? He doesn't even engage.
That's the point of these ugly accusations of bad faith. They are the
equivalent of branding Republicans enemies of the people. Gov. Rick Perry has
been rightly chided for throwing around the word "treasonous" in reference
to the Fed. Obama gets a pass for doing the same, only slightly more artfully,
regarding Republicans. After all, he is accusing them of wishing to see
The charge is not just ugly. It's
laughable . . .
This from a man who has cagily refused to
propose a single structural reform to entitlements in his three years in
office. A man who ordered that the Afghan surge be unwound by September 2012, a
date that makes no military sense (it occurs during the fighting
season), a date not recommended by his commanders, a date whose sole
purpose is to give Obama political relief on the eve of the 2012 election. And
Obama dares accuse others of placing politics above country?
A plague of bad luck and bad faith – a
recalcitrant providence and an unpatriotic opposition. Our president wrestles
with angels, monsters of mythic proportions.
A comforting fantasy. But a sorry excuse
for a failing economy and a flailing presidency.
More: www.sacbee.com/2011/08/19/3847525/bad-luck-bad-faith-obama-battles.html#ixzz1ZP6flFTb
Feedback
. . .
Subscribe MedicalTuesday .
. .
Subscribe HealthPlanUSA .
. .
VOM
Is an Insider's View of What Doctors are Thinking, Saying and Writing about.
* * * * *
9.
Book Review: Presidential
Malpractice
Destiny of the Republic | By Candice Millard | Doubleday, 339 pages, $28.95
Reviewed By FERGUS M. BORDEWICH, WSJ
Crazy as he was, Garfield's assassin was right to insist
that the doctor who gravely mistreated the president was responsible for his
death.
It's
probably a fair bet that most Americans, if they can identify James A. Garfield
as a president at all, would be hard put to place him where he belongs in the
line of chief executives. Few if any presidents have left as faint an
impression on public memory as he did during his brief stint in the White
House, from March to September 1881. Read more . . .
With
"Destiny of the Republic,"
a spirited tale that intertwines murder, politics and medical mystery, Candice
Millard leaves us feeling that Garfield's assassination deprived the nation not
only of a remarkably humble and intellectually gifted man but one who perhaps
bore the seeds of greatness. Along the way, we encounter any number of
splendidly drawn portraits, including those of the president's assassin,
Charles Guiteau; his horrendously incompetent doctor, D. Willard Bliss; and
even the inventor Alexander Graham Bell.
Born
into poverty in 1831, Garfield grew up fatherless in rural Ohio. He left school
at 16 to labor on canals, a rough and dangerous trade. A compulsive reader, he
decided that he might be fitted for something better and applied to the Western
Reserve Eclectic Institute, where he was allowed to work as a janitor in lieu
of paying tuition. He so impressed his teachers that by his second year he was
promoted to assistant professor. After earning a degree at Williams College, he
returned to the institute as its president, at age 26.
Garfield
might well have spent his life teaching but for the Civil War. A passionate
abolitionist, he volunteered early and fought well, leading his regiment to
victory over a superior Confederate force to win eastern Kentucky for the
Union. He was elected to Congress as a Republican while still in uniform. When opposing
factions of the Republican Party deadlocked at their 1880 convention, they
picked Garfield—to his own surprise—as a compromise candidate.
In
July 1881, just four months after his inauguration, Garfield was entering a
Washington train station when out of the crowd stepped Guiteau, a delusional
ex-evangelist who believed that he had single-handedly brought about Garfield's
election. He had repeatedly come to the White House demanding to be appointed
ambassador to France as a reward for his efforts. He now believed that God had
directed him to kill the president. In front of scores of onlookers, he pulled
a pistol from his pocket and shot Garfield in the back, gravely wounding him
though not killing him outright. . .
Guiteau
was eventually hanged for his crime. Before his death, he declared that
Garfield had died not from his bullet but from medical malpractice, insisting:
"The doctors who mistreated him ought to bear the odium of his death, and
not his assailant." Ms. Millard makes amply clear that Guiteau, crazy as
he was, happened to be right.
At
the core of "Destiny of the Republic" is a tale of horrifying medical
piracy. Bliss, a prominent Washington doctor who had attended Lincoln on his
deathbed, commandeered Garfield's wounded body and rejected all advice that
contradicted his incompetent diagnoses. Like most American doctors of the time,
Bliss scorned the newfangled theories of antisepsis promoted by Dr. Joseph
Lister in Britain. When Bliss and his assistants probed the president's wounds
with unsterilized instruments or their own unclean fingers, they turned a
serious injury into a fatal one. Garfield's body, which had survived the trauma
of the shooting was now, Ms. Millard writes, "so riddled with infection
that he was literally rotting to death." . . .
Many
Americans believed that the real culprit behind Garfield's murder was the
spoils system itself, which had, they supposed, inflamed Guiteau's
"depraved" mind by feeding his obsession with obtaining a government
job. To the astonishment of almost everyone, when Chester Arthur—the
quintessential spoilsman—finally took the dead Garfield's place, he discovered
that he had principles after all, turned against the system and pushed through
the country's first Civil Service Act. The law transformed government
appointments from gifts of the powerful to positions won by merit—the lasting
monument to Garfield's short-lived presidency.
Mr.
Bordewich is the author of "Washington: The Making of the American
Capital."
This
book review is found at the WSJ – Subscription required . . .
To read more book
reviews . . .
To read book reviews
topically . . .
Feedback
. . .
Subscribe MedicalTuesday .
. .
Subscribe HealthPlanUSA .
. .
The
Book Review Section Is an Insider’s View of What Doctors are Reading about.
* * * * *
10. Hippocrates & His Kin: Another $800
Billion of TARP money!
Obama said he would spend another 800 billion dollars if it weren’t for
the Republicans in the House.
Thank God for
our two-party system or we’d be
President Obama vs Mitt Romney
President
Barrack Obama said he thinks that he would be glad to have Mitt Romney as his
opponent in the next Presidential election. Read more . . .
Why of course. That way if he failed to win, he would
still see his program implemented by the
President
Obama and Vice President Romney
Romney’s socialized health plan in
Don’t you
think so?
To read more HHK
. . .
To
read more HMC . . .
Feedback
. . .
Subscribe MedicalTuesday .
. .
Subscribe HealthPlanUSA .
. .
Hippocrates
and His Kin / Hippocrates Modern Colleagues
The Challenges of Yesteryear, Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow
* * * * *
11. Professionals Restoring
Accountability in Medical Practice, Government and Society:
•
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. For their article, "Are you really insured?," go to www.healthplanusa.net/AE-AreYouReallyInsured.htm.
•
Medi-Share Medi-Share is based on the biblical principles of
caring for and sharing in one another's burdens (as outlined in Galatians 6:2).
And as such, adhering to biblical principles of health and lifestyle are
important requirements for membership in Medi-Share.
This is not insurance. Read more . . .
•
•
PRIVATE NEUROLOGY is
a Third-Party-Free Practice in
•
•
To read the rest
of this section, please go to www.medicaltuesday.net/org.asp.
•
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 Vern Cherewatenko concerning success in restoring private-based
medical practice which has grown internationally through the SimpleCare model
network. Dr Vern calls his practice PIFATOS – Pay In Full At Time Of Service,
the "Cash-Based Revolution." The patient pays in full before leaving.
Because doctor charges are anywhere from 25–50 percent inflated due to
administrative costs caused by the health insurance industry, you'll be paying
drastically reduced rates for your medical expenses. In conjunction with a
regular catastrophic health insurance policy to cover extremely costly
procedures, PIFATOS can save the average healthy adult and/or family up to
$5000/year! To read the rest of the story, go to www.simplecare.com.
•
Dr David
MacDonald started Liberty Health
Group. To compare the traditional health insurance model with the
•
David
J Gibson, MD, Consulting Partner of Illumination Medical, Inc. has made important contributions to the free
Medical MarketPlace in speeches and writings. His series of articles in Sacramento
Medicine can be found at www.ssvms.org. To read his "Lessons from the Past," go to www.ssvms.org/articles/0403gibson.asp. For additional articles, such as the cost of Single
Payer, go to www.healthplanusa.net/DGSinglePayer.htm; for Health Care Inflation, go to www.healthplanusa.net/DGHealthCareInflation.htm.
•
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, who 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
To view some horror stories of atrocities against physicians and
how organized medicine still treats this problem, please go to www.semmelweissociety.net.
•
Dennis
Gabos, MD, President of
the Society for the Education of Physicians and Patients (SEPP), is
making efforts in Protecting, Preserving, and Promoting the Rights, Freedoms
and Responsibilities of Patients and Health Care Professionals. For more
information, go to www.sepp.net.
•
Robert
J Cihak, MD, former
president of the AAPS, and Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D, who wrote an
informative Medicine Men column at NewsMax, have now retired. Please log
on to review the archives.
He now has a new column with Richard Dolinar, MD, worth reading at www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/othervoices/story/835508.html.
•
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. This month, be sure to read ? . Browse the
archives of their official organ, the Journal
of American Physicians and Surgeons, with Larry Huntoon, MD, PhD, a
neurologist in
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
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."
"The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village
of tomorrow." — Bill Gates:
co-founder and chairman of Microsoft Corporation
"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will
take you everywhere." —
Albert Einstein: theoretical physicist
"The best thing to give to your enemy is
forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child,
a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make
her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity." —
Benjamin Franklin: Founding Father of the
"Setbacks and
stressors are bridges to be crossed to our goals... not barricades to keep us
from them." — Stephen Pierce:
Nightingale-Conant author
Some Recent
Postings
In The August 9th Issue: