1.
Featured
Article: Strong American
Women vs. Julia
Strong American Women versus Julia the start of
Obama’s political campaign
By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, MD
GOD’s Blessings to All MOTHERS
(Mother’s Day was May 13, 2012)
The mothers,
grandmothers, and great-grandmothers that Americans remember each May are
strikingly different from “Julia,” the star of Obama’s political campaign.
We cannot see
helpless Julia as Molly Pitcher, stepping up to fire a cannon in the
Revolutionary War in place of her fallen husband. We can’t picture Julia taking
risks to free slaves in the War Between the States, or doing demanding work
nursing dying soldiers in battles, or being willing to endure walking alongside
a wagon train to settle the West. Read more . . .
Julia does not
work from dawn to dusk to build shelter, plant crops, harvest food to eat, sew
clothes, haul water, or clean up waste as our ancestors did. Julia does not
stand side by side with her parents, brothers, sisters, and husband to build a
community and fight to defend it.
Julia does not
seem to have any of those natural relationships most women have—she only has
the parasitic “relationship” with the “government” with her from cradle to
grave.
Julia doesn’t
need the skills our foremothers had…or even the skills of women today who work
in fields previously only available to men. Everything is done for Julia
through government benefits! But remember, those benefits come from taxing
someone else’s work.
Poor hapless
Julia can’t even “focus” on her web design work without free contraceptives
provided by the government to “ease her worries” about getting pregnant. When
Julia does "decide" to have a child, she then sends the child off on
a bus to be raised at a government school.
Our
foremothers showed strength, independence, and courage. They had no guarantee
of the basics of life, even water, food, or shelter, and endured unbelievable
hardship. They persevered through hard times, held their families together, and
passed along their culture, their traditions, their standards, and dreams of
liberty to the next generation.
American women
have helped build the strongest and most prosperous nation in the history of
the world. Through their own hard work, women reached the pinnacle of success
in many fields: business, medicine, law, the military, engineering, space
exploration, mining, construction, science, and government. They achieve
through their effort and initiative and development of skills, a process we
call earned success.
Julia, on the
other hand, exemplifies learned helplessness and dependency. Her life shows the
stark contrast between the vision of our Founders and the vision of modern
“progressives.” Instead of having the freedom to choose her own path and to
succeed based on one’s work, one’s intellect, one’s right to keep property, and
one’s personal values, Julia’s life is subservient to Big Daddy government for
protection to help her day to day. Although Julia doesn’t realize it, she could
lose her favored “protection” at any time her protectors lose an election.
Government
will take care of Julia—after it decides she is one of the chosen. Julia will
be allowed to live as long as she is perceived to be an asset to the state.
Once she becomes too old, or too sick, she will be “comforted” and “assisted”
in dying when the government decides it is her time to go so that “society’s”
resources can be spent on someone younger or more politically valuable.
It is a cruel
irony that the very progressives who are reducing our women to this pathetic
state are accusing others of making “war on women.” This government nanny kills
the soul and the creative spirit of strong women, and creates passive, helpless
shells of women living a shadow life. . .
The true
spirit of America is embodied in The Lady Liberty, a strong woman who values
the law, stands proudly holding her torch high as a beacon to victims of
tyranny and oppression throughout the world.
The spirit of
women we celebrate each Mother’s Day is embodied in the millions of women who
dared to dream, who dared to take risks, who dared to explore the unknown and
work alongside men to build a great nation.
I have spent a
career in Medicine focused on empowering women, not creating dependency. Let it
not be said that freedom to choose one’s path in life died on our watch while
we made passive, parasitic “Julias” out of our young women.
Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. is a preventive and climacteric
medicine specialist with medical practices in Tucson AZ and Dallas TX that take
an integrated approach to evaluation and treatment of women and men with
complex medical and hormonal problems. Dr. Vliet is also President of
International Health Strategies, Ltd., whose mission is twofold: liberty and
privacy in treatment options and preservation of the Oath of Hippocrates focus
on the individual patient.
Dr. Vliet
is the 2007 recipient of the Voice of Women award from the Arizona Foundation
for Women for her pioneering advocacy for the overlooked hormone connections in
women’s health. Dr. Vliet received her M.D. degree and internship in Internal
Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, then completed specialty training
at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr.
Vliet is a Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
Dr. Vliet
has appeared on FOX NEWS, Cavuto, Stuart Varney Show, Fox and Friends and
syndicated radio shows across the country addressing the economic and medical
impact of the new healthcare bill.
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* * * * *
2.
In the
News: It is not whether
government is inherently good or evil, but what government does.
David Brooks: Hamilton rolling over in his grave over
role of government,
Sac Bee, May 30, 2012
From
the dawn of the republic, the federal government has played a vital role in
American economic life. Government promoted industrial development in the 18th
century, transportation in the 19th, communications in the 20th and
biotechnology today.
But
the federal role has historically been sharply limited. The man who initiated
that role, Alexander
Hamilton, was a nationalist. His primary goal was to enhance national power
and eminence, not to make individuals rich or equal. Read more . . .
This
version of economic nationalism meant that he and the people who followed in
his path – the Whigs, the early Republicans and the early progressives –
focused on long-term structural development, not on providing jobs right now.
They had their sights on the horizon, building the infrastructure, education
and research facilities required for future greatness. This nationalism also
led generations of leaders to assume that there is a rough harmony of interests
between capital and labor. People in this tradition reject efforts to divide
the country between haves and have-nots.
Finally,
this nationalism meant that policy emphasized dynamism, and opportunity more
than security, equality and comfort. While European governments in the 19th and
early 20th centuries focused on protecting producers and workers, the U.S. government focused
more on innovation and education.
Because
of these priorities, and these restrictions on the federal role, the government
could be energetic without ever becoming gigantic. Through the 19th century,
the federal government consumed about 4 percent of the national gross domestic
product in peacetime. Even through the New Deal, it consumed less than 10
percent.
Meanwhile,
America prospered.
But
this Hamiltonian approach has been largely abandoned. The abandonment came in
three phases.
First,
the progressive era. The progressives were right to increase regulations to
protect workers and consumers. But the late progressives had excessive faith in
the power of government planners to rationalize national life. This was
antithetical to the Hamiltonian tradition, which was much more skeptical about
how much we can know and much more respectful toward the complexity of the
world.
Second,
the New Deal. Franklin
Roosevelt was right to energetically respond to the Depression. But the New
Deal's dictum – that people don't eat in the long run; they eat every day – was
eventually corrosive. Politicians since have paid less attention to long-term
structures and more to how many jobs they "create" in a specific
month. Americans have been corrupted by the allure of debt, sacrificing future
development for the sake of present spending and tax cuts.
Third,
the Great Society. Lyndon
Johnson was right to use government to do more to protect Americans from
the vicissitudes of capitalism. But he made a series of open-ended promises,
especially on health care.
He tried to bind voters to the Democratic Party with a
web of middle-class subsidies.
In
each case, a good impulse was taken to excess. A government that was energetic
and limited was turned into one that is omnidirectional and fiscally
unsustainable. A government that was trusted and oriented around long-term
visions is now distrusted because it tries to pander to the voters' every
momentary desire.
I've
taken this tour through history because we are having a big debate about what
government's role should be, so, of course, we are having a debate about what
government's role has been. Two of the country's most provocative writers have
taken stabs at describing that history – imperfectly in my view – in order to
point a way forward.
In
his illuminating new book, "Land of Promise," the political historian
Michael Lind celebrates the Hamiltonian tradition, but, in his telling,
Hamiltonianism segues into something that looks like modern liberalism. But the
Hamiltonian tradition differs from liberalism in fundamental ways.
In
his engrossing new book "Our Divided Political Heart," E.J. Dionne,
my NPR pundit partner, argues that the Hamiltonian and Jacksonian traditions
formed part of a balanced consensus, which has been destroyed by the radical
individualists of today's Republican
Party. But that balanced governing philosophy was destroyed gradually over
the 20th century, before the tea
party was even in utero.
As
government excessively overreached, Republicans became excessively
antigovernment.
We're
not going back to the 19th-century governing philosophy of Hamilton, Clay and
Lincoln. But that tradition offers guidance. The question is not whether
government is inherently good or evil, but what government does.
Does
government encourage long-term innovation or leave behind long-term debt for
short-term expenditure? Does government nurture an enterprising citizenry, or a
secure but less energetic one? If the United States doesn't modernize its
governing institutions, the nation will stagnate. The ghost of Hamilton will be
displeased.
By David Brooks
Read more here:
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/05/30/4524287/hamilton-rolling-over-in-his.html#storylink=cpy
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* * * * *
3.
International Medicine: Foreign-Trained
Doctors
Inside Medicine: Pros and cons of
foreign-trained doctors
By Dr.
Michael Wilkes, UCD
Somewhere around 25 percent
of doctors practicing in this country have been trained at medical schools
outside the United States (a good percentage are from India, the Philippines,
Mexico, Pakistan and the Dominican
Republic). Read more . . .
Some of these
foreign-trained doctors grew up in foreign countries. Others are American
citizens who were not able to find a spot in a U.S. medical school and decided
to go abroad for medical training.
Collectively, these
foreign-trained doctors are far more likely to practice in less desirable
specialties like internal medicine, psychiatry and family
medicine, and they are
far more likely to practice in physician-short areas like the inner city or
rural America. . .
As patients, Americans expect their
doctors to listen to them and explain their condition so that they as consumers
can participate in making medical decisions. Americans expect doctors to be
honest with them and tell them the truth even when the news is bad news. In
many countries, such approaches to medical care are not routine and are not
taught. But foreign-trained doctors are smart men and women, and they learn
Americanisms quickly.
The issue of whether we should make it
easier for foreign-trained doctors to get visas so they can come to the United
States and take the American medical qualifying exams and get licensed is
controversial.
But it's not because there is debate about
whether we should allow them to practice here. Remember, without
foreign-trained doctors, we can't make our health care system work. The
controversy is whether it is fair to their home countries to allow these smart
men and women to sit through medical school and then take all that knowledge
and move to the United States when they are so badly needed back home.
Read more:
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/06/07/4543273/pros-and-cons-of-foreign-trained.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy
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* * * * *
4.
Medicare: How does Medicare’s
payment system hinder innovation in health care?
Medicare's Payment System Harms Medical Innovation
Guest Post
by Neil Minkoff, MD.*
Government is harmful to
medical innovation by setting so much of the reimbursement process. By being,
by far, the largest payer of healthcare claims in America, the Medicare fee
schedule drives the market for all other private payers. In essence, this sets
a floor for clinical reimbursement. Hospitals then set budgets based on
expected revenue, not based on the cost of providing specific services. Read more . . .
Patient experience, convenience
and quality of care do not effect, or at least significantly effect, clinical
reimbursement in the standard, traditional fee-for-service Medicare program.
There is therefore no incentive to find ways to create new value in the system.
By law, a physician or hospital cannot charge premium pricing for a
Medicare-reimbursed service or procedure. I first notice this while treating
patient maybe 15 years ago. A first- or second-year physician, I was treating a
patient with a serious lung impairment caused by a blood clot in his pulmonary
artery. I was transferring this patient from a poorly run suburban hospital,
soon to close, to arguably the world’s expert on these types of clots at the
Brigham and Women’s, which is consistently rated as one of the nation’s ten
finest facilities. Medicare was paying both physicians the same fee and both
hospitals the same fee.
This is wrong. This encourages
a sense in the market of care that is “good enough.” Nowhere do Medicare
providers have any incentive, outside of their integrity and drive, to develop,
improve and excel. Only recently has Medicare paid any attention to outpatient
quality of care through the Physician Quality Reporting System and, even then,
caps payment of a quality bonus to 0.5% of the previous year’s Medicare
payments to the provider. This means it costs more to collect the data to
report to Medicare than one can earn for collecting it.
Furthermore, the setting of the
Medicare fee schedule exempts most of medicine from basic rules of
supply-and-demand. Here is an example: over the past five years, Medicare
reimbursement for cataract surgery rose from around $900 to about $1,050, a 17%
increase, despite a growing volume of procedures as the population ages and
what would otherwise be an incentive to lower prices to attract this new
volume.
Conversely, elective visual
corrective surgery dropped over a similar time span from $2,100 per eye to
$1,700, a 20% decrease. The pressure of the market forced providers to innovate
better, more cost-effective ways to do the procedure while maintaining a
positive, safe patient experience. These providers have tremendous incentive to
measure, report and improve quality-of-care, patient experience and cost.
Payment not based on individual
experience may account for another example. Since laparoscopic gallbladder
removal became the standard of care, the risk of tearing the bile duct which
was the most common serious complication, has plummeted. However, the risk of a
common, minor complication, a dropped stone lost in the abdominal cavity, has
remained unchanged for over 15 years. There is not enough incentive under
current reimbursement to improve a mild issue. In no other industry where
service providers compete on price and quality would this lack of innovation be
tolerated.
An irrational,
one-size-fits-all fee schedule that does not reward quality, patient experience
and clinical expertise traps the American public in a medical system where one
is rewarded only for doing things… but not for doing them well.
*On May 3, 2012, Avik
Roy & Dr. Minkoff participated in a Benjamin
Rush Society debate at Harvard Medical School addressing the resolution
that government is harmful to medical innovation. This is a summary of his
remarks.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/05/22/medicares-payment-system-harms-medical-innovation/
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Government is not the solution to our
problems, government is the problem.
- Ronald Reagan
* * * * *
5.
Medical
Gluttony: Hospital
Consolidation Increases healthcare costs
Hospital Monopoly
The hospital sector has seen huge waves
of consolidation and acquisition in recent years:
- In 1995, hospital merger and acquisition activity was nine times
its level at the start of the decade, and by 2003, almost 90 percent of
Americans living in the nation’s larger metropolitan statistical areas
(MSAs) faced highly concentrated provider markets. Read more . . .
- This wave of hospital consolidation was responsible for price increases
for inpatient services of at least five percent and likely more and it was
responsible for price increases of 40 percent where merging hospitals were
closely located.
- A second merger wave from 2006 to 2009 significantly increased the
hospital concentration in 30 MSAs, and a majority of Americans are now
subject to monopoly power in their local markets.
The implementation of the Affordable
Care Act (ACA) will further expand hospitals’ monopolistic power and exacerbate
the problem.
Source: Barak Rickman, AEI study.
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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: Decreasing
Deductibles and Co-Payments Lowers the cost of Healthcare
The prevailing opinion is
the portion of health care that has no or little deductibles or co-payments
lowers the cost of health care. The insurance carriers use this as a marketing
tool.
Patients love this since
they get free healthcare. Since many of them don’t pay the health insurance
premiums, it truly is free at this time. However, the huge overutilization will
increase the insurance costs the next premium year. So the next premium year
the costs will go up for whoever pays the premium, whether it is the state, employer,
or some other third party. But some day, it will be you and there will be an
unpleasant awakening. Read
more . . .
What will happen then?
The entitlement mentality, as
with all entitlements, of the here and now will prevail. It’s unfortunate that
such a childish response becomes the grown up’s cry: I want what I want when I
want it. Isn’t it too bad that the adults’ response is more childish than the
little girl’s response: You’ll get what
I got when I get it.
Even the little girl knew
there would be many moral restrictions on it before he got it. Why can’t we
apply ethics to entitlements? Isn’t stealing from others, (even though
governments can make any sin legal), reprehensible?
Fact: Increasing the deductibles and the
co-payments decrease the overall health care costs
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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: Tax & Spend
& Mortgage our Children’s Future
Dr. Rosen: Aren’t the headlines we see every day frightening? Parks
closing. Children forced to play in the streets.
Dr. Dave: The people are awakening that there is no money left over in
the government till?
Dr. Milton: Why can’t the people see that the lack of restraints on
government spending is causing this to occur?
Dr. Paul: We just have to bite the bullet and raise the taxes. Read more . . .
Dr. Edwards: These are local concerns and they are covered by property taxes.
Who can afford them?
Dr. Paul: Our property taxes are only one percent since proposition 13
went into effect. Surely we can afford more?
Dr. Milton: People were losing their homes before proposition 13 went into
effect. This not only hurt the people on fixed incomes, it even hurt some of
the rest of us. I know a physician who bought his home in Pasadena for about
$40,000 fifty years ago. It was then appraised at $800,000. He’s retired, but
do you think that even a doctor could afford to go from $400 in property taxes
to $8000 in taxes on the same house. In today’s recession, it probably dropped
to $400,000, but the current value and the value three years ago bears no
relationship to his ability to pay.
Dr. Edwards: Removing Proposition 13 limits, would bankrupt many of our seniors.
As their property escalated in value, sometimes two three times their initial
investment and their property taxes were $1000 a year, how could a person
living on social security at $700 a month, find an extra $2,000 when their
taxes went to $3,000 a year?
Dr. Milton: Wouldn’t that be rather cruel and inhumane to our seniors,
Paul?
Dr. Paul: Their social security cost of living adjustments would
probably keep up with the increase taxes.
Dr. Rosen: Paul, you obviously belong to the “tax & spend &
mortgage our children’s future” party.
Dr. Paul: Rosen, you are the eternal pessimist.
Dr. Rosen: No, I’m the eternal realist. I think that everyone in the “Responsibility
and Freedom” party is. Debt means you’re not living within your means. If you
can’t live within your means today, what makes you think you can live within your
means as recession caused by the “Tax & Spend” party reduces your income or
even brings it down to zero if you lose your job.
Dr. Edwards: The members of the “tax and spend” party make
government their god and the source of all good things. They can’t conceive of
government having any limits.
Dr. Rosen: The major
problem is that the T & S people will bring the rest of us down to their
cesspool.
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The Staff Lounge Is Where Unfiltered Medical Opinions Are Heard.
* * * * *
8.
Voices of
Medicine: The Snake and I by Michael Sergeant, MD, Sonoma Medicine
I was just after a few rocks. That’s all. I wanted to make a beautiful arrangement
for my wife, Diane, who was returning in the morning from taking care of her
mom in a hospital in Atlanta.
I had the roses: delicately beautiful, magenta, magic. I had the lovely
vase from Portugal. What I needed was a few desert rocks to complete the
picture in my head and the feeling in my heart. It didn’t quite work out that
way.
The magic was different: I got to dance with the power of nature. Read more . . .
I was singly focused as I walked out the front door with a dishpan to
gather those few desert rocks from our front garden in Tucson, Arizona. My
vision was tunneled toward the creative endeavor.
I think the snake (or maybe snakes) would actually have been quite
satisfied to be left alone. I expect it was not the least bit pleased to have
the still of the evening disturbed by a human tromping around and picking up
the rocks near which it lay. It is also possible that there was an even more
egregious infraction: snake coitus interruptus. Whatever the case, indicting
said snake or snakes for the subsequent events would be inappropriate.
So there I was, contentedly in my own front yard, dressed in my desert
best (shorts, T-shirt, flip flops), in the pale glow of the front porch light,
gathering a few rocks I thought would lend beauty to my arrangement. Beneath
the nearby garden wall, the ground was in shadow. I was oblivious. The night
was quiet.
I was bending over to pick up the last couple rocks when my peaceful
world exploded in pain. My left foot had been crushed, it seemed, by an
acid-coated sledgehammer wielded by none less than John Henry himself. Shock
first. Then a knowing. And then, only after the truth had already permeated my
consciousness, the slight and ever so ominous rattle. What I would not know
until the next day is that I had actually, in that life-changing split second,
been bitten twice.
The brief moments following the shock resulted in only a little
disruption of the quiet desert night as a few choice words erupted from me; not
so much as a yell, more as a series of almost disbelieving profane whispers. My
mind, once convinced of the reality of being snakebitten, switched almost
immediately to a kind of analytic stillness. As I hobbled into the house, I
told myself that 20-30% of rattler bites are not poisonous, and though the ongoing
pain was telling me otherwise, I was briefly hopeful that would be the case for
me. By the time I reached the bathroom, my hopes were dashed when I saw that my
foot had ballooned to half again its normal size.
In the bathroom I found the top of my foot bloody. I had a syringe
right there and actually attempted to aspirate some of the venom from the
wounds. This was not one of my more brilliant moments, but the illusion that
this would be effective fortunately lasted only a few seconds, ending with my recognition
of the foolishness of the endeavor and an understanding of my need for
immediate medical care. I needed antivenom, and I needed it as quickly as
possible.
Back to clear thinking. I considered calling 911 for an ambulance and
medics but reasoned that by the time they got to me, got me loaded and then
again left, much more time would be eaten up than if I just took off for a
hospital. So, with increasing discomfort (euphemism for pain), I got out to the
garage, grabbed a tourniquet from the crash bag I keep in the car, and opened
the garage door. There was a brief moment of internal debate as I considered
the tourniquet: current evidence recommends against
the use of them in snakebite as the amount of local damage is increased and
there is a risk of bad things happening when the tourniquet is removed and a
bunch of toxin is quickly released into the general circulation. Despite this
knowledge, I decided to apply the tourniquet lightly, hoping to diminish
systemic effects of the venom while driving to the hospital.
Once in the car, I realized I was unsure which hospital to head for as
I was right between at least two. So I finally called 911 while driving to ask
if there was a regional snakebite center. There wasn’t. I found that the 911
dispatcher was not pleased that I didn’t want to wait for an ambulance. When I
said jokingly that I knew I was fine because I knew it was October 1947, her
angst amplified significantly, and I had to convince her repeatedly that I was
joking and that I was OK to drive. That said, it was a very surreal journey as
I drove to a large private hospital, pointedly avoiding the regional trauma
center on an urban Saturday night.
When I arrived outside the ER, the venom effects were getting markedly
stronger. I was unable to bear any weight on my left foot and was feeling
progressively more ill. I left the car in front of the ER and hopped in. Once I
announced the nature of my problem, I was quickly wheeled back to the triage
area, where two IVs were started and blood was drawn.
From that point on, events settled into a strange kind of slow motion. I
was moved into a treatment area, where I was first seen by an ER nurse, then by
an intern and a resident who really knew nothing about snakebite. I treated my
own anxieties by talking to them about the pathophysiology involved. The
attending physician finally showed up and ordered the antivenom. Herein lay the
next problem: antivenom takes about an hour just to reconstitute. Tack onto
that the time required to transcribe the order, send it to pharmacy and for
pharmacy to get to work on it … there was an eternity yet to wait. By that time
I had removed the tourniquet and had slipped briefly into a bit of denial
imagining that I might somehow get a few vials of antivenom and then dance on
home as if nothing had happened. . .
Suddenly I felt poorly and said, “I feel really bad here y’all.” I was
immediately surrounded, my gurney was tipped head down, and someone said my
pulse was in the thirties and my blood pressure was in the fifties. These
aren’t good numbers. I don’t remember how they knew my blood pressure so fast,
but I do remember feeling a way I’ve never felt before. It was something like
the feeling one gets just before vomiting or perhaps before fainting. It was
like being both here and there and not knowing which was what.
Someone said, “Get the pacer pads,” and a nurse put them on me. Then
another moment of brilliance. I, the trained physician, said, “Don’t do that,
it will hurt.” I laugh now as they did then. After all, what are some little
shocks compared to the pain that was now climbing my swollen leg? Further, if I
did need to be paced, that pacing would keep me alive. . .
The next couple days were spent in the hospital with very good nursing
care. My blood pressure came up, making pain medicine finally available. This
time is a bit of a blur. I became quite anemic from the effects of the venom.
On the last day, I tried to move around a bit, but the pain was searing any
time my foot wasn’t elevated. I was pretty weak. Just maneuvering to the
bedside commode was both immodest and excruciating. Still, healing had
commenced.
There were moments of frustration and of laughter. On day 3, I was
discharged from the hospital with a final touch of humor. My nurse on that last
day looked to be about 11. She was asking me her nurse questions, and when she
got to “What is your work?” I answered that I was a doctor. She was shocked.
Why would I say that? I can only quote her: “Uhn uh, a physician? Shuuut uuup!”
I found this hilarious but also a reminder of the mythology that doctors are
somehow made of something different from “regular” folks. Lying in that bed,
unable to take care of myself, I was reminded of just how regular I am.
I’ve now been home for a few weeks. I am just beginning to bear a bit
of weight, and the swelling is now limited to the foot and ankle. My platelets
fell last week, and I had a little bleeding under the skin, but that has now
resolved. I know I will be rehabilitating for some weeks to come. I am on the
mend, but somehow I am not the same.
Above I mentioned gifts. That is what I have taken from this experience
more than anything else. I have been given a much deeper understanding of who I
am, stripped of my titles, and even of the physical abilities by which I define
myself. Under all that I am just a man.
I have worked at my job a few days and found it remarkably difficult
physically, yet the support and care of those with whom I work has filled my
heart. I have come to an even more powerful experience of love: that of my
wife, my family and my community. A couple rattlesnake bites that landed me in
the ICU and waved my mortality before me have not left me traumatized nearly so
much as thankful. Not to suggest that I would be interested in a repeat
performance; no, once is enough. Yet, I would not wish for this not to have
happened. The many costs of this event are repaid with interest by what I was
given on a Tucson Desert night.
Dr.
Sergeant, a graduate of the Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency, directs
hospital medicine at the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City, New
Mexico.
Email: mcsergeant19@gmail.com
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VOM Is an Insider's View of What Doctors are Thinking,
Saying and Writing about.
* * * * *
9.
Books Received Awaiting
Review
PRICELESS – Curing the Healthcare Crises, by John C. Goodman,
Father of HSAs
HEALING THE HEART OF DEMOCRACY – the Courage to Create Politics Worthy of the Human
Spirit, by Parker J. Palmer
THE FEMALE BRAIN – What makes us Women, by Louann Brizendine, MD,
Psychoanalysis at Langley Porter, UCSF
WELCOME TO ENTREPRENEUR COUNTRY – Julie Meyer, CEO, Ariadne Capital, London
To read more book reviews . . .
To read book
reviews topically . . .
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The Book Review Section Is an Insider’s View of What
Doctors are Reading about.
* * * * *
10. Hippocrates & His Kin: Can we relate
government to reality?
Today’s news:
California had to close 70 parks because of budget deficits. Children
have to play in the streets.
Tomorrow’s
news: California had to close 7 hospitals because of
budget deficits. Sick people can’t get admitted. Read more . . .
Next week’s
news: I had a coronary, but all hospitals were filled and
I couldn’t get a room. Moses and St Peter, do you still have space?
Next year’s
archives: Why are we having flu, TB and small pox epidemics
again?
Our
children’s history books: Entitlements, Budget deficits, Taker
mentalities caused public health to take a nosedive reversing the progress of
the last century.
Or if the guy
in the Big White House isn’t doing his job, maybe we should just let him go.
Are
Entitlements Corrupting Us?
With a treasure
chest of government-supplied benefits readily available, a taker mentality has
become part of our way of life, writes Nicholas Eberstadt in the WSJ.
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Hippocrates
and His Kin / Hippocrates Modern Colleagues
The Challenges of Yesteryear, Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow
* * * * *
11. Restoring Accountability in
Medical Practice, Healthcare, Government and Society:
•
The National
Center for Policy Analysis, John C
Goodman, PhD, President, who along with Gerald L. Musgrave, and Devon M. Herrick
wrote Lives at Risk, issues a
weekly Health Policy Digest, a health summary of the full NCPA
daily report. You may log on at www.ncpa.org and register to receive one or more
of these reports.
•
Pacific
Research Institute, (www.pacificresearch.org) Sally
C Pipes, President and CEO, John R Graham, Director of Health Care Studies, publish a monthly Health Policy Prescription
newsletter, which is very timely to our current health care situation. You may
signup to receive their newsletters via email by clicking on the email tab or directly access their health
care blog.
•
The Mercatus
Center at George Mason University (www.mercatus.org)
is a strong advocate for accountability in government. Maurice McTigue, QSO,
a Distinguished Visiting Scholar, a former member of Parliament and cabinet
minister in New Zealand, is now director of the Mercatus Center's Government
Accountability Project. Join
the Mercatus Center for Excellence in Government.
•
To read the rest of this column, please go to www.medicaltuesday.net/org.asp.
•
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 . . .
•
PATMOS
EmergiClinic - where Robert Berry,
MD, an emergency physician and internist, practices. To read his story and
the background for naming his clinic PATMOS EmergiClinic - the island where
John was exiled and an acronym for "payment at time of service," go
to www.patmosemergiclinic.com/
To read more on Dr Berry, please click on the various topics at his website. To
review How
to Start a Third-Party Free Medical Practice . . .
•
PRIVATE NEUROLOGY is
a Third-Party-Free Practice in Derby, NY with Larry Huntoon, MD, PhD, FANN. (http://home.earthlink.net/~doctorlrhuntoon/)
Dr Huntoon does not allow any HMO or government interference in your medical
care. "Since I am not forced to use CPT codes and ICD-9 codes (coding
numbers required on claim forms) in our practice, I have been able to keep our
fee structure very simple." I have no interest in "playing
games" so as to "run up the bill." My goal is to provide
competent, compassionate, ethical care at a price that patients can afford. I
also believe in an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. Private
Neurology also guarantees that
medical records in our office are kept totally private and confidential - in
accordance with the Oath of Hippocrates. Since I am a non-covered entity under
HIPAA, your medical records are safe from the increased risk of disclosure
under HIPAA law.
•
FIRM: Freedom
and Individual Rights in Medicine, Lin
Zinser, JD, Founder, www.westandfirm.org,
researches and studies the work of scholars and policy experts in the areas
of health care, law, philosophy, and economics to inform and to foster public
debate on the causes and potential solutions of rising costs of health care and
health insurance. Read Lin
Zinser’s view on today’s health care problem: In today’s proposals for sweeping changes
in the field of medicine, the term “socialized medicine” is never used. Instead
we hear demands for “universal,” “mandatory,” “singlepayer,” and/or
“comprehensive” systems. These demands aim to force one healthcare plan
(sometimes with options) onto all Americans; it is a plan under which all
medical services are paid for, and thus controlled, by government agencies.
Sometimes, proponents call this “nationalized financing” or “nationalized
health insurance.” In a more honest day, it was called socialized medicine.
•
Michael J.
Harris, MD - www.northernurology.com
- an active member in the American Urological Association, Association of
American Physicians and Surgeons, Societe' Internationale D'Urologie, has an active
cash'n carry practice in urology in Traverse City, Michigan. He has no
contracts, no Medicare, Medicaid, no HIPAA, just patient care. Dr Harris is
nationally recognized for his medical care system reform initiatives. To
understand that Medical Bureaucrats and Administrators are basically Medical
Illiterates telling the experts how to practice medicine, be sure to savor his
article on "Administrativectomy:
The Cure For Toxic Bureaucratosis."
•
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 Vienna. He also noted that the first
division of the clinic run by medical students had a death rate 2-3 times as
high as the second division run by midwives. He also noticed that medical
students came from the dissecting room to the maternity ward. He ordered the
students to wash their hands in a solution of chlorinated lime before each
examination. The maternal mortality dropped, and by 1848, no women died in
childbirth in his division. He lost his appointment the following year and was
unable to obtain a teaching appointment. Although ahead of his peers, he was
not accepted by them. When Dr Verner Waite received similar treatment from a
hospital, he organized the Semmelweis Society with his own funds using Dr
Semmelweis as a model: To read the article he wrote at my request for
Sacramento Medicine when I was editor in 1994, see www.delmeyer.net/HMCPeerRev.htm. To see Attorney Sharon Kime's response, as well as the
California Medical Board response, see www.delmeyer.net/HMCPeerRev.htm. Scroll down to read some
very interesting letters to the editor from the Medical Board of California,
from a member of the MBC, and from Deane Hillsman, MD. To view some horror
stories of atrocities against physicians and how organized medicine still
treats this problem, please go to www.semmelweissociety.net.
•
The
Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (www.AAPSonline.org), The Voice for Private
Physicians Since 1943, representing physicians in their struggles against
bureaucratic medicine, loss of medical privacy, and intrusion by the government
into the personal and confidential relationship between patients and their
physicians. Be sure to read News of the Day in Perspective. Don't miss
the "AAPS News," written by Jane Orient, MD, and archived on
this site which provides valuable information on a monthly basis. Browse the
archives of their official organ, the Journal
of American Physicians and Surgeons, with Larry Huntoon, MD, PhD, a
neurologist in New York, as the Editor-in-Chief. There are a number of
important articles that can be accessed from the Table of Contents.
•
The AAPS California Chapter is an unincorporated association made up of members.
The Goal of the AAPS California Chapter is to carry on the activities of the
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) on a statewide basis.
This is accomplished by having meetings and providing communications that
support the medical professional needs and interests of independent physicians
in private practice. To join the AAPS California Chapter, all you need to do is
join national AAPS and be a physician licensed to practice in the State of
California. There is no additional cost or fee to be a member of the AAPS
California State Chapter.
Go to California
Chapter Web Page . . .
Bottom
line: "We are the best deal Physicians can get from a statewide physician
based organization!"
•
PA-AAPS is the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Association
of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a non-partisan professional
association of physicians in all types of practices and specialties across the
country. Since 1943, AAPS has been dedicated to the highest ethical standards
of the Oath of Hippocrates and to preserving the sanctity of the
patient-physician relationship and the practice of private medicine. We welcome
all physicians (M.D. and D.O.) as members. Podiatrists, dentists, chiropractors
and other medical professionals are welcome to join as professional associate
members. Staff members and the public are welcome as associate members. Medical
students are welcome to join free of charge.
Our motto, "omnia pro aegroto"
means "all for the patient."
12. Words
of Wisdom, Recent Postings, In Memoriam, Today in History . . .
Words of
Wisdom
I don’t make jokes. I just watch the
government and report the facts. –Will Rogers.
Government’s view of the economy could be
summed up in a few short phrases:
If it moves, tax it.
If it keeps moving, regulate it
If it stops moving, subsidize it.
–Ronald Reagan (1986)
Some Recent
Postings
In The May Issue: