WELCOME TO THE MEDICAL TUESDAY NETWORK

    Physicians, Business, Professional and Information Technology Communities

    Networking to Restore Accountability in HealthCare & Medical Practice

    Tuesday, October 26, 2004

MedicalTuesday refers to the meetings that were traditionally held on Tuesday evenings where physicians met with their colleagues and the interested business and professional communities to discuss the medical and health care issues of the day. As major changes occurred in health care delivery during the past several decades, the need for physicians to meet with the business and professional communities became even more important. However, proponents of third-party or single-payer health care felt these meetings were counter productive and they essentially disappeared. Rationing, a common component of government medicine throughout the world, was introduced into the United States with Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), under the illusion that this was free enterprise. Instead, the consumers (patients) lost all control of their personal and private health-care decision making, the reverse of what was needed to control health care costs and improve quality of care.
We welcome you to the reestablishment of these MedicalTuesday interchanges now occurring on the world wide web currently reaching into twenty-one countries. If this newsletter has been forwarded to you or you have not been on our email list, please go to www.MedicalTuesday.net and subscribe to continue to receive these free messages on alternate MedicalTuesdays. At this site you can also subscribe to the companion quarterly newsletter, HealthPlanUSA, designed to make HealthCare more affordable for all Americans. Please forward this message to your friends and professional associates. If you were referred in error or do not wish to receive these messages, we have made it easier for you to unsubscribe simply by clicking the Remove Link below and entering your email address above.

In This Issue:
1.    Privatization Is Not Just a Medical Issue, or a Regional Issue, but a Global Fact
2.    How Will We Pay for Social Security and Medicare?
3.    What Happens When You Abolish Social Security? In Chile Benefits Tripled
4.    After the Elections – What Will it Be? Stop and Think Before You Vote!
5.    Medical Gluttony: Third Party Health Care Without Individual Responsibility
6.    Medical Myths: American Medicine Is Riddled with Fraud
7.    Overheard in the Medical Staff Lounge - Steve Forbes
8.    The MedicalTuesday Recommendations for Restoring Accountability in Medical Practice, HealthCare and Government

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1.    Privatization Is Not Just a Medical Issue, or a Regional Issue, but a Global Fact
Take a look at any Japanese government document, from driving licenses to tax statements, and you will discover that this is not 2004, but Heisei 16, the 16th year of the reign of the current emperor. According to the Financial Times’ special report, FT Japan, this is a sober reminder that Japan is not a country easily shaken from long traditions. But supporters of Junichiro Koizumi, now into his fourth year in office, claim that is precisely what the prime minister is achieving. The theme of his premiership has been to reinvigorate the country by shrinking government and dismantling the state-planning model that has predominated for 60 years. Most recently, this revolutionary concept has been applied to the privatization of the post office, the world's largest financial institution.

When Mr Koizumi burst into office in 2001 as an "anti-politician" bent on defying convention, it was with a pledge to execute painful restructuring, promising a radical market-based overhaul of the economy in what he called "reform without sanctuary." The postwar national concept of the "job for life" has finally given way to corporate mergers and wage reductions to maintain technological leadership and corporate profits.

Last month's cabinet reshuffle confirmed how much he has reshaped the political terrain since 2002. Instead of appointing a team according to the dictates of factional bosses who have traditionally driven policy from behind the scenes, he named his own cabinet of loyalists. He appointed only those prepared to back him publicly on postal privatization. This shift form consensus-driven politics has helped Mr Koizumi push a more aggressive foreign and diplomatic policy. He rode roughshod over public opinion to back the US Middle East policy, sending ground forces to Iraq. This has helped further Japan's cause to be treated as a "normal country." Once almost a taboo subject, it is now almost certain that Japan will revise the pacifist constitution written by the American occupational force at the end of the war. To read the entire report and related articles go to www.ft.com/japan2004.

Source: Financial Times Special Report FTJapan, October 12, 2004.
If Japan can reduce the size of government, including the privatization of the post office,
there is hope for the United States and Europe to do the same.

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2.    How Will We Pay for Social Security and Medicare?
Social Security and Medicare are making future promises much greater than the taxes that will be collected at current rates. Unfortunately, some policymakers seem to be intent on making the problem worse, not better. Reforms are needed that create more saving today for retirement and increase the nation’s capital stock.

Size of the Problem. The latest reports of the Trustees of Social Security and Medicare calculate the present values of the cash flow deficits for both programs — and the numbers are staggering. Social Security’s funding gap for the next 75 years stands at $5.2 trillion. Medicare’s unfunded costs come to $28 trillion, including $8.1 trillion added by the new prescription drug benefit. The combined $33.2 trillion shortfall is about three times the current size of our economy, says Thomas R. Saving, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Bleak as this picture is, over a longer horizon the situation is worse. Consider people retiring 76 years from now. The Trustees’ 75-year calculation counts all of the payroll taxes these people will pay but ignores the benefits they expect to receive. To measure what happens after the 75th year and beyond, the Trustees now calculate the unfunded obligations over an infinite horizon. From this long-range perspective: Social Security’s long-run cash flow deficit is $11.9 trillion, and the new prescription drug benefit will require $16.6 trillion; the total shortfall of Medicare is $45.3 trillion; after payroll taxes and premium payments by the elderly, the unfunded liability of Medicare and Social Security combined totals more than $73 trillion — about seven times the size of our economy.

Shortfalls Began This Year. Some argue that the financial problems of elderly entitlements will not arise until the distant future. In reality, we are dealing with those burdens right now. This year, for the first time in recent memory, Social Security and Medicare combined will spend more than the programs take in. This will require a transfer from the Treasury of 3.6 percent of federal income tax receipts. That figure will grow rapidly: In just 15 years, in the early stages of the baby boomers’ retirement, we will be transferring more than 25 percent of federal income tax revenues to cover the funding needs of Social Security and Medicare; By 2040, the figure will be two-thirds, and by 2069, funding shortfalls will exhaust all federal income tax revenues.

Source: Thomas R. Saving, “How Will We Pay for Social Security and Medicare?” Brief Analysis No. 490, National Center for Policy Analysis, October 13, 2004. To read the entire report, go to http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba490/.

What is the Answer?

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3.    What Happens When You Abolish Social Security? In Chile Benefits Tripled
In 1981, Chile abolished its state-run Social Security system for new workers and allowed workers in the old system to opt-out if they wished. Under the new system, workers do not pay Social Security taxes, but rather are required to contribute 10 percent of their pay into a pension savings account. These accounts are similar to individual retirement accounts or 401(k) plans. The worker invests the assets as he chooses from a variety of professionally managed mutual funds.

On June 25, 1997, the Senate Subcommittee on Securities, chaired by Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), held an important hearing on Social Security privatization. The sole witness was Jose Pinera, architect of Chile's hugely successful privatization. Now a fellow at Washington's Cato Institute, Pinera was Minister of Labor and Social Security in Chile from 1978 to 1980. Since then, he has traveled the world preaching the virtues of privatization.

When the Chilean system was established, it was estimated that workers only needed to receive a real rate of return of 4 percent per year for them to be as well off in retirement as under the old state system. But in fact, most workers have done far better, making a 12 percent return on average since 1981. At retirement, workers are required to purchase an annuity that will pay them 70 percent of their pre-retirement earnings. Anything extra, they may spend as they please.

Of course, there are protections in the system for those whose savings turn out to be inadequate to give them 70 percent of their pre-retirement income. And of course taxes must still be paid to provide benefits for those still in the old system. But as time goes by, those taxes will fall as fewer and fewer people remain in the state system.

The privatized Social Security system has not only benefited workers, but the Chilean economy as a whole. Much of this came from increased saving that financed investment, leading to higher productivity. According to economist Sebastian Edwards of the University of California, Los Angeles, privatization of Social Security in Chile led to an increase in national saving from 10 percent in 1986 to almost 29 percent in 1996. And as Jose Pinera notes, the higher growth resulting from the higher saving and investment increased government revenues, helping to finance the transition from the old system to the new.

Another factor contributing to growth in Chile was a vast increase in the supply of labor resulting from abolition of the payroll tax. Since the linkage between taxes and benefits in the old system was tenuous at best, the payroll tax strongly depressed employment and work effort. But under the new system, where workers know with certainty that they will get back all of their contributions, they do not view the mandatory saving as a tax, but rather as part of their benefits.

In the July-August issue of Foreign Affairs, economist Martin Feldstein of Harvard argues that the U.S. would also achieve higher growth from a privatized Social Security system here. This higher growth, resulting from higher productivity from a larger capital stock, would offset much of the transition cost. Higher revenues from faster growth would allow today's workers to continue paying taxes to provide benefits for current retirees, while still saving enough for their own retirement. Over time, the tax would fall to zero, while the higher return on private saving would give today's workers a better retirement income than they would have under Social Security.

While any reform of Social Security in the U.S. is years away, other countries are moving forward. (http://www.ncpa.org/pi/congress/socsec/july97a.html)

Source: Bruce Bartlett, senior fellow, National Center for Policy Analysis, July 16, 1997.
To read about more recent Social Security reform in twenty countries around the world, go to http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st253/
The Answer Is: Privatize Social Security

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4.    After the Elections – What Will it Be? Stop and Think Before You Vote!
While many people are urging us to vote -- regardless of for whom, for what, or for what reason -- there are very few urging us to do what is far more important: Tom Sowell in his column this week urges us to "stop and think!" Voting is not a matter of personal expression but a serious responsibility for choosing what course this country will take in the years – and decades – ahead.

Seldom have two Presidential candidates presented more starkly contrasting visions of what course to take, both internationally and domestically. But this election is not about John Kerry or George Bush or even about the next four years.

It is about a country at a crossroads and closely divided as to which road to take – roads from which there may be no turning back for many years. We are talking about our future and the future of our children and grandchildren.
If you don't have the time or the inclination to give that the serious attention it deserves, then it is irresponsible to vote on the basis of watching a couple of men exhibiting their debating skills or watching TV anchor men spin the news to suit their politics -- or watching the shouting matches between spinmeisters on what are charitably called "discussion" programs.

If there are issues you care about, there are records of how John Kerry voted on those issues in the Senate and what George W. Bush did on those issues as President and as Governor of Texas before that. Never mind how they talk now. Look at what they did when it was time to put up or shut up.

If you can't spare the time from watching sit-coms to go check out a few facts one evening at your local library, with the help of your local librarian, then don't pretend that you are a responsible voter, or even a responsible parent.

Whatever your views, you can see the opposite views argued out on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal versus the New York Times. Whether the issue is the Iraq war, higher taxes, or prescription drugs, you can depend on their editorials to be on opposite sides, along with most of their op-ed pieces.

Your local library probably has back copies of both papers or you can get them on the Internet. There is no excuse for ignorance -- or for having heard only one side, which is worse.

Words like "strong," "strength" and "stronger" ring out from Senator Kerry on the campaign trail and from his campaign literature and bumper stickers. But how did he vote on military spending during his two decades in the Senate?

Senator Kerry has talked about his time in Vietnam longer than he actually spent in Vietnam. Does his war record more than three decades ago give him lifetime immunity from all questions about military issues? Do those who rely on the mainstream media even know whether his war record is for real? If a decorated combat veteran must be believed, then why are the many decorated combat veterans who served with Kerry in Vietnam -- and served longer -- not to be believed, or not even have their very different picture of him in Vietnam examined against the facts, instead of being dismissed?

Vice President Cheney has had to cast votes breaking ties in the Senate. How did he vote? It's all on the record. Or are you content to know what he says now or what is said about him?

If there was ever a time to stop and think, this is it. Slogans and images are no substitute for knowing what you are talking about -- and knowing what you are doing when you enter the voting booth on election day.

To read the entire column Stop and Think, go to http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/welcome.shtml

One candidate wants to join the progressive nations increasing privatization of health care.
The other candidate wants more government control of our personal health care.
STOP & THINK

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5.    Medical Gluttony: Third Party Health Care Without Individual Responsibility
Over the past thirty months of MedicalTuesdays, we have provided about sixty examples outlining excessive utilization of health care resources that contributed very little to improved health, and frequently worsened it. The excessive use was not on the order of 10 or 20 percent but on the order of 1,000 or 10,000 percent increase. Nearly all excessive use results from patients now having third-party health insurance, whether provided by the government or the employer. Even third-party government purchasers have allowed the individual to purchase a second policy to cover the deductible and copayment, the most expensive and counter-productive type of insurance possible. Ever hear of anyone purchasing a second policy to cover the deductible on their house or car insurance? Those deductions are necessary to prevent filing small nuisance claims. Similarly when Medicare was implemented, the hospital and out-patient deductibles were necessary to prevent overutilization. The 20 percent copayment for office calls was necessary to prevent continued overutilization after the deductible for office visits was met. MediGap took Medicare off of the market with perverse incentives.

With the new emphasis on patient-directed health care (HSAs), a variance of this type of structure is making health care affordable. It is extremely important that the emphasis on privatization continues. With almost every nation making efforts to privatize their health care, it is important that the United States leads the world in this endeavor. Remember, Chile is two decades ahead of us in making Social Security fiscally sound. We shouldn't let other nations move ahead of us in private health care when we are now in the lead.
Government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem.
Ronald Reagan

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6.    Medical Myths: American Medicine Is Riddled with Fraud
Madeleine Pelner Cosman, PhD, JD, Esq, in her upcoming book Who Owns Your Body, gives nine myths of American Medicine.

Myth 1: American Medicine Is Riddled with Fraud
Congress, the media, and the public agree that at least 10% of all payments to physicians are fraudulent and that if the billions could be grabbed back, then money would be plentiful for the uninsured and for more generous entitlements for Medicare and Medicaid.

A formidable army of federal and state fraud agents chases then nabs that 10%.  Investigators and armed agents rooting out medical fraud work for: Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), state Medicaid fraud units, private fraud fighters hired by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

In 2000 Congress spent: $158 million for the Medicare Fraud and Abuse Control Program, $76 million for FBI agents and investigators assigned to Health Care Fraud, and $625 million for Medicare Program Integrity ($710 million in 2002).

Those who seek shall find. Thousands of well-funded federal investigators and zealous prosecutors with False Claims Act fire-power caught for Medicare Fraud Control in 2000:  1,995 civil fraud cases pending, 233 civil fraud cases, 457 new criminal indictments, 467 criminal convictions, 3350 administrative exclusions from Medicare and Medicaid, and monetary judgments totaling $1.2 billion

No one knows for sure where the 10% fraud idea came from.  Learned estimates from the 1970s, guesses, inspirations, suppositions, and gut feelings are augmented by annual review of a mere 600 out of 41,000,000 Medicare fee-for-service patients’ confidential records.  No valid statistics fuel the fire of prosecutors’ wrath against physicians and surgeons. Fraud might represent only 1% or 15%. But 10% is a political proportion not a statistical certainty.

Rather than being riddled with fraud, American medicine is riddled with regulation. Medical practitioners must abide by voluminous federal and state laws and regulations often mutually contradictory, vague, and arbitrary.  Medicare and other statutes that necessarily must be studied, understood, and meticulously followed include:
    132,720 pages of medical law, rules, and regulations
    111,000 pages directly controlling Medicare  

In these circumstances even the most ethical, careful, scrupulous physician of integrity will err. If investigated, hospitals, clinics, and physicians treating Medicare and Medicaid patients risk professional devastation and fiscal death. Practitioners and hospitals customarily admit to small infractions of arbitrary, vague laws and though not guilty of any crime or fraud will settle cases for millions rather than risk full-scale audit or court case with ruinous statutory penalties.

The zeal to root out medical fraud has also rooted out fundamental criminal law protections for the innocent. An arsonist, rapist, or murderer has more protective criminal procedures guarding Constitutional rights than our best physicians.
TRUTH 1: Medical Fraud Figures are Based on Figment not Fact.
American Medicine is Riddled with Regulation
    – Madeleine Pelner Cosman, PhD, JD, Esq
 
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7.    Overheard in the Medical Staff Lounge - Steve Forbes
A copy of the current issue of Forbes was on the lunch table. Steve Forbes' column, “Fact and Comment,” this week spoke to the crises before our elections.  After an extensive review of the global issues of terrorism and trade as well as the national issues of taxes and how an increase would hurt businesses, seriously jeopardizing jobs, Steve Forbes ends up with his title "Bush is Best," contending what is best for the country is also best for the world. He does mention some of the missteps our president made, but still maintains Bush is the best of the two candidates to see that our country lives up to its global responsibility.

Bush also gave us the Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) which is reducing the cost of health care dramatically and changing the face of our healthcare.
To read the entire editorial go to http://www.forbes.com/forbes/.

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8.    MedicalTuesday Supports These Efforts of the Medical and Professional Community in Restoring Accountability in Medical Practice, HeathCare and Government.

•    PATMOS EmergiClinic - where Robert Berry, MD, an emergency physician and internist, provides prompt care for many of the injuries and illnesses treated in Emergency Rooms at a fraction of the usual emergency room fees. Be sure to read a number of interesting articles Dr Berry has posted at www.emergiclinic.com.  To read Dr Berry's testimony in Congress, click on the sidebar. Read Dr Berry’s response to Physician’s Support of Single-Payer Health Care or Socialism at http://www.delmeyer.net/hmc2004.htm#by%20Robert%20Berry.

•    Dr Vern Cherewatenko continues to have success in restoring private-based medical practice which has grown internationally through the SimpleCare model network, www.simplecare.com. Any patient or provider may become a member of SimpleCare. A number of brochures are available on line about a practice that is becoming increasingly popular. There have been a number of news network and press reports. For the AP article on April 27, 2004, go to http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040404/D81O7R7O0.html.

•    Dr David MacDonald started Liberty Health Group to assist physicians in controlling their own medical benefit costs for their staff and patients. There is extensive data available for your study at www.LibertyHealthGroup.com. Dr Dave is available to speak to your group on a consultative basis.

•    John and Alieta Eck, MDs, are highlighting 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. Visit their site at 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 http://www.healthplanusa.net/AE-AreYouReallyInsured.htm.

•    Madeleine Pelner Cosman, JD, PhD, Esq, has made important efforts in restoring accountability in health care. Please visit http://www.healthplanusa.net/MPCosman.htm to view some of her articles that highlight the government’s efforts in criminalizing medicine, and the introduction to her new book, Who Owns Your Body. For other OpEd articles that are important to the practice of medicine and health care in general click on her name at http://www.healthcarecom.net/OpEd.htm.

•    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 http://www.ssvms.org. Dr Gibson recently edited the March/April historical issue. To read his "Lessons from the Past," go to http://www.ssvms.org/articles/0403gibson.asp. For his most recent article on Counterfeit Drugs, go to http://www.healthplanusa.net/DGTerrorism'sNextTarget.htm. His article on Health Care Inflation can be read at http://www.healthplanusa.net/DGHealthCareInflation.htm.

•    Dr Richard B Willner, President, Center Peer Review Justice Inc, reports his latest success story and the secret of helping doctors keep their medical license. On a daily basis, doctors are reviewed, are suspended, lose their medical licenses and go to jail on trumped-up charges. These "extra"-legal services are necessary services that your lawyer does not offer. Stay posted by registering at http://www.peerreview.org, where you will find a wealth of information. The Center for Peer Review Justice now has a Joint Venture Partner so they can offer Headhunting for those MDs who have been DataBanked and can not find a new job. This is a fee-based service where the fee is paid by both the doctor and facility.

•    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. He then went to St Rochus Hospital in the city of Pest and reduced the epidemic of puerperal fever to 0.85 percent. The rate in Vienna was still 10-15 percent. 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: All we ask is that peer review be done with “clean hands.” To read the article he wrote at my request for Sacramento Medicine when I was editor in 1994, “Medicine is a Rough Playing Field,” scroll down at http://www.delmeyer.net/HMCPeer.htm#by%20Verner%20Waite%20and%20Robert%20Walker. To see Attorney Sharon Kime’s response, as well as the California Medical Board response, see http://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 read some horror stories about atrocities against physicians and how organized medicine still treats this problem, please go to their current website at  http://www.semmelweissociety.net.

•    Dennis Gabos, MD, President of the Society for the Education of Physicians and Patients (SEPP), http://www.sepp.net, continues his efforts in Protecting, Preserving, and Promoting the Rights, Freedoms and Responsibilities of Patients and Health Care Professionals, with a special page for our colleagues in nursing. Several free newsletters are available. Be part of the Disaster Express in protecting and preserving what is right with American HeathCare–physicians, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, all health professionals and all concerned individuals are urged to join.

•    Robert J Cihak, MD, former president of the AAPS, and Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D, write an informative Medicine Men column that is at NewsMax. Please log on to review the last five weeks’ topics or click on archives to see the last two years’ topics at http://www.newsmax.com/pundits/Medicine_Men.shtml. This week’s column is on KerryCare Robs the Rich, Gives to ... Everyone Else and can be found at http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/10/19/155000.shtml.

•    The Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (http://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 scroll down on the left to departments and click on News of the Day. The “AAPS News,” written by Jane Orient, MD, and archived on this site, provides valuable information on a monthly basis. Scroll further to the 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 on "Shaken Baby Syndrome," "Disruptive Physicians," and "An Investigation of the Association Between MMR Vaccination and Autism in Denmark" that can be accessed from the Table of Contents page of the current issue and are worth reading.
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•    The AAPS held its 61st annual meeting at the Benson Hotel in Portland, Oregon, on October 13-16, 2004. The theme for this year was “RECLAIMING AMERICAN MEDICINE.” We heard from a number of physicians who spent up to five years in prison before their travesty of injustice became apparent. Many of these issues can be reviewed on their website above. Thirty percent of physicians are no longer taking new Medicare or Medicaid patients because of this excessive risk.

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Stay Tuned to the MedicalTuesday.Network and Have Your Friends Do the Same
The MedicalTuesday site has now been automated. Each individual on our mailing list and those that have been forwarded to us are now able to invite, register, or de-enroll as desired. You may want to copy this message to your Template file so that they are available to be forwarded or reformatted as new when the occasion arises. Then, save the message to a folder in your Inbox labeled MedicalTuesday. If you have difficulty de-enrolling, please send an email to Admin@MedicalTuesday.net with your “Remove” and “Email address” in the subject line.

Read the latest medical news of the day at http://www.healthplanusa.net/MedicalNews.htm, which will also lead you to the headlines for the past month.

If you would like to participate in this informational campaign on behalf of your patients or the HeathCare community, please send your resume to Personnel@MedicalTuesday.net.

If you would like to participate in the development of the affordable HealthPlan for All Americans, please send your resume to Personnel@HealthPlanUSA.net.

Del Meyer

Del Meyer, MD, CEO & Founder
DelMeyer@MedicalTuesday.net
www.MedicalTuesday.net
6620 Coyle Avenue, Ste 122, Carmichael, CA 95608
 

   Words of Theological Wisdom
The Rev Dr Alan Jones, of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, gave a timely message interweaving religion and politics in our society today. He discusses the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity. Subsidiarity states the smaller the government the better. Nothing should be done by a larger organization than can be performed by a smaller organization; it is a celebration of individual responsibility. Subsidiarity makes sure that decisions are made as close to the people as possible. He contrasts this with solidarity which looks to the common good of society at large. The problem is we too often have fake subsidiarity where the individual feels “greed is good” and is free to go under and drown. Or we have fake solidarity where the individual is crushed by centralization and bureaucracy of the welfare or collective state which causes individual initiative to be lost. Dr Jones feels that the right and the left are important to each other in order to obtain a societal balance. You may want to tune in to hear this insightful message at  http://66.102.7.104/custom?q=cache:ZO6lqJykYLMJ:www.gracecathedral.org/church/sermon/ser_20040606.shtml+Dance+of+the+Trinity&hl=en&ie=UTF-8.
    Review some recent postings below.
Voices of Medicine: To read a review of the first issue of Sacramento Medicine in 1950, go to http://www.ssvms.org/articles/0403vom.asp remembering that the first 132 years are no longer available. To read this year’s series of my column, the "Voices of Medicine," go to http://healthcarecom.net/vom2004.htm.

Charles B Clark, MD: A Piece of the Pie: What are we going to tell those bright-eyed little boys and girls who are going to be the doctors of tomorrow? When there isn’t anything left for them, are we going to tell them we didn’t fight because the changes were inevitable anyway? What are we going to say when they ask us why we laid down and died when things got a little tough? Are we going to feel good about ourselves when we tell them it’s all right because we got a piece of the pie? Read Dr Clark at http://www.healthcarecom.net/CBCPieceofPie.htm. Also be sure to read his most recent posting at http://www.healthcarecom.net/CBCFeedingMonster.htm.

Madeleine Pelner Cosman, JD, PhD, Esq: The chapter summaries of her latest book to be published early next year are now available at http://www.healthplanusa.net/MC-WhoOwnsYourBodyIntro.htm.   

Ada P Kahn, PhD: Foreword to "Encyclopedia of Work-Related Injuries, Illnesses and Health Issues. Dr Kahn came to Sacramento in February and I joined her on a Channel 31 interview about her book. I was privileged to write the foreword which we’ve posted at http://www.delmeyer.net/MedInfo2004.htm. To purchase the book, go to http://www.factsonfile.com/ and type in KAHN under search.

Henry Chang, MD: WEIGHT LOST FOREVER - The Five Second Guide to Permanent Weight Loss suggest daily weights to stem the weight loss before it becomes a problem and, if it does,  how to take it off and keep it off. Congratulations to Dr Chang for winning the Sacramento Publishers and Authors 2004 award for “Best Health Book of the Year.” Read our review at http://www.healthcarecom.net/bkrev_WeightLostForever.htm.

Tammy Bruce: The Death of Right and Wrong (Understanding the difference between the right and the left on our culture and values.) http://www.townhall.com/bookclub/bruce.html.  Reviewed by Courtney Rosenbladt.

An Alzheimer's Story: To read a touching story by a nurse about her Alzheimer's patient, go to http://www.delmeyer.net/MedInfo2003.htm.

An Entrepreneur's Story: AriadneCapital (http://www.AriadneCapital.com) provided the initial funding for MedicalTuesday and the Global Trademarking. Julie Meyer, the CEO, has a clear vision in her mind of the world that she wants to live in, and it's considerably different from how it looks now. If you're an entrepreneurial woman, or if you lost hope or are having difficulty envisioning success, (if you'll forgive a little nepotism), the following article may be of interest to you: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1237363,00.html.
    On This Date in History - October 26
On this date in 1785, George Washington, received from the King of Spain, two jackasses at the port of Boston. They were sent here so that they could be mated with mares to produce American's first native mules. Some say this was the root of American stubbornness and others say this was an imported trait.  

On this date in 1955, the United States Air Force officially proclaimed that flying saucers were a myth and a delusion. But people went right on seeing flying saucers and describing the mysterious creatures descending from space. Or as a humanities professor once stated, "If flying saucers had not been real, man would have had to invent them."
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