|
MEDICAL TUESDAY. |
NEWSLETTER |
|
Community For Better Health Care |
Vol X, No 14, Oct
28, 2011 |
In This Issue:
1.
Featured Article:
Is free transportation, regular toenail trimmings
revolutionary?
2.
In
the News: Rick
Perry's jobs-creation plan is a liberal nightmare.
3.
International Medicine: UK: National
Health Service
4.
Medicare: Romney still favors an
Obama approach to Healthcare
5.
Medical Gluttony:
: Transparency in
Medical Charges Would Prevent Gluttony
6.
Medical Myths: Promises of ObamaCare
7.
Overheard in the Medical Staff Lounge: Who will be our
next President? Does it matter?
8.
Voices
of Medicine: Don’t Let Chaos Get
You Down
9.
The Bookshelf: New American film: Dirty Hoover
10.
Hippocrates
& His Kin: RomneyCare in America
would be a BIG MISTAKE
11.
Related Organizations: Restoring
Accountability in Medical Practice and Society
Words
of Wisdom, Recent Postings, In Memoriam, Today in History . . .
* * * * *
Chancellor Otto von Bismarck,
the father of socialized medicine in Germany, recognized in 1861 that a government gained loyalty by making
its citizens dependent on the state by social insurance. Thus socialized
medicine, or any single payer
initiative, was born for the benefit of the state and of a contemptuous
disregard for people’s welfare.
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:
Is free transportation, regular toenail trimmings
revolutionary?
The Quiet Health-Care Revolution
By
While legislators talk about
“bending the cost curve,” one company serving Medicare patients has discovered
how to provide better care at lower cost—with wireless scales, free
transportation, regular toenail trimmings, and doctors who put the patient
first.
Ellen,
an 82-year-old widow, lives in Anaheim, California. One Wednesday
morning last year, she got on her scale, as she does every morning. One hundred
and forty-six pounds—wasn’t that a little high? Ellen felt vaguely troubled as
she poured herself a bowl of oat bran.
Half an hour later, the phone rang. It was
Sandra at the clinic. She too was concerned about Ellen’s weight, which had
jumped three pounds since the previous day. Sandra knew this because Ellen’s
scale had transmitted its reading to the clinic over a wireless connection.
Given that Ellen had a history of congestive
heart failure, a three-pound weight gain in 24 hours was a potentially
dangerous development, a sign of possible fluid buildup in the lungs and
increasing pressure on an already stressed heart. Sandra wanted her to come in
for an immediate visit: the clinic would provide a car to pick her up and bring
her back home. Ellen’s treatment began that very morning and continued for two
weeks until she was out of danger. Had the warning signs not been noticed and
addressed so quickly, she might easily have suffered a long, painful, and
expensive hospitalization. . .
Read
the entire article and see if you believe providing patients with taxi service
is cheap? . . .
Editor’s Note: Ellen has a history of congestive heart failure which requires a
decrease fluid intake or a diuretic to increase the fluid leaving the body.
Since, this is a foreseeable problem, the patient and her family should have
received the cautionary instruction that if the weight increases three pounds
in one day, to take an extra diuretic and lose a pound or two of fluid by
foregoing two glasses or one pound of water that day. If the weight hasn’t
corrected in 24 hours, the patient can repeat the same procedure the following
day.
The cost comparison to any
even uneducated American should surely figure out that the cost of a taxi ride
to and from an office and a medical examination will be at least a hundred to a
thousand fold more expensive that the cost of one or two diuretic pills,
self-administered.
What poses as revolutionary
health care is indeed a pathetic picture of today’s health care understanding.
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* * * * *
2.
In the
News: Rick Perry's jobs-creation
plan is a liberal nightmare.
Rick Perry's Jobs Plan Is a
Nightmare for Liberals
The
Atlantic Wire | by John
Hudson | Oct 14, 2011
Rick Perry's
jobs-creation plan is a liberal nightmare. On Friday, the Texas governor
unveiled his
manifesto at a steel plant in Pittsburgh, which promises to generate 1.2
million jobs by expanding oil and gas production and slashing environmental
regulations. In other words: drill baby, drill. Since dropping sharply in the
polls with the
rise of Herman Cain, Perry sort of fell off the liberal radar screen. His
“Energizing American Jobs and Security” fixed that! In today's lefty
blogosphere, he's the talk of the town. Here's how they're picking apart his
plan:
It will
kneecap green energy startups, writes Ezra
Klein at The Washington Post. Perry's plan calls for an end to
green subsidies. (To be fair, he also calls for an end to gas and oil subsidies
too.) But Klein says that still doesn't create an even playing field.
"Analysts have argued that fossil-fuel producers would primarily benefit
from such a move, since they enjoy all sorts of legacy advantages." . . .
Its job-creation numbers
are "unrealistic," writes Michael
Levi, senior fellow for energy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Levi
says 500,000 jobs created is the absolute maximum an energy policy could create
by 2030. Of those numbers, about 130,000 would be oil and gas jobs. The problem
with Perry's policy is that it assumes he will be "reversing deeply
anti-industry Obama policies that don't actually exist (which is not to say
that the Obama policies have no flaws), ignore real constraints at the state
level, and don't fully account for market dynamics."
It endangers protected
lands, writes
Judd Legum at Think Progress. He cites two policies baked into the plan:
“We also strongly recommend opening other federal lands with known resources
for development, particularly in Alaska, the Atlantic OCS, and our western
states. Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) Coastal Plain (1002)
alone contains as much as 12 billion barrels of oil and 10 trillion cubic feet
of natural gas.” In another part of the plan, it discusses fast-tracking
permits for drilling along the Gulf Coast. "“The first step towards
energy security and job growth is returning immediately to 2007 levels of
permitting in the Gulf of Mexico, responsibly making more of the Gulf available
for energy production.”
Read
the rest of the story on The Atlantic Wire . . .
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* * * * *
3.
International
Medicine: UK:
National Health Service
NHS reforms: American consultancy McKinsey in
conflict-of-interest row
Firm receives £250,000 a year from government
while also providing paid-for advice to GPs affected by changes
A global consultancy firm seeking to profit
out of the fallout from the shake-up to the NHS is being paid £250,000 a year
by the government for advice on the transition towards health secretary Andrew Lansley's vision
of the service.
The American firm, McKinsey Inc, with estimated revenues of £4.1bn a year,
has been advising the Department of Health on how best to manage the radical
changes since March. McKinsey is also one of a group of private consultants
that have united to provide paid-for advice to GPs as they prepare for life
after the reforms.
Family doctors need help from private companies because of the government's
decision to abolish primary care trusts as part of their controversial changes
to the health service, a move criticised as a step towards privatisation.
McKinsey's advisory services emerged in a freedom of information release
published on the department's website. The job description says: "Consultancy
services in support of the NHS transition programme". . .
It is unclear how McKinsey is assisting. However, in September this
newspaper revealed the company had been acting as a middleman between
Lansley's department and international firms, including the German company
Helios, which was at one time interested in taking over selected NHS hospitals.
Christina McAnea, head of health at the Unison union, said the revelation
was evidence of the increasing hold private companies had over health policy. She said:
"It is clear that the Tory government's direction of travel for the NHS is
towards privatisation and they are increasingly open about that.
"But what is also becoming obvious is the close relationships being
built between this Conservative government and the private companies who are
making, or want to make, a profit from the reforms in the health and social
care bill. It is worrying for everyone, but particularly patients, because this
is money that should be spent on their care." . . .
The government rate card shows that consultants can earn up to £1,870 a day
each working for the civil service. A junior consultant can earn £400 a day. A
three-month contract for a top consultant could net their company almost
£120,000 for just 60 days' work. . .
Earlier this summer this newspaper revealed the existence of confidential
emails between McKinsey and the government showing that the firm had helped the
department to hold discussions last year about "international
players" running up to 20 NHS hospitals.
The emails suggested there had been "good discussions" on
"how international hospital provider groups may help to tackle the
performance improvement of English hospitals".
It said there was "interest in [a] new solution for 10 to 20
hospitals", but said this would be "starting from a mindset of one at
a time" due to "various political constraints".
The consultants suggested that a figure of £500m revenue "on the
table" and a "free hand on staff management" would be needed for
"international players" to run hospitals.
Private involvement has been suggested as a solution for NHS trusts with
financial difficulties that may not be able to attain foundation trust status.
One hospital trust, Hinchingbrooke Health Care, is already set to be run in a
franchise arrangement by the private firm Circle, although the deal has been
delayed awaiting ministerial sign-off. . .
A spokesman for McKinsey declined to comment.
Read
the entire report at the Guardian . . .
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The
NHS does not give timely access to HealthCare; it only gives access to a
waiting list.
Cost of privatization will be miniscule compared to the NHS costs.
* * * * *
4.
Medicare: Romney still favors an
Obama approach to HealthCare
by
Grace-Marie Turner | The Janesville
Gazette
Opposition to the Affordable Care Act motivated
millions of Americans to throw more than 60 Democrats out of Congress last
November—largely because they had supported the health overhaul law.
Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell said voters saw the law’s passage as a
“crime against democracy” and they want it repealed.
A majority of Americans now oppose the federal health law, and only 18 percent
think it will actually help them, according to an October Kaiser public opinion
survey. Voters are seething as they learn more about its harmful impact on
health costs, jobs and the ballooning deficit.
RomneyCare is too similar to ObamaCare for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt
Romney to escape this voter anger. Jonathan
Gruber, who advised Romney in passing his universal coverage law, confirms the
federal health law “is essentially based on what we accomplished in
Massachusetts. It’s the same basic structure applied nationally.” President
Obama also says Massachusetts was his model.
While Romney insists the Affordable Care Act “is bad news” and must be
repealed, even he gets confused about what he means. In the most recent
Republican presidential debate, he said: “We all agree about repeal and
replace. And I’m proud of the fact that I’ve put together a plan that says what
I’m going to replace it with.”
Does he really mean he sees Massachusetts as a model for his “replacement” plan
even as he insists it’s not?
When challenged by his fellow candidates, the usually unflappable Romney
stumbled. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum hit Romney over costs.
“What you did is exactly what Barack Obama did: focused on the wrong problem. …
You expanded the pool of insurance without controlling costs. You’ve blown a
hole in the budget up there. And you authored in ObamaCare, which is going to
blow a hole in the budget of this country.”
Romney acknowledged “I didn’t get the job done in Massachusetts in getting the
health care costs down,” but added it’s “something I think we have got to do at
the national level. I intend to do that.”
But you “didn’t do it” in Massachusetts, Santorum shot back.
Health costs in Massachusetts are higher than in any other state: Health
spending is rising 15 percent faster than the national average. Economists from
Stanford and Columbia universities have estimated that the state health-care
law was responsible for hiking premiums by as much as 6 percent. . .
The state decides how much health insurance residents
can afford “not, unfortunately, from your perspective but from the state
agency’s view,” a government official told them.
RomneyCare remains Romney’s Achilles’ heel. Without a clearer position, he will
have trouble convincing Republican voters he is serious about repeal and will
have an even harder time mapping a clear plan on health reform should he be
elected president.
Read
the entire article by Grace-Marie
Turner . . .
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Government is not the solution to our
problems, government is the problem.
- Ronald Reagan
* * * * *
5.
Medical
Gluttony: Transparency
in Medical Charges Would Prevent Gluttony
It’s been well
known there are huge discounts available in health care as long as you have an
insurance company or group practice shielding you from the cost. But what are
these costs and how much is shielded?
Medical charges
are somewhat hidden unless it is you that are getting the bill. Then you will
see the usual charge and how much your insurance saved you from paying.
However, I don’t see much consistency in the bills coming to my home. I see
laboratory charges being reimbursed by my insurance at about one-third to one
fifth the full charge with a statement that my doctor, or lab, or hospital
can’t come after me for the difference with a little note that “we” saved you
this amount of money.
When I see a
$374 lab charge getting paid by my insurance company at $79, my concern rests
with the laboratory. “How can they remain in business?”
When I see my
$150 charge for patient care being reimbursed at $45, I’m beginning to wonder
how long I can stay in business.
Today we saw the
statement from an oxygen company listing a concentrator for a charge of
$760.48. The Medicare Fee schedule will reimburse the oxygen supplier for
$173.31. The portable oxygen system rental charge was $153.44 and the Medicare
Payment in Full was $28.74. What would an individual pay who didn’t have
insurance? Would the oxygen company go after the emphysema patient in
respiratory failure for the entire amount or would they be satisfied with the
Medicare discounted amount? How could
anyone ever consider this subterfuge to be a legitimate business proposition?
A new twist that
a colleague shared with me this past week, was the variations in the payments
required by Medicare, Blue Cross and Medicaid. If you didn’t have insurance,
what would your charges be? And if you went to the hospital or lab before you
gave them an MRI requisition, how large a discount do you think you would
receive or could command?
If an MRI lists
for $1500, it is likely that Medicare will reimburse the hospital approximately
$800. It is likely that Blue Cross may reimburse $600. If Medicaid, maybe $400.
What really shocked me was that Workers’ Comp would get the MRI for about $250.
The question is,
if all of this were transparent to the public, what would the actual cash price
be? Could it be so low that the cost of insurance would exceed the cost of
paying cash?
As consumer health care becomes more
popular, we may soon find out.
Then the cost of health care will plummet.
Cash could then become King in Healthcare also.
That
should make Congress nervous. What would they have left to debate?
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Medical Gluttony thrives in Government and Health Insurance Programs.
Gluttony Disappears with Appropriate Deductibles and Co-payments on
Every Service.
* * * * *
6.
Medical
Myths: Promises of
ObamaCare
When he was selling his health care reform law to the American people,
President Obama made numerous promises. We were assured small businesses would
receive tax credits to offset the law’s premium costs; Medicare would be
protected; the law would cost under $1 trillion over 10 years; people would be
able to keep their current insurance plans; insurance premiums would be
reduced; and health care costs would stop rising.
President Obama recently reiterated that he still believes in the promises
of the law. Yet the policies in “ObamaCare” have failed to deliver on many of
their major promises — and the law is not even fully in effect.
Small
Businesses, Seniors Hit
Obama promised
small businesses they would receive tax credits to help alleviate the large
premium costs in the bill. The Small Business Tax Credit is supposed to be the
primary tool for doing this. But not only is the tax credit uselessly small—the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates it will only affect 12 percent of
people in the small-group market—but it ends in 2017.
Obama promised
seniors their Medicare plans would be protected. But Medicare’s chief actuary,
Richard Foster, has revealed Medicare is anything but safe. Between 2014 and
2023—the first 10 years of Obamacare’s full implementation—Medicare Part A and
B will be cut by a combined $1.05 trillion under the law. . .
Higher
Deficits, Less Coverage
In order to ease
voters’ debt concerns, Obama assured Americans that ObamaCare would reduce the
deficit and cost under $1 trillion over 10 years. The CBO produced a report
suggesting the president was right. But that report is flawed: It uses a
10-year window that includes four years of preparation for the law and only six
years of its actual implementation.
Shift the
10-year window back one year—three years of preparation, seven years of
benefits—and ObamaCare’s cost jumps to $1.4 trillion. In fact, the CBO says a
full repeal of ObamaCare would reduce the budget deficit by $540 billion over
the next 10 years.
Obama
emphatically promised, “If you like your coverage, you can keep it, no matter
what.” That’s not true either. The restrictions on cost-sharing adjustments
leave companies and individuals with little flexibility to change plan details
without losing their grandfathered status. The administration estimates between
49 percent and 80 percent of small-employer plans, between 34 percent and 67
percent of large-employer plans, and between 40 percent and 67 percent of
individual plans will not be grandfathered by 2014. . .
Rising
Premiums
Obama also
promised premiums wouldn’t rise under ObamaCare. The law, we were told, was
going to lower premiums for families by as much as $2,500 a year. The Agency
for Healthcare Research and Quality analyzed the ten largest states’ average
premiums in 2010. On average, the premiums for a family plan rose 6.5 percent.
In my home state of Texas, the average premium for a family plan jumped by more
than $1,000. . .
Since its
passage, ObamaCare has produced little besides broken promises. It is time to
repeal ObamaCare and give the nation health care reform that delivers real
results.
Spencer Harris (sharris@texaspolicy.com) is a
policy analyst for the Center for Health Care Policy with the Texas Public
Policy Foundation.
Medical Reality: Broken
Promises of ObamaCare
Read
more of the broken promises at the Heartland Oct 25, 2011 . . .
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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 will be our
next President? Does it matter?
Dr. Dave: It really
does matter. Probably not in the way the media paints it. There are a number of
hidden agendas that will not make things much better. And the usual qualities
may not be that important.
Dr. Ruth: I’m very
concerned about Newt Gingrich. The way he got rid of one wife while she was
sick and in the hospital and subsequently married the woman with whom he was
having an affair. He may be a sharp professor, but I don’t think he has the
qualities that I would like in a President.
Dr. Dave: I’m very
concerned about Mitt Romney. He’s for government control of medicine. He
engineered the Massachusetts socialized system. The Wall Street Journal in an
editorial painted him as being to the Left of Obama.
Dr. Edwards: So if he were
to run, you would essentially have two candidates with similar ideologies running
against each other. What a choice. Or rather no choice. Either one would
continue the destruction of private medicine and our Democratic Freedoms. We’re
the first nation in history to have developed Free Enterprise to this degree and
to have made more advances in medicine and pharmaceuticals, having conquered
more diseases and raised the standard of living over the previous thousands of
years—than any other system.
Dr. Rosen: Did you
know that the Greeks knew how to build a steam engine more than two thousand
years ago but they didn’t have the economic system that America has to actually
build what they knew could be built? The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) crowd has no
clue as to what they are doing. They are protesting the very system that has
given them the cell phones with texting, the things that are sustaining these
sit-ins to allow their communication with each other. They should be “occupying"
their own universities which don’t understand basic economics.
Dr. Edwards: Or returning
to the classroom enrolling in Freshman Economics 11. But do they teach Free
Enterprise and Entrepreneurship in Economics anymore?
Dr. Milton: I’ve often
wondered just continues to be taught in college anymore. Is it eighteenth
century Socialism? Maybe I should get myself appointed to a board of education
to find out.
Dr. Rosen: I wouldn’t
count on it. When I was on a board of education, we had a devil of a time getting
a copy of all the curriculum books. That’s why we need more private schools or
homeschools. I’ve been amazed how popular homeschools are in Berkeley the
bastion of liberalism. They don’t even trust their own system.
Dr. Edwards: I think one of
the problems with private schools is all the non-private ideas surrounding the
discussion to level the playing field. Charter schools. Tax supported private
schools. That eliminates all the
differences. The parents that send their children to private schools should
realize they should not ask for favors. They should continue to pay the
exorbitant school taxes plus the tuition for the private school. The tuition
for private schools is far less than the taxes for public schools when averaged
per pupil. One has to make a clean break. The voters will eventually wonder why
they should pay $10,000 per pupil in public schools and private schools can do
a far better job at half that tuition. That would be the biggest impetus to cut
their water off at the pass. If the public school budgets were cut in half to
equal private schools, there would be outrage and reform. Perhaps sometime
before the next election.
Free enterprise is the biggest impetus to cut costs, fat and other
trimmings.
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The Staff Lounge Is Where Unfiltered Medical Opinions Are Heard.
* * * * *
8.
Voices of
Medicine: A
Review of Regional Medical Journals and Articles by Physicians
Andrew Weil, MD: Spontaneous
Happiness: Our Nature-Deficit Disorder
Newsweek, Oct 30, 2011
You aren’t
depressed; our brains just aren’t equipped for 21st-century life.
In
my experience, the more people have, the less likely they are to be contented.
Indeed, there is abundant evidence that depression is a “disease of affluence,”
a disorder of modern life in the industrialized world. People who live in
poorer countries have a lower risk of depression than those in industrialized
nations. In general, countries with lifestyles that are furthest removed from modern
standards have the lowest rates of depression.
Within
the U.S., the rate of depression of members of the Old Order Amish—a
religious sect that shuns modernity in favor of lifestyles roughly emulating
those of rural Americans a century ago—is as low as one 10th that of other
Americans.
Psychologist
Martin
Seligman, originator of the field of positive psychology and director of
the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, has studied
the Old Order Amish, along with other premodern cultures. He concludes:
“Putting this together, there seems to be something about modern life that
creates fertile soil for depression.”
Another
prominent researcher whose work I respect, Stephen Ilardi, professor of
psychology at the University of Kansas and author of The Depression Cure,
observes, “The more ‘modern’ a society’s way of life, the higher its rate of
depression. It may seem baffling, but the explanation is simple: the human body
was never designed for the modern postindustrial environment.”
More
and more of us are sedentary, spending most of our time indoors. We eat
industrial food much altered from its natural sources, and there is reason for
concern about how our changed eating habits are affecting our brain activity
and our moods. We are deluged by an unprecedented overload of information and
stimulation in this age of the Internet, email, mobile phones, and multimedia,
all of which favor social isolation and certainly affect our emotional (and
physical) health.
Behaviors
strongly associated with depression—reduced physical activity and human
contact, overconsumption of processed food, seeking endless distraction—are the
very behaviors that more and more people now can do, are even forced to do by
the nature of their sedentary, indoor jobs.
This
kind of life simply was not an option throughout most of human history, as
there was no infrastructure to support it, much less require it.
Human
beings evolved to thrive in natural environments and in bonded social groups.
Few of us today can enjoy such a life and the emotional equilibrium it
engenders, but our genetic predisposition for it has not changed. The term
“nature-deficit disorder” has recently entered the popular vocabulary, though
it has not yet made it into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders or been accepted by the medical community. It was coined by the
author Richard Louv to explain a wide range of behavior problems in children
who spend less time outdoors but now is invoked as the root cause of an even
wider range of both physical and emotional ailments in people of all ages who
are disconnected from nature.
I
believe we are gathering scientific evidence for the benefits of living close
to nature, not simply for enjoying its beauty or getting spiritual sustenance
but for keeping our brains and nervous systems in good working order. A few
examples:
•
We get vitamin D, now known to be necessary for optimum brain health, by
spending time in the sun.
•
Our cycles of sleep and waking and other circadian rhythms are maintained by
exposure to bright light during the day and darkness at night. Lack of bright
natural light during waking hours and exposure to artificial light at night
disrupt these rhythms, interfering with our sleep, energy, and moods.
•
Hunter-gatherers and other “primitive” people do not develop the deficits of
vision and the need for corrective lenses as early in life as people in our
society do, probably because they grow up looking at distant landscapes more
often than reading books, writing, or staring at television and computer
screens. Because the eye is a direct extension of the brain, eye health is an
indicator of brain health. . . .
The problems
stemming from nature-deficit disorder are examples of a mismatch between our
genes and the modern environment. Our brains simply are not suited for the
modern world. Possibly, the deterioration of emotional well-being
characteristic of contemporary urban life represents a cumulative effect of
lifestyle changes that have been occurring over many years, an effect that is
now suddenly obvious. . .
Read the entire article
in Newsweek . . .
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VOM
Is an Insider's View of What Doctors are Thinking, Saying and Writing about.
* * * * *
9.
Book &
Cinema Review: J Edgar
New American film: Dirty Hoover
Clint
Eastwood’s portrait of J. Edgar Hoover is quite a surprise
The Economist | the print
edition | Nov 19th 2011
AUDIENCES
expecting a hard-hitting exposé will have the rug pulled out from under them by
“J. Edgar”, Clint Eastwood’s biopic about the long-serving founder of the FBI,
masterfully played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Film critics have been especially
curious about how Mr Eastwood would portray the private life of the original
Dirty Harry. Is Hoover shown wearing a dress? (Yes, but…) Does the film portray
his rumoured love affair with his aide, Clyde Tolson? (Absolutely, but…)
At heart,
“J. Edgar” is a love story between two men: the ferocious bulldog sitting atop
his empire of wiretaps and blackmail and the handsome young clothes-horse he
made his longtime companion without ever daring to become his lover. Already
gay enough to use the word “camp” circa 1940, Clyde (Armie Hammer) loves more
than he is loved in return, thanks to the repressions instilled in Edgar by his
ambitious mother (Judi Dench). But his love never wavers, and neither does
Edgar’s. Forget “Brokeback Mountain”, with its distracting scenery. Mr. Eastwood’s
camera bores straight into his characters’ souls, discovering the sweetness
hidden inside his monstrous protagonist. His “J. Edgar” turns out to be one of
the most beautiful and affecting gay love stories to come out of Hollywood.
A gay love story without any sex explains why the SF Chronicle panned this movie.
If a man lies with
a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.
They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. –Leviticus
20:13—NIV
National Geographic, | Volume 220. No 6 | December 2011 | pp. 36-57.
Read the entire cinema review in
the Economist . . .
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The
Review Section Is an Insider’s View of What Doctors are Seeing and Reading
about.
* * * * *
10. Hippocrates & His Kin: RomneyCare From
the White House
Health costs in Massachusetts are higher than in any
other state: Health spending is rising 15 percent faster than the national
average. Economists from Stanford and Columbia universities have estimated that
the state health-care law was responsible for hiking premiums by as much as 6
percent.
It would be a catastrophe for our Country if Romney ever gained White
House power.
Speaker of the house and his divorce.
Joan Walsh outlines Gingrich's flaws and foibles in a
Tuesday column. She concludes: "The seemingly affable professor and author
is a hothead with many political liabilities and almost as many enemies. He's
committed so many political and ethical transgressions that his baggage has
baggage."
"If Newt
Gingrich can't be faithful to his wife, how can we trust him to be faithful to
conservative voters?"
State and Local Budget Cuts (Kevin Yamamura in the Sacramento Bee)
With revenue shortfalls,
there will be fewer public schools days, cuts to libraries, reduction in
services to the developmentally disabled, etc.,
et. al.
Yesterday, we had a patient
who could not fill out a basic office registration form stating he couldn’t
read or write. During the Medical Interview which always includes a patient’s
educational achievements he stated he had only gone to the 10th
grade.
He said he never learned how
to read or write in grade school or high school. He was able to sign his name.
He looked at our receptionist and smiled, “My mom taught me how to sign my
name.”
I guess that in our public schools it wouldn’t
hurt education to shorten the school year a few months or even eliminate a few
grades.
California’s Chronic Budget Problems
The California State Senate
gave an average of a 7% pay raise to at least 169 staff employees during the
past three months. (Torey Van Oot in the Sac
Bee.)
Lack of money doesn’t seem to stop lawmakers from spending it.
The Federal Debt has reached Never-seen-before heights
Does anyone really know what
the national debt is today to the nearest “Ten Trillion Dollars?”
Lack of money doesn’t seem to stop Congress from spending it
Rumor Mill
The Obama Administration is Planning to
Eliminate the Tax Deduction of 401(k)'s and IRA's. . .
There is also a plan being floated on taxing retirement benefits.
There is never an end to the “Tax & Spend Party’s” search for new
things to tax.
Have no fear. When everything is taxed, they will just add more taxes on to
present taxes.
Witness your telephone bill! Mine has nine taxes on it already.
To read more HHK
. . .
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read more HMC . . .
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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.
•
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
•
•
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 Liberty
high-deductible model, go to www.libertyhealthgroup.com/Liberty_Solutions.htm.
There is extensive data available for your study. Dr Dave is available to speak
to your group on a consultative basis.
•
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,
•
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.
•
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: Will Wikileaks lead to
HIPAA leaks? 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 Docs
in a Skinner Box. 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."
Words
of Wisdom, Recent Postings, In Memoriam, Today in History . . .
Words of Wisdom
"The budget should be
balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the
arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance
to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must
again learn to work instead of living on public assistance." –Cicero, 55 BC
So have we not learned anything in the
past 20 centuries?
"Formal education will make you a
living; self-education will make you a fortune." — Jim Rohn:
An American author and
motivational speaker. Nightingale-Conant
Have the
courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you
truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." — Steve Jobs: An
American inventor and businessman.
Some Recent
Postings
In The October 14 Issue: