tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47382496213053237292024-03-13T20:06:50.297-07:00RadsDocDancerRadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.comBlogger177125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-25565902734236749902020-11-11T03:41:00.001-08:002020-11-11T03:41:59.812-08:00"WELCOME FRAUD" Kayleigh McEnany Says Democrats Committed Election Fraud...<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4k2WZMsbQLI" frameborder="0"></iframe>RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-15597315425301952392020-08-30T12:32:00.001-07:002020-08-30T12:32:08.033-07:00Tucker: Democrats do nothing to discourage rage mobs<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y5V-vyUmslY" width="480"></iframe>RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-63054063538900667232020-08-25T16:18:00.001-07:002020-08-25T16:18:17.593-07:00Jerry Seinfeld Is Not Laughing About Mass NYC Exodus<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-G5beX35_vE" width="480"></iframe>RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-56771709172618415012020-04-29T18:05:00.001-07:002020-04-29T18:07:48.375-07:00How is Sweden's Coronavirus Health Policy Working So Far ?<div style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">A trauma surgeon and trained epidemiologist in California gives an eye-opening update on how Sweden's Coronavirus strategy has been playing out so far:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">"There has been a lot of talk about Sweden and how they are going about business as usual during this SARsCoV2 outbreak. Some reports on Sweden range from "no one is dying in the streets there" to "they will be sorry". </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">Let's unpack the talk about Sweden and their mitigation practices.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">First some numbers: Sweden has a population of 10.23 million people. The median age is 41. 88% of people live in urban communities. The population density for all of Sweden is 64 people per square mile.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">Stockholm, Sweden's capital and largest city has a population of 1.2 million with a population density of 10,500 people per square mile when including the urban surrounding area. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">Putting that in perspective New York City has a population density of 26,403 people per square mile.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">The first death from SARsCoV2 in Sweden was in early March and as other countries like Norway and Denmark were locking down Sweden chose a different model than the ones put forth by the Imperial College in London or the Information Health Metrics Evaluation group at the University of Washington.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">It is true Sweden did not lock down the country. And because of that I see Sweden as a kind of soft nonpharmacological intervention (NPI) control group.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">Here is what they did and did not do:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">*Grade schools remained open so parents can continue working.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">*People have been asked to practice social distancing but are not mandated to do so or stay home.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">*Many Swedes say they are not "huggy" people so keeping their distance is easy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">*Masks in public are not mandatory though some people chose to wear them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">*Without a formal lockdown however the mass transit in Stockholm is less crowded and cities less populated.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">*Just like here in the US more people are working from home in Sweden.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">*Sweden modified many businesses to reduce close contact.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">*There are no large gatherings like sports. The teams play but there are no fans.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">*Gyms and pools are open.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">*Bars are open but you can only drink at a table not at the bar itself thereby limiting crowds and contact.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">Below in the comments are the Swedish Public Health Agency recommendations, which sound pretty familiar.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">Contrary to all of the talk about how Sweden's approach toward voluntary mitigation their cases and deaths are higher than their neighbors they snuggle next to (Norway: cases 7660, deaths 206 and Finland: cases 4740, deaths 199).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">Their new cases parallel the United States log or exponential curve, a level steady number.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">Sweden's new case doubling time is 18 days (the US is 18 days as well).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">According to the Swedish Intensive Care Registry before the SARsCoV2 pandemic Sweden had 526 ICU beds.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">That capacity was increased to 1131 beds as of April 24 and further by the construction of military tent hospitals shortly after that.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">On April 24, 533 ICU beds were filled with COVID19 patients. By April 28th the Swedish ICU registry data, attached below, shows the number of ICU patients has doubled to 1,372.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-size: large;"><span style="color: lime;">The demographics of those critical care patients are similar to those in the US with an average age of 59.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">Deaths, the final grim metric to look at, paint a less than rosy picture for how the Swedish model of minimal mitigation is working.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">The doubling time for deaths in Sweden is 13 days (it is 13 days in the US as well). Good news right? No.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">When we look at deaths per capita, per one million people.<br />Not such good news.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">The total number of cases in Sweden as of today (4-28) is 19,621 and the deaths 2,355.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Aigk-jFnW0A/Xqoi1s3n64I/AAAAAAAAKuc/gVt-VN89OHMuZDlMvPgakLxTzvHZiiXzQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Swden%2BTotal%2BCovid%2BDeaths.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="background-color: black; color: lime;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="600" height="226" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Aigk-jFnW0A/Xqoi1s3n64I/AAAAAAAAKuc/gVt-VN89OHMuZDlMvPgakLxTzvHZiiXzQCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/Swden%2BTotal%2BCovid%2BDeaths.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">This gives the country the dubious award of being in the top 25 COVID19 prevalence countries and the highest number of deaths for all Nordic countries.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">Their current death to case rate gives them a Case Fatality Rate of 12.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">This is partially due to the abysmal testing Sweden is doing, even worse than the testing by the US. The rate of testing is 5 tests to yield one case of SARsCoV2.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">The economic impact of the SARsCoV2 pandemic on Sweden is hitting their business sector nearly as hard as the rest of the EU countries.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">Many business owners are experiencing financial uncertainty. Employees are being laid off and receiving government support.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">Sweden's government has begun to intervene with a proposal that employers will now be able to reduce their employees' working hours by up to 80 per cent and that central government will cover the majority of the cost as well as assume the entire cost of all sick pay during April and May.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">The government has begun injecting capital into small businesses in order to keep them solvent. Overall the forecast is for Sweden's low debt era to end due to the pandemic and its bailout.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">So overall do I think Sweden's no lockdown approach is working?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">Well the numbers don't lie so I say a polite….no. But I would be happy to see if they prove us all wrong in the long run once "the fog of war" fades.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">One area to watch for is what if any difference in mental health challenges are experienced by people living with mandated mitigation versus Sweden’s voluntary version.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">------------------------------<br />Dr. Eileen Natuzzi, MD, MPH, FACS<br />Acute Care Surgeon</span></div>
RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-10861877902200683352020-04-12T07:03:00.000-07:002020-04-12T07:03:12.381-07:00<h1 style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">How Private-Equity Firms Squeeze Hospital Patients for Profits</span></h1>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: black; color: lime;">Interesting article giving background on the perverse effect of Private Equity on health care and how it effects hospitals and doctors. </span><span style="background-color: black; color: lime;">One caveat that I see is that the author refers to the driving force as the "patchwork structure of the health-care industry" - a buzz-phrase generally generally used by those who propose that the only solution is universal health care/ socialized medicine/ government-run system ( choose your favorite euphemism)- instead of health insurance reform and free market health care reforms.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">While a discussion of "fair market pricing" is not the focus of the article, the author properly criticizes surprise exorbitant hospital charges (which really should be transparent). however, she doesn't point out that the issue of patients being charged at out-of-network costs for *emergency* care is indicative of an egregious, legalized abusive practice currently improperly codified by state regulators into the health insurance regulations-and which should be changed- since financing for emergencies is the central purpose of insurance overall- in any form.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">Rather she lumps it together with higher out of network costs for patients who voluntarily accepted a narrow networks for elective outpatient care and procedures based on the doctors' contractual agreement with the payer. While this too can be debated, it is not the same issue as emergency care. In any event , the description of the perverse incentives and behaviors of PE companies in medicine overall ( though not specifically in radiology) are valuable. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">" Much of her research has focused on the ways that private-equity firms—investment funds that purchase companies and try to increase their profitability—reshape the businesses that they buy. Appelbaum and her frequent collaborator, Rosemary Batt, a management and labor-relations expert at Cornell University, were in the midst of a research project looking at the role of private equity in health care.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: black; color: lime;">They knew that two of the largest private-equity firms, Blackstone and K.K.R., owned Envision Healthcare and TeamHealth, large physician groups that staff hospitals around the country with doctors; they found that bills from doctors within those groups were responsible for much of the sudden increase in surprise medical bills. </span><span style="background-color: black; color: lime;">(A spokesperson from TeamHealth said that the company does not send out-of-network charges directly to patients, but litigates them with insurance companies. A spokesperson from Envision Healthcare declined to comment.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">“We already knew a lot about P.E. buying up doctors’ practices,” Appelbaum told me recently. “Now surprise medical bills were out of sight. That’s their business model.” Appelbaum suspected that the P.E. companies were behind the practice, as well as behind the ad campaign to stop the legislation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: black; color: lime;">Appelbaum grew up in Philadelphia, where her father ran an appliance store. Neither of her parents had gone to college; Appelbaum earned a master’s in mathematics and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research centered on the relationship between workers and a company’s management. When Appelbaum started out, the prevailing view was that companies could make themselves more productive by investing in their workers. </span><span style="background-color: black; color: lime;">In the nineteen-nineties, she and Batt undertook a study and found that, for example, giving workers more decision-making authority over how work got done led to increased company profits.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">The book that they produced from this research, “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/New-American-Workplace-Transforming-Systems/dp/0875463193?ots%3D1%26slotNum%3D0%26imprToken%3D24b8b729-311e-55c0-ad6%26tag%3Dthneyo0f-20%26linkCode%3Dw50&source=gmail&ust=1586786450839000&usg=AFQjCNE0UbDpKfwTl-F_4bh4NAPn2OFGmw" href="https://www.amazon.com/New-American-Workplace-Transforming-Systems/dp/0875463193?ots=1&slotNum=0&imprToken=24b8b729-311e-55c0-ad6&tag=thneyo0f-20&linkCode=w50" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The New American Workplace</a>,” was published in 1993. But in the years after, the thinking in the business world shifted. A newly dominant business philosophy, called “shareholder value theory,” held that companies exist primarily to deliver profits to their shareholders, and that managers should increase revenue and cut costs, with little regard for the long-term effects......</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">In 2018, Appelbaum and Batt started working on a report for the Institute for New Economic Thinking, a think tank, about private-equity firms buying companies in the health-care industry. “It’s been an ongoing interest of ours because we felt that it was the worst sector private equity could be involved in,” Batt said. The stakes were higher than in toy retailing: health care was a complex and heavily regulated industry, and drastic cost reductions had the potential to affect people’s safety.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">When they looked into it, they found that the patchwork structure of the health-care industry had created an opportunity for P.E. firms. Physician-staffing companies could choose to opt out of contracts with insurance companies, even if the hospitals where their doctors worked did have contracts with those companies.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">This left the staffing companies free to send much higher bills to patients treated there; the patients were captive customers, with no opportunity to shop around for doctors with more reasonable fees. (The same thing was happening with air-ambulance transportation companies, which had been bought up by P.E. firms.) “We think of it as a market failure,” a spokesperson for Senator Alexander told me. “This is something that happens when patients don’t have much choice between providers, whether in an emergency procedure or an elective procedure.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime; font-size: large;">In 2019, as debate about surprise billing started to filter into the news, and the bills were being formulated in Congress, Appelbaum wrote a short piece, for <em>The Hill</em>, called “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/444011-private-equity-a-driving-force-behind-devious-surprise-billing&source=gmail&ust=1586786450839000&usg=AFQjCNGHt8rQKaCUiXxWvwrCUyfvVeFqnQ" href="https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/444011-private-equity-a-driving-force-behind-devious-surprise-billing" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Private Equity Is a Driving Force Behind Devious Surprise Billing</a>.” In it, she was one of a handful of people to publicly make the connection between EmCare (a division of Envision Healthcare) and TeamHealth and their Wall Street owners..."</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime; font-size: large;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/how-private-equity-firms-squeeze-hospital-patients-for-profits&source=gmail&ust=1586786450839000&usg=AFQjCNH-zaWRLRSRhT-YOuQxPVu0MRZ98g" href="https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/how-private-equity-firms-squeeze-hospital-patients-for-profits" style="background-color: black;" target="_blank">https://www.newyorker.com/<wbr></wbr>business/currency/how-private-<wbr></wbr>equity-firms-squeeze-hospital-<wbr></wbr>patients-for-profits</a></span></div>
RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-72180720798541271672020-04-11T11:56:00.000-07:002020-04-11T12:28:14.756-07:00If This is a War, Where are the War Correspondents?<div style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: lime;"><span style="font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">I</span><span style="font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">n a recent briefing, President Trump proclaimed: "...The people of United States are in a war against an invisible enemy which has attacked 144 countries. He added that the US citizens are enduring a national trial for which everyone has to support each other. Trump gave an update on the medical equipment and supplies and said that he will fight coronavirus and will not stop until he wins the war against it.</span> "</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime;">But an invisible enemy presents a problem. You can't personally see it, hear it, or feel it - and sometimes may have no way of knowing it's out there until it's too late.It doesn't necessarily provide you with the first hand sensory information or knowledge to verify that it's out there. You are more reliant on the reports of experts and journalists to bring you the information necessary to making informed decisions. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime;">So if this is a war, then where are the war correspondents? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime;">One important problem with the current pandemic is that the non medical general public sitting at home don't have the context which only comes from getting insider's first-hand view of what is happening at hospitals.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime;">It's very different from what they're experiencing at home, are experiencing financially, and what they see on the internet.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: lime;">During World War II and subsequent wars in the pre-internet age, the important and _dangerous_ role of the</span><span style="color: cyan;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_correspondent"> </a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_correspondent">war correspondent</a></span> <span style="color: lime;">was to integrate with the front line troops to bring the American public news from to make them aware of what was happening "over there" so that the could fully understand, tolerate and do what it takes to support the war effort.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif;">Why is this important? "News coverage gives combatants an opportunity to forward information and arguments to the media. By this means, conflict parties attempt to use the media to gain support from their constituencies and dissuade their opponents.</span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-kepplinger_2-0" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 11.2px; line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_correspondent#cite_note-kepplinger-2" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">[2]</a></sup><span style="font-family: sans-serif;"> The continued progress of technology has allowed live coverage of events via </span><a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_up-links" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: sans-serif;" title="">satellite up-links</a><span style="font-family: sans-serif;"> and the rise of </span><a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-four_hour_news_channels" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: sans-serif; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Twenty-four hour news channels">twenty-four hour news channels</a><span style="font-family: sans-serif;"> has led to a heightened demand for material to flll the hours." </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime;">In the current war, the battle grounds are the hospitals- which, due to very legitimate fear of infection and spread, are not even permitting family members of critically ill - and dying - patients in to see their loved ones, let alone the media.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime;">The public is getting daily update by talking heads in TV studios, some on stages with political agendas/ ambitions in upcoming elections , or patriotically working remotely in their their living rooms - cocooned in safety from the front lines.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: lime; font-size: 14px;">As an article from The Atlantic warns, "</span><span style="color: lime; font-family: "agaramondpro" , "adobe garamond pro" , "garamond" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 19.8px;">Reporting from war zones has always been a dicey proposition, but the last few years of covering conflicts have become a particularly dark and depressing time for journalists in conflicts." (</span><span style="color: lime; font-family: "agaramondpro" , "adobe garamond pro" , "garamond" , "georgia" , serif;"> </span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: "agaramondpro" , "adobe garamond pro" , "garamond" , "georgia" , serif;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/07/life-war-correspondent/313463/"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Life of a War Correspondent Is Even Worse Than You Think</span></b></a></span><span style="font-family: "agaramondpro" , "adobe garamond pro" , "garamond" , "georgia" , serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></b>)</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime;">In the battle against a life-threatening pandemic, the situation is even worse- as not only are there are exceedingly few "war correspondents" on the front lines to make this real to the public, but those fighting the battle in the trenches lack the time and energy to report the news. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime;">Interviews conducted or filmed in TV in studios do not have the immediacy and reality as those on the ground and are more likely to be viewed as contrived. Given the distrust of the media and the partisan political lens that many view the situation from their living room, there is a dangerous tendency to be complacent and dismiss or minimize the medical threat in the era of "fake news'.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime;">The majority of the physicians in the trenches are too busy fighting to serve this purpose of providing first hand information necessary to enlist public support.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: lime;">For this reason, I think it's critical for health care workers to not only discuss the medical aspect among themselves, but to excel in their vital roles as medical educator to take to social media in much larger numbers and tell the personal stories - their own and of their colleagues- so that the public can get an accurate, first hand view of what's happening on the ground from physicians and health care workers that they personally know and trust- while directing them to reliable scientific voices and sources, influence the debate and properly inform public policy.</span></div>
RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-73078228289701915112017-01-05T18:16:00.000-08:002017-01-05T18:25:12.837-08:00Health Care Reform: " What Can One Do? "<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">In 1972, philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand wrote an incredibly insightlful and inspiring essay dealing with the issue of what can be done to combat and try to help reverse what she perceived as a distressing American cultural decline on many levels, in innumerable ways over many generations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">I slightly modified the text of her essay below < in brackets> to turn the issue to the US health care/ health insurance system which had been strangled by decades of government regulations even prior to going off the cliff under the </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">suffocating</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">irrational decrees of ObamaCare- which the incoming administration and Congress have the power to undo. Whether they have the wisdom and will to do so - and the knowledge and political courage to implement much needed economically sound policies remains to be seen.....</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">"What Can One Do?"</span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">- by Ayn Rand</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">"This question is frequently asked by people who are concerned about </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">the state of < today's health care system > and want to correct it. </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">More often than not, it is asked in a form that indicates the cause </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">of their helplessness: "What can one person do?"</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">I was in the process of preparing this article when I received a </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">letter from a reader who presents the problem (and the error) still </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">more eloquently: "How can an individual propagate < the correct ideas </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">> on a scale large enough to effect the immense changes which must be </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">made in order to create the kind of ideal social system </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">< or health care system > which you picture?"</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">If this is the way the question is posed, the answer is: he can't.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">No one can change a country single-handed. So the first question to </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">ask is: why do people approach the problem this way?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">Suppose you were a doctor in the midst of an epidemic. You would not </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">ask: "How can one doctor treat millions of patients and restore the </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">whole country to perfect health?"</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">You would know, whether you were alone or part of an organized </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">medical campaign, that you have to treat as many people as you can </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">reach, according to the best of your ability, and that nothing else </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">is possible.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">People approach intellectual issues in a manner they would not use to </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">deal with physical problems.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">They would not seek to stop an epidemic overnight, or to build a </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">skyscraper single-handed. Nor would they refrain from renovating </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">their own crumbling house, on the grounds that they are unable to </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">rebuild the entire city.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">But in the realm of ideas, they still tend to regard knowledge as </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">irrelevant, and they expect to perform instantaneous miracles, </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">somehow or they paralyze themselves into inaction by projecting an </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">impossible goal.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">If you are seriously interested in fighting for a better < health </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">care system >, begin by identifying the nature of the problems.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">The battle is primarily intellectual (philosophical), not political. </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">Politics is the *last consequence*, the practical implementation, of </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">the fundamental philosophical ideas that dominate a given nation's </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">culture.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">You cannot fight or change the consequences without fighting and </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">changing the cause; nor can you attempt any practical implementation </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">without knowing what you want to implement.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; font-size: 13px;">In an intellectual battle, you do not need to convert everyone.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; font-size: 13px;">History is made by minorities or, more precisely, history is made by </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; font-size: 13px;">intellectual movements, which are created by minorities.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">Who belongs to these minorities? Anyone who is able and willing </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">actively to concern himself with intellectual issues. Here, it is not </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">quantity, but quality that counts (the quality and consistency of the </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">ideas one is advocating).</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">An intellectual movement does not start with organized action. Whom </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">would one organize?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">A philosophical battle is a battle for men's minds, not an attempt to </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">enlist blind followers. Ideas can be propagated only by the men and </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">women who understand them.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">An organized movement has to be preceded by an educational campaign, </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">which requires trained- self-trained - teachers (self-trained in the </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">sense that a philosopher can offer you the material of knowledge, but </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">it is your own mind that has to absorb it).</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">Such training is the first requirement for being a doctor during an </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">ideological epidemic and the precondition of any attempt to "change </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">the world."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">"The immense changes which must be made to < rationally reform the </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">American health care system > cannot be made singly, piecemeal </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">or "retail," so to speak; an army of crusaders would not be enough to </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">do it.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">But the factor that underlies and determines every aspect of human </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">life is philosophy; teach men the right ideas and their own minds </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">will do the rest. Philosophy is the wholesaler in human affairs.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">Man cannot exist without some form of philosophy, i.e., some </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">comprehensive view of life. Most men are not intellectual innovators, </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">but they are receptive to ideas, are able to judge them critically </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">and to choose the right course, when and if it is offered.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">There are also a great many men who are indifferent to ideas and to </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">anything beyond the concrete-bound range of the immediate moment; </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">such men accept subconsciously whatever is offered by the culture of </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">their time, and swing blindly with any chance current.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">They are merely social ballast, be they day laborers or company </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">presidents, and by their own choice, irrelevant to the fate of the </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">world.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">Today, most people are acutely aware of our cultural-ideological </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">vacuum <and the legal and economic chaos of our health care system>; </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">they are anxious, confused, and groping for answers. Are you able to </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">enlighten them?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">Can you answer their questions? Can you offer them a consistent case? </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">Do you know how to correct their errors? Are you immune from the </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">fallout of the constant barrage aimed at the destruction of reason </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;"><and freedom in our health care system>? Can you provide others with </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">antimissile missiles?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">* A political battle is merely a skirmish fought with muskets; a </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">philosophical battle is a nuclear war.*</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">If you want to influence a country's intellectual trend <or bring </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">rational reform to the health care system>, the first step is to </span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">bring order to your own ideas and integrate them into a consistent </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">case, to the best of your knowledge and ability.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">This does not mean memorizing and reciting slogans and principles; </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">knowledge necessarily includes the ability to apply abstract </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">principles to concrete problems, to recognize the principles in </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">specific issues, to demonstrate them, and to advocate a consistent </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">course of action.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">This does not require omniscience or omnipotence; it is the </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">subconscious expectation of automatic omniscience in oneself and in </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">others that defeats many would-be crusaders (and serves as an excuse </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">for doing nothing).</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">What is required is honesty- intellectual honesty- which consists </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">in knowing what one does know, constantly expanding one's knowledge, </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">and never evading or failing to correct a contradiction. This means: </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">the development of an active mind as a permanent attribute.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">When or if your convictions are in your conscious, orderly control, </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">you will be able to communicate them to others.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">If you like condensations (provided you bear in mind their full </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">meaning), I will say: when you ask "What can one do?" the answer </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">is "SPEAK" (provided you know what you are saying).</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">A few suggestions: do not wait for a national audience. Speak on any </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">scale open to you, large or small, to your friends, your associates, </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;"><your patients>, your professional organizations, or any legitimate </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">public forum.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">You can never tell when your words will reach the right mind at the </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">right time. You will see no immediate results, but it is of such </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">activities that public opinion is made.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">Do not pass up a chance to express your views on important issues. </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">Write letters to the editors of newspapers and magazines, to TV and </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">radio commentators and, above all, to your Congressmen (who depend on </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">their constituents).</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">If your letters are brief and rational (rather than incoherently </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">emotional) they will have more influence than you suspect.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">The opportunities to speak are all around you. I suggest that you </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">make the following experiment: take an ideological "inventory" of one </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">week, i.e., note how many times people utter the wrong political, </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">social and moral notions as if these were self-evident truths, with </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">your silent sanction.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">Then make it a habit to object to such remarks. No, not to make </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">lengthy speeches, which are seldom appropriate, but merely to say: "I </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">don't agree." (And be prepared to explain why, if the speaker wants </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">to know.) This is one of the best ways to stop the spread of vicious </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">bromides.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">(If the speaker is innocent, it will help him; if he is not, it will </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">undercut his confidence the next time.) Most particularly, do not </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">keep silent when your own ideas and values are being attacked.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">Above all, do not join the wrong ideological groups or movements, in </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">order to "do something". To join such groups means to reverse the </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">philosophical hierarchy and to sell out fundamental principles for </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">the sake of some superficial political action which is bound to fail. </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">It means that you help the defeat of your ideas and the victory of </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">your enemies.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">The only groups one may properly join today are ad hoc committees, </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">i.e., groups organized to achieve a single, specific, clearly defined </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">goal, on which men of differing views can agree.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">In such cases, no one may attempt to ascribe his views to the entire</span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">membership, or to use the group to serve some hidden ideological </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">purpose (and this has to be watched very, very vigilantly).</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">I am omitting the most important contribution to an intellectual </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">movement: writing. Books, essays, articles are a movement's permanent </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">fuel, but it is worse than futile to attempt to become a writer </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">solely for the sake of a "cause." Writing, like any other work, is a </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">profession and must be approached as such.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">It is a mistake to think that an intellectual movement requires some </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">special duty or self-sacrificial effort on your part. It requires </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">something much more difficult: a profound conviction that ideas are </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">important to you and to your own life. If you integrate that </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">conviction to every aspect of your life, you will find many </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">opportunities to enlighten others.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">It is too late for a movement of people who hold the conventional </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">mixture of contradictory philosophical notions. It is too early for a </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">movement of people dedicated to a philosophy of reason.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">But it is never too late or too early to propagate the right ideas- </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">except under a dictatorship.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">If a dictatorship <or government run socialized medicine> ever comes </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">to this country, it will be by the default of those who keep silent. </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">We are still free enough to speak. Do we have time? No one can tell. </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">But time is on our side because we have an indestructible weapon and </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: 13px;">an invincible ally (if we learn how to use them): reason and reality.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">"What Can One Do?" by Ayn Rand</span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">< with personal editorial modifications in</span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">bracket ></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">This appeared in original form in the Ayn Rand Letter, January 1972</span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">Published in <a href="https://estore.aynrand.org/p/218/philosophy-who-needs-it">" Philosophy: Who Needs It? "</a></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;"><NB: We also have other powerful tools at our disposal the awesome </span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">power of social media in disseminating ideas. If and when they speak out, </span><br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">doctors and other health care </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">providers also have an the most important</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">and most powerful </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">tool of all: the trust of patients for whom they personally</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">provide life- giving and life-preserving medical care- and who trust </span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">their own doctor to make decisions that are in their best interest, </span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">while rightfully distrusting politicians, lawyers and today' s </span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , , "roboto"; font-size: 13px;">politically biased media.></span>RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-34618748656773890572015-08-28T07:02:00.000-07:002015-08-28T07:11:16.730-07:00The Fascist Nature of US Health Care Under ObamaCare<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;">A thought-provoking <a href="https://ari.aynrand.org/blog/2013/02/01/john-mackey-was-right-obamacare-is-fascist">article</a> from February 2013 by Rituparna Basu debunks 2 popular misconceptions: 1) that the US health care and health insurance system operate according to a system of private property and free market principles, and 2) that ObamaCare is a system of "socialized" medicine. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;">Rather, a careful look at the facts and history of US health care reveal a more ominous, little recognized, third alternative:</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan;">"There was much fear when Obamacare was being debated several years ago that it was going to turn American health care into socialized medicine. In 2009 Mackey, too, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">compared it to countries with socialized medicine</a>, such as the United Kingdom.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan;">Of course, Obamacare did not deliver us socialized medicine, in which most hospitals would be owned by government and most doctors would be government employees. The majority of hospitals in America are still privately owned and so are insurers and drug companies. Many doctors are in private practice.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan;">But though our health care institutions are privately owned, they are most certainly not free to be privately <em>run</em>. Take health insurance, for example. Obamacare dictates to health insurers <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/rituparnabasu/2012/11/13/ill_buy_my_own_contraception_thanks/page/full" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">the policies they can sell</a>, <a href="http://ahip.org/Issues/January-1-2014-Provisions.aspx" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">what they may charge</a>, <a href="http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ir_7.htm" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">to whom they must sell</a>, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/12/06/obamacares-mlr-bomb-will-create-private-insurance-monopolies-and-drive-premiums-skyward-hallelujah/" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">how they must organize their finances, how much profit they can make</a>–and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Doctors must prescribe <a href="http://www.galen.org/assets/NewHealthLaw_BadForDoctors_AwfulForPatients.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">government-approved treatments, or suffer financial penalties</a>. Hospitals and drug companies have their own set of controls they must work under.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan;">The government is the one calling the shots in health care today, dictating to those in the industry how they must run their businesses. And what’s crucial to know is that the government’s entrenchment in health care precedes Obamacare—health care has been a mostly controlled industry for decades.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan;">A social system in which property is nominally privately owned but property rights can be overridden by government dictate is properly described as fascist, a term that became widespread in the 1920s to describe the system of state control in Mussolini’s Italy. <a href="http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">According to one encyclopedia</a>:</span></span></div>
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<i><b><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; line-height: 1.3em;">Under fascism, the state, through official cartels, controlled all aspects of manufacturing, commerce, finance, and agriculture. Planning boards set product lines, production levels, prices, wages, working conditions, and the size of firms. Licensing was ubiquitous; no economic activity could be undertaken without government permission.</span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; line-height: 1.3em;"> </span><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; line-height: 1.3em;"> </span></b></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; line-height: 27.1999988555908px;">This description is not far from the state of American health care today.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan;">More <a href="https://ari.aynrand.org/blog/2013/02/01/john-mackey-was-right-obamacare-is-fascist">here</a></span></span></div>
RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-16268966617450726692015-01-31T11:09:00.002-08:002015-02-05T12:31:24.673-08:00The NY Times War on Doctors Opens a New Front on Vascular Stenting<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The NYT's War on Doctor continues. The target is now doctors who provide less invasive stenting and endovascular services to restore normal arterial and venous blood flow in the setting of activity limiting pain, limb threatening conditions of low flow to limbs and vital abdominal organs. Used judiciously in the right circumstances, the procedure can be a much less expensive and safer alternative to surgical bypass surgery and is especially less expensive when performed by an independent doctor in a less expensive outpatient clinic, rather than a hospital. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This has also opened the possibility to treating more patients safely, who were previously not good surgical candidates- hence the number of overall procedures and applications for the procedure has increased- as has the overall cost of doing more procedures. Of course, being as Medicare is already bankrupt, govt officials need a to create a new crisis and scapegoat to justify heavy handed measures to control the costs of their failed socialist health care policies. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The trend today is for government officials and regulations to attempt to second guess doctors' medical judgement, refuse services outright or, more commonly, refuse or severely discount payments for services already rendered -even retroactively -and to push all procedures into the hospital - even though it can be over twice as expensive - and push all private doctors into bring salaried employees ie "fixed costs" to the government.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Fewer necks to drop a yoke over, and you can then proceed to work them to death for the same and continually lower salary, rather than paying them for their services. </span><br />
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Enter the faceless, anonymous "medical expert" whose medical training, credentials, experience are never defined but left intentionally vague, yet somehow never in question - and who has never treated a patient, has no actual knowledge of your own case or of any specific case , but sits at a government computer and crunches statistics - and finds patterns of increasing popularity, utilization, implementation and subsequent _costs _ associated with new medical technologies - incontrovertible " proof" of fraud or malfeasance apparently requiring no further evidence or justification - and then manipulates them for political gain by socialist tinkers - working hand in hand with the NY Times and other liberal media rags to engage in a campaign of yellow jounalism: </div>
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"_<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Medical _experts _are questioning the necessity of some of these treatments, and many believe the condition is more safely treated with drugs and exercise. "</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Modus operandi: select a rogue physician who is committing blatant fraud. When none can be found, create one - by choosing an "outlier". </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Use him in a smear campaign of sensationalism and public scare-mongering to tar and feather all doctors of his particular specialty- or doctors in general- as dangerous exploiters and victimizers of patients who need to be further controlled and regulated by regulators and bureaucrats. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Use the actual or invented criminal to inculcate guilt in all doctors and create and nurture a public climate of distrust, suspicion, class envy, contempt and fear in all patients- and to prepare the groundwork for more and more regulation over all aspects of medical care by government regulators to ride in on white horses to "rescue" the public in the name of "public safety", "fiscal responsibility" , protection of vulnerable patients / taxpayers from greedy, exploiting profiteering doctors, etc....</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The goal is to demonize and criminalize private indpendent practitioners of outpatient medicine and chase them into the hospitals where they can be controlled under someone else's thumb who has oversight and veto authority on their excercise of their best medical judgment and rational thought in patient care. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The best is when you can write Medicare regulations that are so voluminous, arcane , vague, restrictive or contradictory that no doctor can interpret them - let alone follow them. Then you can really cash in- and have doctors right where you want them: </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Do you really think that we want those laws to be observed? … We want them broken. … There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted — and you create a nation of law-breakers — and then you cash in on guilt.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">— Dr. Floyd Ferris in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, Part II, Chapter III</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/business/medicare-payments-surge-for-stents-to-unblock-blood-vessels-in-limbs.html?_r=0</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The government's heavy handed government control of doctors in fact bears a striking resemblance to methods employed in post Soviet Russia by loyal party apparatchiks hell bent on sabotaging free market and democratic political reforms, while maintaining control of the reins of power while laying the groundwork for Putin 's present day kleptocracy:</span></div>
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"<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">That corruption was part of the [ post - Soviet] Russian system from the beginning is something we’ve long known for a long time, of course. In her book <i>Sale of the Century</i> (2000), Chrystia Freeland memorably describes the moment when she realized that the confusing regulations and contradictory laws that hog-tied Russian business in the 1990s were not a temporary problem that would soon be cleaned up by some competent administrator. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">On the contrary, they existed for a purpose: the Russian elite <i>wanted</i> everybody to operate in violation of one law or another, because that meant that everybody was liable at any time to arrest. The contradictory regulations were not a mistake, they were a form of control."</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/dec/18/how-he-and-his-cronies-stole-russia/</span></div>
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RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-75807103487146461022014-12-29T21:09:00.000-08:002015-02-05T12:45:00.394-08:00US Health Insurance Giants to Battle for Supremacy in the 2015 Crony Awards<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: times new roman, serif; font-size: large;">So Congress went ahead and passed the "Affordable" Care Act bill....so that we could find out what's in it....and now that we know, it's pretty clear that it's not so great at making health care <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/10/23/now-there-can-be-no-doubt-obamacare-will-increase-non-group-premiums-in-nearly-all-states/">"affordable"</a> . It's pretty bad, actually - and soon to get worse - for <a href="http://drhurd.com/50882/">doctors</a> . In fact, it's even worse for <a href="http://www.theihcc.com/en/communities/policy_legislation/the-new-health-law-bad-for-doctors-awful-for-patie_gn17y01k.html">patients</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: times new roman, serif; font-size: large;">So who is it good for? Richard Lenzner gave us a pretty good clue back in late 2013 <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2013/10/01/obamacare-enriches-only-the-health-insurance-giants-and-their-shareholders/">here</a>: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: times new roman, serif; font-size: large;">" <i><span style="line-height: 27px;">So far in 2013 the value of the S& P</span><span style="line-height: 27px;"> </span><a class="" href="http://www.forbes.com/health/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">health</a><span style="line-height: 27px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 27px;">insurance index has gained 43%. Thats more than double the gains made in the broad stock market index, the S & P 500. The shares of CIGNA are up 63%, Wellpoint 47% and United Healthcare 28%. And if you go back to the early 2010 passage of ObamaCare, you will find that Obama’s sellout of the public interest has allowed the public companies the ability to raise their premiums, especially on small business, dramatically multiply their profits and send the value of their common stocks up by 200 % - 300 %...</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i style="background-color: black;">We warned you back on December 4, 2009 in my blog ” The Horrendous Truth About Health Care Reform” that the Obama White House was handing a “ free ride for the health insurance industry” that would allow premium hikes of 8%-10% a year by CIGNA, <a class="" href="http://www.forbes.com/companies/humana/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Humana</a> <span class="" data-exchange="NYSE" data-naturalid="fred/company/2075" data-quotes-closing="145.07" data-quotes-now="144.48" data-ticker="HUM" data-type="organization" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; display: inline; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="" href="http://www.forbes.com/companies/humana/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(246, 219, 217); display: inline-block; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 1px 3px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">HUM</span> <span class="" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">-0.41%</span></a></span></span>, <a class="" href="http://www.forbes.com/companies/aetna/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Aetna</a> <span class="" data-exchange="NYSE" data-naturalid="fred/company/73" data-quotes-closing="89.84" data-quotes-now="89.75" data-ticker="AET" data-type="organization" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; display: inline; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="" href="http://www.forbes.com/companies/aetna/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(246, 219, 217); display: inline-block; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 1px 3px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">AET</span> <span class="" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">-0.1%</span></a></span></span>, <a class="" href="http://www.forbes.com/companies/unitedhealth-group/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">UnitedHealth Group</a> <span class="" data-exchange="NYSE" data-naturalid="fred/company/4534" data-quotes-closing="102.55" data-quotes-now="102.33" data-ticker="UNH" data-type="organization" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; display: inline; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="" href="http://www.forbes.com/companies/unitedhealth-group/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(246, 219, 217); display: inline-block; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 1px 3px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">UNH</span> <span class="" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">-0.21%</span></a></span></span> and Wellpoint, and as well a $500 billion taxpayer subsidy, a half trillion dollars without any requirement that the health insurers had to spend the subsidy on medical care...</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>At the time I wrote, Goldman Sachs research operation estimated that the 5 giants would increase profits by 10% a year from 2010 to 2019, sending their shares up an average of 59%. In truth, the shares of CIGNA and some others are up a multiple of several times since the contest was resolved by a very tight vote in early 2010...."</i> ( it should be noted that the current stock price of each of the above companies is well above *100%* of what it was is 2013... )</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif;">And so, in 2015, with insurance companies flush with cash, perhaps there will be a precipitous drop in health care premiums as companies pass their windfall profits along to their customers? Not according to the below NY Times</span><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif;"> </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/us/politics/cost-of-coverage-under-affordable-care-act-to-increase-in-2015.html?_r=0" style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif;">article</a><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif;">:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif; line-height: 1.4375rem;"><i>The Obama administration on Friday unveiled data showing that many Americans with health insurance bought under the Affordable Care Act could face substantial price increases next year — in some cases as much as 20 percent — unless they switch plans.</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', serif; line-height: 1.4375rem;"><span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><i>The data became available just hours before the health insurance marketplace was to open to buyers seeking insurance for 2015.</i>.."</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', serif; line-height: 1.4375rem;"><span style="color: white; font-size: large;">To what do US health insurance companies owe their extraordinary profits? To life-saving discoveries? Productivity- enhancing innovation? Exemplary, competition -crushing customer service and satisfaction? No, in a word, to "cronyism". </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', serif; line-height: 1.4375rem;"><span style="color: white; font-size: large;">For a <a href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/conncarroll/2014/10/01/obamacares-illegal-insurance-company-bailout-n1898635">look</a> at the sordid face of on-going health insurance cronyism since the run-up to ObamaCare :</span></span><br />
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<i style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif; line-height: 1.4375rem;"><span style="font-size: large;">"</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 17.3333339691162px; line-height: 24px;">Our story begins just days after Obama’s landslide victory over Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in 2008. Sensing an opportunity to increase profits at taxpayer expense, Karen Ignagni, the president of America’s Health Insurance Plans (the trade association that represents the health insurance industry in Washington), quickly signaled that she was ready to do business with the new occupant of the White House.</span></span></i><br />
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<i style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">“No one should fall through the cracks of our health care system,” Ignagni’s November 11, 2008 statement read. “Universal coverage is within reach and can be achieved by building on the current system.”</span></i></div>
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<i style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">That last phrase, “and can be achieved by building on the current system” was the health insurance industry’s top priority in the beginning of the Obama administration. And they spent furiously to make sure Obama would protect them. Despite the worst recession since World War II, businesses spent more than $1 billion lobbying on health reform in 2009, a sharp increase from 2008.</span></i></div>
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<i style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Blue Cross/Blue Shield led the league in lobbyist spending, shelling out $15.13 million in 2009, up more than 25 percent from 2008. AHIP shelled out another $8.85 million, while United Health Group added $4.86 million, and Aetna Inc. spent $2.84 million.</span></i></div>
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<i style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">These millions turned out to be very wise investments. Health industry lobbyists secured dozens of meetings in the White House throughout 2009 and 2010. They not only met with Obama’s top advisers, but also Obama himself.</span></i></div>
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<i style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">These meetings had a very clear impact on the policy that Obama would eventually produce. During a June 24, 2009 ABC News town hall meeting on health care, Obama assured the CEO of Aetna: “Aetna is a well-managed company and I am confident that your shareholders are going to do well.”</span></i></div>
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<i style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">And Aetna has done more than “well” under Obamacare. Its stock price has more than doubled, and almost tripled, since Obama publicly promised the company it would “do well” under Obamacare.</span></i></div>
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<i style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">And when you look at the basic outline of Obamacare, you can see exactly why. The program forces every American to buy the health insurance industry’s products and also subsidizes those purchases to the tune of more than $1 trillion over just the next decade alone. No wonder health insurance industry stocks are booming.</span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-size: 17.3333339691162px;"><i><span style="color: white;">But the relationship between the health insurance industry and the Obama administration did not end on March 23, 2010, the day Obamacare was signed into law. If anything, it was just beginning...."</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 1.4375rem;">The </span><span style="background-color: black; font-size: 17.3333339691162px;"><span style="color: white; font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 1.4375rem;">good news is that now, you can potentially win $1000 and help your health insurance executive and/or elected representative get the recognition he or she deserves- by nominating him for the</span><span style="color: white; font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 1.4375rem;"> </span></span><a href="http://atlasshruggedcronyawards.com/" style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 1.4375rem;">2015 Atlas Shrugged Crony Awards</a><span style="color: white; font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 1.4375rem;">: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: large;">"</span><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 23.7999992370605px;"><i>Crony capitalism is not true capitalism. What we have today is a system in which government intervenes in every sector of the economy, through subsidies and regulations, creating opportunities for businesses to profit from government favors. </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: black; line-height: 23.7999992370605px;"><i>No business today can avoid dealing with government. Still, there’s a difference between those who aim to create goods or services and succeed through market competition, for whom the struggle to navigate the shoals of regulations and permissions is a sideline; and those for whom deals with politicians and bureaucrats are the essence of what they do. Not always an easy distinction to draw. But the Atlas Shrugged Crony Awards are intended to spotlight the clearest and most egregious cases of these “political” entrepreneurs.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i style="background-color: black;">Cases of cronyism involve a business on one side, government on the other (often with a lobbyist or other middle-man). The Contest is open to both sides of that equation. To qualify for the contest, nominees should meet the following criteria:</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i style="background-color: black;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <b>Business</b></span>: The business lobbies to create and benefit from a special government subsidies, tax breaks, or other privilege or regulation limiting competitors. And the business promotes and benefits from favoritism with government officials.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i style="background-color: black;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <b>Government</b></span>: The politician or other official uses discretionary power to confer a benefit on a business in expectation of personal benefit, or in a manner that is covert and based on a special relationship with the business.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>In short, Crony Capitalism is an effort to seek gain through government rather than the market</i>."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: times new roman, serif; font-size: large;">Submit your<b> </b><span style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><a href="http://atlasshruggedcronyawards.com/">Atlas Shrugged Crony Awards Nomination Form</a> here. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, Lucida, sans-serif; line-height: 23.7999992370605px;"><span style="color: white; font-size: large;">The person who first submits the entry that becomes the final winner will receive $1000 and free admission to the 2015 Atlas Summit in Nashua NH.</span></span></div>
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RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-28827209407414798082014-08-30T08:33:00.001-07:002014-08-30T09:00:19.385-07:00Happy Labor Day- and a Warning from Francisco d'Anconia<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In honor of Labor Day, I took the personal license to make a few editorial modifications to Francisco d'Anconia's warning from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. In light of the rapidly progressing bureaucratic mess, suffocating regulation and skyrocketing costs foisted on the American public and medical community by the dishonestly named "Affordable Care Act", the below seems particularly timely and applicable.</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> If you haven't read the book yet, I highly recommend it - especially if you are a doctor (or other health care provider), a current patient, or a future patient. (Please take note: if you haven't noticed, the last category includes everyone). </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Don' t content yourself with the upcoming movie - the book is far superior and comprehensive. If you undertake the challenge (definitely far more rewarding than dumping a bucket of ice on your head- as well as more eye opening, mind opening, and mentally invigorating), I promise you will be richly rewarded with many, many valuable insights such as provided below:<br /><br />"When you see that (patient care) is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to (practice medicine), a doctor needs to obtain p<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">ermission from men who produce nothing - when you see money flowing to those who deal, not in (medical services) but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption ( and bureaucracy) being rewarded and honesty (</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">and patient care) becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your (own personal health and health care system) are doomed."</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">"Atlas Shrugged"</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">- by Ayn Rand</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">( with personal editorial modifications) </span></span></div>
RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-44593168716971043632014-04-29T11:59:00.001-07:002014-04-29T12:00:55.209-07:00Guest post: book review of The Self-Pay Patient |<br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;">"<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; line-height: 24px;">The discussions about the new health care law are endless.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;">To the person on the street, everything seems to be changing on an almost daily basis. How can the ordinary person begin to understand all the ramifications of the Affordable Care Act? What is a person to do when, even though they have health insurance, they are potentially facing high medical bills that are not addressed by their plan?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;">Where can the person on the street go for help?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;"><a href="http://selfpaypatient.com/a-guide-to-affordable-healthcare-outside-of-obamacare-and-bureaucratic-medicine/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Self-Pay Patient: Affordable Healthcare Choices in the Age of Obamacare</i></a> by Sean Parnell is a great resource for those who want/ need to pay directly for their own healthcare.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;">Some people with a high deductible plan end up having to pay thousands of dollars in co-pays and deductibles. Are there other options for them or ways they can get discounted services? Or maybe they have seen a doctor out-of-network, or for some reason their condition is not addressed by their health insurance. What are they to do?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;"><i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Self Pay Patient</i> also<i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </i>explains some of the <a href="http://thehealthcoop.com/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">self-pay alternatives that are offered outside of the conventional insurance model.</a> Although most people are unaware of them, these alternatives comply with the law in such a way that those who use them are exempt from the penalties of the Affordable Care Act..."</span></span></div>
RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-57857453163805995742014-04-18T05:42:00.000-07:002014-04-18T05:45:11.623-07:00Quality Adjusted Life Years- "When the government takes over health care and bans private health insurance, expect rationing of medical care."<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">Quality Adjusted Life Year</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">by Rober Tracinski, editor, <a href="http://www.tracinskiletter.com/" target="_blank">The Intellectual Activist</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-size: large;">A voice from the past- from 2009<br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">"When the government takes over health care and bans private health insurance, what can we expect? We can expect rationing of medical care.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">In fact, in the New York Times article below, leftist utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer openly advocates rationing. He does it by arguing that health care is already "rationed" in the free market, it is just "rationing by price."</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">This is an inexcusable abuse of the language. "Rationing by price" is a contradiction in terms, because prices are the opposite of rationing.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">The essence of a price is voluntary exchange. A price is the result of a negotiation between a willing buyer and a willing seller, with each party acting on his own judgment about his best interests.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">So if you decide to pay lower premiums for less extensive insurance coverage, or to forgo an extremely expensive treatment that will only extend your life by a few months, so that you can leave more of your savings to your loved ones, these vital decisions are under your control and are directed according to your judgment of the risks and of the relative values involved.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">You are never denied care-if you are actually willing to do what is necessary to obtain it.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">Prices are implicitly based on an ethics of individualism-the idea that it is the individual's right to make his own decisions and his responsibility to support himself.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">Rationing, by contrast, is an artificial shortage created by coercion.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">It consists of the government telling you that you cannot have certain kinds of medical care because some board of bureaucrats has decided that it is not "cost-effective."</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">Rationing is implicitly-and explicitly-based on an ethics of collectivism.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">I don't recommend reading the whole article below, because reading a contemporary philosopher is like sticking your head in a cotton candy machine. But if you do choose to read it, you may notice that it never looks at medical care from the perspective of the individual making rational decisions about costs and benefits for his own life.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">It always implicitly looks at health care from a collectivist perspective: the perspective of bureaucrats making decisions about the cost of your medical care "to society."</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">The term that sums up this collectivist outlook is the "quality adjusted life year"-the pseudo-mathematical term for a government bureaucrat's decision concerning whether your life is worth continuing or not, based upon your age, your prognosis, and some bureaucratic formula that quantifies your "quality of life."</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">"Quality adjusted life year" is the term that tells you that the most profound decisions concerning your own life have been taken out of your hands. Get ready to hear it a lot- and to live and die by it- if Obama and the Democratic leaders in Congress get their way.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">"Why We Must Ration Health Care," Peter Singer, New York Times, July 15</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><a data-rapid_p="1" href="http://tinyurl.com/ox7g6k" rel="nofollow" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/ox7g6k</a><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">"You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much? </span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">If you can afford it, you probably would pay that much, or more, to live longer, even if your quality of life wasn't going to be good. But suppose it's not you with the cancer but a stranger covered by your health-insurance fund. If the insurer provides this man-and everyone else like him-with Sutent, your premiums will increase.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">Do you still think the drug is a good value? Suppose the treatment cost a million dollars. Would it be worth it then? Ten million? Is there any limit to how much you would want your insurer to pay for a drug that adds six months to someone's life?</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">If there is any point at which you say, "No, an extra six months isn't worth that much," then you think that health care should be rationed.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">In the current US debate over health care reform, "rationing" has become a dirty word .</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">Health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another. In the United States, most health care is privately financed, and so most rationing is by price: you get what you, or your employer, can afford to insure you for.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">But our current system of employer-financed health insurance exists only because the federal government encouraged it by making the premiums tax deductible. That is, in effect, a more than $200 billion government subsidy for health care. In the public sector, primarily Medicare, Medicaid and hospital emergency rooms, health care is rationed by long waits, high patient copayment requirements, low payments to doctors that discourage some from serving public patients and limits on payments to hospitals.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">The case for explicit health care rationing in the United States starts with the difficulty of thinking of any other way in which we can continue to provide adequate health care to people on Medicaid and Medicare, let alone extend coverage to those who do not now have it. Health-insurance premiums have more than doubled in a decade, rising four times faster than wages.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">In May, Medicare's trustees warned that the program's biggest fund is heading for insolvency in just eight years. Health care now absorbs about one dollar in every six the nation spends, a figure that far exceeds the share spent by any other nation .</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">Rationing health care means getting value for the billions we are spending by setting limits on which treatments should be paid for from the public purse. If we ration we won't be writing blank checks to pharmaceutical companies for their patented drugs, nor paying for whatever procedures doctors choose to recommend. When public funds subsidize health care or provide it directly, it is crazy not to try to get value for money.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">The debate over health care reform in the United States should start from the premise that some form of health care rationing is both inescapable and desirable. Then we can ask, What is the best way to do it?...</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">This is the basis of the quality-adjusted life-year, or QALY, a unit designed to enable us to compare the benefits achieved by different forms of health care.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">The QALY has been used by economists working in health care for more than 30 years to compare the cost-effectiveness of a wide variety of medical procedures and, in some countries, as part of the process of deciding which medical treatments will be paid for with public money.</span><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;" /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; line-height: 10.833333015441895px;">If a reformed US health care system explicitly accepted rationing, as I have argued it should, QALYs could play a similar role in the US..</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.tracinskiletter.com/" target="_blank">The Tracinski Letter</a></span>RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-81074088241687321242014-04-10T18:20:00.001-07:002014-04-10T18:21:54.788-07:00Medicare Data Release Counterproductive, Misleading- The War on Doctors<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 12.880000114440918px;">“</span><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 9.90476131439209px;">“Medicare’s release of data on physician payments serves no purpose except to further the federal government’s war on doctors. Doctors are the scapegoats for the program’s bankruptcy....</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 12.880000114440918px;">What Medicare does not tell the public is that hospitals are paid much more than physicians for the very same drugs or treatments. This is driving independent doctors out of practice, and patients into hospitals that are likely to care much more about their bottom line than about giving the best treatment to individual patients."</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.aapsonline.org/index.php/site/article/medicare_data_release_counterproductive_misleading/"><span style="background-color: black; color: cyan; font-size: large;">Medicare Data Release Counterproductive, Misleading</span></a>RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-46895035291769885722014-01-13T12:38:00.000-08:002014-01-13T19:20:15.650-08:00<b><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-large;">NYC Debate:</span></b><span style="font-size: x-large;"> <a href="http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/upcoming-debates/item/1016-obamacare-is-now-beyond-rescue" target="_blank"><b>Is ObamaCare Beyond Rescue?</b></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On <b>Wednesday 1/15/2015</b>, Intelligence Squared will host a debate on the topic, <a href="http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/upcoming-debates/item/1016-obamacare-is-now-beyond-rescue" target="_blank">"Obamacare Is Now Beyond Rescue"</a>:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> With the disastrous launch of the HealthCare.gov website, critics of the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” were given more fuel for the fire. Is this political hot potato's inevitability once again at stake? And is the medical community really on board with the law, or resisting (rewriting?) it from the sidelines? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Panelists taking the "<b>For</b>" side include:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> <b>Dr. Scott Gottlieb</b>, Practicing Physician & Former Deputy Commissioner, FDA</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> <b>Megan McArdle</b>, Writer and Columnist, Bloomberg View </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On the "<b>Against</b>" side:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> <b>JonathanChait</b>, Political Commentator and Columnist, New York Magazine</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> <b>Dr. Douglas Kamerow</b>, Family Physician & Former Assistant Surgeon General</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The <a href="http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/upcoming-debates/item/1016-obamacare-is-now-beyond-rescue" target="_blank">debate</a> starts at 6:45 PM and will be moderated by <b>John Donvan</b>, Author & Correspondent for ABC News</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The website includes a "<a href="http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/upcoming-debates/item/1016-obamacare-is-now-beyond-rescue" target="_blank"><b>LiveStreaming</b></a>" tab for folks to watch online.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> We are organizing a <b>Tweet chat</b> on Twitter at UPenn in the hopes of making it more interactive and engaging. We are promoting it on twitter to the general public and to radiology groups, other doctors groups and health policy groups... </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> The hashtag will be : <b>#IQChat.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">http://blog.westandfirm.org/2014/01/nyc-debate-is-obamacare-beyond-rescue.html</span>RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-68451218533871240832013-12-21T09:18:00.000-08:002013-12-21T09:18:19.712-08:00One Doctor Cannot Stop an Epidemic Overnight. What Can One Person or Doctor Do to Help Promote Real Health Care Reform?<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Short answer: A lot. Many valuable tips provided in the below essay. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/DocsFighting4HealthCareReform/conversations/messages/13" target="_blank">"What Can One Do?" </a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">by Ayn Rand</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> "This question is frequently asked by people who are concerned about
the state of < today's health care system > and want to correct it...
More often than not, it is asked in a form that indicates the cause
of their helplessness: "How can an individual propagate < the correct ideas
> on a scale large enough to effect the immense changes which must be
made in order to create the kind of ideal social system
< or health care system > which you picture?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> If this is the way the question is posed, the answer is: he can't.
No one can change a country single-handed. So the first question to
ask is: why do people approach the problem this way? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Suppose you were a doctor in the midst of an epidemic. You would not
ask: "How can one doctor treat millions of patients and restore the
whole country to perfect health?"
You would know, whether you were alone or part of an organized
medical campaign, that you have to treat as many people as you can
reach, according to the best of your ability, and that nothing else
is possible. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> People approach intellectual issues in a manner they would not use to
deal with physical problems.
They would not seek to stop an epidemic overnight, or to build a
skyscraper single-handed. Nor would they refrain from renovating
their own crumbling house, on the grounds that they are unable to
rebuild the entire city. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But in the realm of ideas, they still tend to regard knowledge as
irrelevant, and they expect to perform instantaneous miracles,
somehow or they paralyze themselves into inaction by projecting an
impossible goal.
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">If you are seriously interested in fighting for a better < health
care system >, begin by identifying the nature of the problems.
The battle is primarily intellectual (philosophical), not political. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Politics is the *last consequence*, the practical implementation, of
the fundamental philosophical ideas that dominate a given nation's
culture.
You cannot fight or change the consequences without fighting and
changing the cause; nor can you attempt any practical implementation
without knowing what you want to implement.
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In an intellectual battle, you do not need to convert everyone. History is made by minorities or, more precisely, history is made by
intellectual movements, which are created by minorities.
Who belongs to these minorities? Anyone who is able and willing
actively to concern himself with intellectual issues. <i>Here, it is not
quantity, but <a href="http://www.westandfirm.org/index.html" target="_blank">quality</a> that counts (the quality and consistency of the
ideas one is advocating). </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> An intellectual movement does not start with organized action. Whom
would one organize? A philosophical battle is a battle for men's minds,
not an attempt to enlist blind followers. Ideas can be propagated only by
the men and women who understand them...
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Today, most people are acutely aware of our cultural-ideological
vacuum <and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the="">;
they are anxious, confused, and groping for answers. Are you able to
enlighten them?
Can you answer their questions? Can you offer them a consistent case?
Do you know how to correct their errors? Are you immune from the
fallout of the constant barrage aimed at the destruction of reason
<and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system="">? Can you provide others with
antimissile missiles? </and></and></span><br />
<and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></and></and>
<and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><span style="font-size: large;"> * A political battle is merely a skirmish fought with muskets; a
philosophical battle is a nuclear war.* </span></and></and><br />
<and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></and></and>
<and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><span style="font-size: large;"> If you want to influence a country's intellectual trend <or bring="" care="" health="" rational="" reform="" system="" the="" to="">, the first step is to
bring order to your own ideas and integrate them into a consistent
case, to the best of your knowledge and ability.
This does not mean memorizing and reciting slogans and principles;
knowledge necessarily includes the ability to apply abstract
principles to concrete problems, to recognize the principles in
specific issues, to demonstrate them, and to advocate a consistent
course of action...
</or></span></and></and><br />
<and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><or bring="" care="" health="" rational="" reform="" system="" the="" to=""><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></or></and></and>
<and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><or bring="" care="" health="" rational="" reform="" system="" the="" to=""><span style="font-size: large;">If you like condensations (provided you bear in mind their full
meaning), I will say: when you ask "What can one do?" the answer
is "<i>SPEAK</i>" (provided you know what you are saying). </span></or></and></and><br />
<and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><or bring="" care="" health="" rational="" reform="" system="" the="" to=""><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></or></and></and>
<and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><or bring="" care="" health="" rational="" reform="" system="" the="" to=""><span style="font-size: large;"> A few suggestions: do not wait for a national audience. Speak on any
scale open to you, large or small, to your friends, your associates,
<your patients="">, your professional organizations, or any legitimate
public forum. <i>You can never tell when your words will reach the right mind at the
right time. You will see no immediate results, but it is of such
activities that public opinion is made...</i> </your></span></or></and></and><br />
<and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><or bring="" care="" health="" rational="" reform="" system="" the="" to=""><your patients=""><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></your></or></and></and>
<and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><or bring="" care="" health="" rational="" reform="" system="" the="" to=""><your patients=""><span style="font-size: large;"> The opportunities to speak are all around you...Most particularly, do not
keep silent when your own ideas and values are being attacked... </span></your></or></and></and><br />
<and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><or bring="" care="" health="" rational="" reform="" system="" the="" to=""><your patients=""><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></your></or></and></and>
<span style="font-size: large;"><and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><or bring="" care="" health="" rational="" reform="" system="" the="" to=""><your patients=""> It is a mistake to think that an intellectual movement requires some
special duty or self-sacrificial effort on your part. <i>It requires
something much more difficult: <a href="http://olearyweb.com/classes/philosophyS2/readings/misc/PhilosophyWhoNeedsIt.pdf">a profound conviction that ideas are important to you and to your own life</a>.</i> </your></or></and></and>If you integrate that
conviction to every aspect of your life, you will find many
opportunities to enlighten others.... </span><br />
<and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><or bring="" care="" health="" rational="" reform="" system="" the="" to=""><your patients=""><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></your></or></and></and>
<and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><or bring="" care="" health="" rational="" reform="" system="" the="" to=""><your patients=""><span style="font-size: large;"> If a dictatorship <or government="" medicine="" run="" socialized=""> ever comes
to this country, it will be by the default of those who keep silent.
We are still free enough to speak. Do we have time? No one can tell.
But time is on our side because we have an indestructible weapon and
an invincible ally (if we learn how to use them): reason and reality. </or></span></your></or></and></and><br />
<and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><or bring="" care="" health="" rational="" reform="" system="" the="" to=""><your patients=""><or government="" medicine="" run="" socialized=""><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></or></your></or></and></and>
<and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><or bring="" care="" health="" rational="" reform="" system="" the="" to=""><your patients=""><or government="" medicine="" run="" socialized=""><span style="font-size: large;"> "What Can One Do?" by Ayn Rand < with personal editorial modifications in
brackets > </span></or></your></or></and></and><br />
<and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><or bring="" care="" health="" rational="" reform="" system="" the="" to=""><your patients=""><or government="" medicine="" run="" socialized=""><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></or></your></or></and></and>
<span style="font-size: large;"><and and="" care="" chaos="" economic="" health="" legal="" of="" our="" system="" the=""><and care="" freedom="" health="" in="" our="" system=""><or bring="" care="" health="" rational="" reform="" system="" the="" to=""><your patients=""><or government="" medicine="" run="" socialized=""> Entire essay <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/DocsFighting4HealthCareReform/conversations/messages/13">here</a>. Additional s</or></your></or></and></and>imilar articles <a href="http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_topic_healthcare">here</a>.</span>RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-32068810044336746722013-11-22T18:53:00.001-08:002013-11-22T18:53:11.965-08:00The Hammer of Reality<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/LGeWMPFlGlY" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #404040; display: inline !important; float: none; font: 13px/18px Roboto, arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Bill Whittle at PJ Media:</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #404040; font: 13px/18px Roboto, arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #404040; font: 13px/18px Roboto, arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #404040; display: inline !important; float: none; font: 13px/18px Roboto, arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> "Bam! Bam goes the hammer. People receive cancellation notices from their insurance companies. Bam! Obama is exposed as a liar. Bam! Reid and Pelosi were in on it. Bam! When times are bleak for conservatives, we have one inalienable tool--the hammer of reality."</span></span><br />
RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-19276747839984134622013-04-18T20:56:00.001-07:002013-04-18T20:56:20.072-07:00Dr. Hal Scherz: "Circumnavigating Obamacare"Another great article by Dr. Hal Scherz, founder of <a href="http://docs4patientcare.org/prescription">Docs4PatientCare
</a>
"In the three years since the law passed, it is becoming increasingly clear to everyone that centralizing control of the healthcare economy in Washington is increasing costs, causing confusion and making the bureaucracy more difficult to navigate. With each passing month, new surprises are revealed, just as Nancy Pelosi predicted.
The newest revelation coming from Washington is the need for Obamacare Navigators. These individuals are “necessary” to assist people signing up for health insurance under the new state exchange systems. The “simple” 21 page application for federal insurance subsidies, along with the 61 page addendum, is apparently not quite as straightforward as promised. It has been suggested that these positions would be “awarded” to deserving individuals - supporters of this administration- union members, former ACORN employees, and other political cronies. The fact that voter registration has been included in the application suggests that only the “right people” will be hired as navigators.
The truth is that the ACA is not and never was intended to “fix” American health care. Its purpose is to place control of American’s health care in the hands of Washington bureaucrats giving them enormous power and control of the electorate. If there was any doubt about this reality, it is quickly evaporating as the details of the law become clearer with each new healthcare revelation, now happening almost daily.
The only possible way to accomplish the overly ambitious goal of providing health care for all, is with the creation of a massive and expensive new bureaucracy. The paradox should not be overlooked- healthcare spending is bankrupting our country, yet we are primed to spend far more money to create a massive bureaucracy in order to put it under government oversight.
How everyone could not predict what we are currently witnessing is amazing. The ACA created 159 new commissions, boards and departments. This translates into a huge, new and expensive bureaucracy. It has been predicted that in California alone, 20,000 navigators will be necessary, which means that nationally, hundreds of thousands will be needed. The number of new government employees needed to staff all of these new agencies is incalculable. Currently, 1/3 of Americans are covered by government financed healthcare, which accounts for 1/5 of our GDP. If some in Washington have their way, and healthcare is eventually totally financed by the federal government, the costs of running the bureaucracy will consume such a large part of our budget, that we will be able to afford little else...."
Full article <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/halscherz/2013/04/16/circumnavigating-obamacare-n1568827/page/full/">here
</a>
RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-9173467217104731782013-04-12T16:34:00.000-07:002013-04-12T16:34:32.010-07:00Fed Up With Obamacare, Doctors Increasingly Prefer Cash For CareDr. Sally Pipes describes in <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2013/04/01/fed-up-with-obamacare-doctors-increasingly-prefer-cash-for-care/">this article</a> an important option for patients concerned about the quality and availability of health care services to keep in mind as they notice growing bureaucratic restrictions on their choice of health care providers, diagnostic testing and procedures under increasing govt regulation:
More doctors may be looking to cut out the progressively increasing paper work and extra-ordinary time and money-wasting and cost -inflating effects of government and insurance middle men through direct contracting with patients and direct payment for medical services:
"Obamacare’s most intrusive changes to the healthcare marketplace — including the individual mandate whereby Americans must secure health insurance or pay a fine and its massive expansion of Medicaid — are less than a year from taking effect. Many doctors have decided that they’re not interested in seeing how those changes play out in their own practices. Nearly two-thirds of doctors say that they or their colleagues will retire earlier than planned over the next few years, according to a survey conducted by consulting firm Deloitte.
Others are considering a departure from the current system of third-party payment. Instead, they’re exploring direct payment, with patients paying for care on their own.
Patients should welcome this development. Not only does the move toward direct payment have the potential to reduce health costs — it could also yield higher-quality care.....
Nearly 7 percent of doctors say they are planning to change to some form of direct-pay care in the next three years, according to a survey of 13,000 doctors done for the Physicians Foundation. The consulting firm Accenture projects that one in three doctors in independent practice will adopt “subscription-based care models.”
One direct payment model that’s growing in popularity is “concierge” care, whereby doctors charge a monthly or annual fee for care — and bypass the administrative headaches associated with insurance and government programs altogether. The American Academy of Private Physicians — which represents cash-only doctors — estimates that the number of concierge doctors has shot up 30 percent in just the last year.
Examples of these practices abound...."RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-51340835586205941522013-03-30T18:26:00.000-07:002013-04-11T21:25:07.993-07:00"Married to Medicine" - The Scape-goating of Physicians and Propagandizing of ObamaCare A recent post on an online forum for radiologists about a "trashy Bravo TV show" called "Married to Medicine" recently caught my eye.
The original radioloigst poster on this blog urged readers to "take it with a grain of salt..it focuses on the gold digging wives of MDs and their fancy mansions and extravagant lifestyles".
<<....It perpetuates the myth of the billionaire physician rolling in the dough, raking it in. Especially at a time when doctors salaries have been slashed and most MDs are living an upper middle class life certainly not a Romney life. Ortho, ED, and OB GYN are featured. No radiologists thank goodness....>>
I think it is important to understand what is driving this - and the insidious, though critical, political purpose it serves in the context of the rapidly progressing government take-over of health care. In the overall scheme of things, the poster's observation and false sense of relief that radiologists per se were not one of the medical specialities portrayed in such fashion on this particular show, at this particular time, misses the point.
Trashy? Yes. But also very dangerous- to dismiss its power in shaping public opinon and support for government policy by using popular culture as a tool of propaganda to villainize doctors in general as the prime cause of America's health care woes.
Welcome to 1984- and the rise of State Bureau of Propaganda, staffed by Michael Moore and fellow billionaire Hollywood left-wing elitists.
Art, popular culture and mass media all have a tremdously powerful impact on shaping the political and cultural views of the masses. The modus operandi and the purpose of left wing supporters of government-run medicine in Hollywood is to portray and demonize all doctors as exploitative, fat cat billionaire Robber Barons running roughshod over patients. Cast as such, they are depicted as greedily exploiting patients and defrauding 3rd party payers by ordering unnecessary expensive tests with the sole purpose of paying for their own yachts, mansions and spoiled, pampered wives.
The consequences of government and 3rd party payer bureaucratic regulations, ever -expanding health system consolidation, unchecked patient demand for services in the ever progressing hyper-inflation of health insurance premiums and prices in medical and services can be thus ignored. We now have the "real" culprit: the unquenched thirst of doctors to bilk patients, the government and the system for ever more Porsches and Rolls-Royces and "deprive patients of their "inalienable right to unlimited medical services, provided by or paid for by others"- at least, as the producers of this show would have you believe...
Clearly such vicious exploiters of the helpless and weak proletariat require the heavy regulatory protective hand of benevolent, public-spirited, "chamnpion-of-the-little-people", government politicians to ride in on a white horse and save the day by reining in the financial abusives caused by unchecked greed, and slash reimbursements and the filthy, unearned lucre of greedy, over-paid capitalist doctors", thus protecting the rights of the proletariat from the exploitative bourgeosie.
Never mind the irrational, out- of- control medical malpractice laws which forces the hand of doctors in ordering extra unnecessary expensive diagnostic medical testing of marginal utility to avoid avoid potentially professionally catastrophic and bankrupting litigation by ruling out the "1 in 10,000,000 chance of a rare disease".... Or the low deductible, out- of- pocket expenses of most pre-paid health care policies which misleadingly cause the patient/ medical consumer to grossly under-estimate, and thus, grossly over-demand-and-consume inherently expensive medical diagnostic services, regardless of actual actionable medical benefit in some cases. The show is not designed to inform, but to mislead.
The purpose, intent and aim is to use the power of pop culture and popular media to shape the opinions of the uneducated underclass who watch trashy Bravo TV- even inflame class envy and warfare by making doctors the scapegoat. The dual goal- direct the voting public's attention away from the 50 years of progressively advancing failed government policies and regulations over the health insurance and medical services industry which actually lie at the root of the problems in the US health care system today.
This show represents an example of the propagandization of ObamaCare by Hollywood, warned about by Dr. Paul Hsieh, a radioloigst colleague in Colorado in his blog in Sept 2012 here:
http://blog.westandfirm.org/2012/09/propagandizing-obamacare.html
<a href="http://blog.westandfirm.org/2012/09/propagandizing-obamacare.html ">Propagandizing ObamaCare
</a>
"The 9/15/2012 New York Times reports on how government officials want Hollywood to promote ObamaCare in the plots of TV shows like "Grey's Anatomy" and "Modern Family"."
RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-49294370172873956102013-03-16T08:56:00.000-07:002013-03-16T08:56:22.752-07:00Medical Freedom vs Financial Security for Doctors Under ObamaCare. Both? Neither?According to a recent article in <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2013/03/15/obamacares-73-medicaid-pay-raise-for-doctors-is-delayed/">Forbes online</a> entitled <b>"Obamacare's 73% Medicaid Pay Raise For Doctors Is Delayed":
</b>
"A huge pay raise promised under the Affordable Care Act for primary care doctors who treat the nation’s poor covered by Medicaid health insurance is nearly three months behind schedule and may take another three months before it kicks in, state Medicaid directors say..."
As Ben Franklin sagely pointed out: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Nor financial security, as it turns out...
A word to the wise is apparently insufficient. Those doctors and other medical care providers who were conned into voting for ObamaCare on the hope/expectation /promise of growing fat on increased payments / hand-outs from government -financed medical programs are about to learn the hard way . Making oneself dependent on the false promises and largesse of "beneficent" political operatives and administrators in Washington DC - is neither a tool for personal or professional liberty nor financial security. The ripple effect on voters/ patients/ the US health care system is sure to follow- as well as on your federal and state taxes:
If you just happen to be the type that might be re-assured that "the check is in the mail", don't forget that those who are empowered to write, or re-write, your check make the rules- and can change, re-write or cancel either- according to their personal whim, convenience and political expediency. #suckers
RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-53965304042390315592012-11-22T09:41:00.000-08:002012-11-22T09:41:07.009-08:00The High Price of Nickel-and-Diming Doctors<br />
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<a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-21/the-high-price-of-nickel-and-diming-doctors" style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;">The High Price of Nickel-and-Diming Doctors</span></a></h1>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><div class="attributor" style="border: 0px; display: inline-block; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 16.49333381652832px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
By <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/authors/2267-shannon-pettypiece" rel="author" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 102, 0); text-decoration: initial;">Shannon Pettypiece</a> on November 21, 2012</div>
<span style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 16.49333381652832px;"> / Bloomberg Business Week</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 11.199999809265137px; line-height: 16.49333381652832px;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The</span><span style="color: cyan;"> <b><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-21/the-high-price-of-nickel-and-diming-doctors">above article</a></b> </span><span style="color: white;">describes the difficult decisions that more and more physicians are forced to make to abandon private practice and take a salaried position with a hospital - and how this affects your health care, and the cost of care in general:</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">"<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23.399999618530273px;">Dr. Thomas Lewandowski, a Wisconsin cardiologist, had a tough choice to make in 2010 after the federal government yet again reduced the payments he received for treating Medicare patients: He could fire half his staff to keep his practice open, or sell it to a local hospital. He sold, becoming one of more than 6,000 employees at ThedaCare, which runs five hospitals and numerous clinics in the northeastern part of the state. Lewandowski is among thousands of once-independent doctors who are joining with hospital chains to stay afloat, a trend that threatens to raise the price of health care even as the federal government strains to keep a lid on costs."</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23.399999618530273px;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23.399999618530273px;"><span style="color: white;">Read the whole thing</span><span style="color: cyan;"> <b><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-21/the-high-price-of-nickel-and-diming-doctors">here</a></b>.</span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The above article does a nice job explaining the tremendous short-term health care cost -inflating consequence and other adverse consequences of driving former private practice physicians into hospital employee status. With it, the delivery of all health care services is forced into the setting of expensive high-overhead, high-tech, glossy, magnificent glass - and steel corporate settings. By that standard, ObamaCare would seem not to make sense and to produce the opposite effect of its promise of making health care "affordable". </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Of course, it does- but n reality, ObamaCare is not about affordability or health care- it's about control. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><b>First step:</b> Raise administrative costs and hassles and drop reimbursements to force all previously private, independent physicians into salaried employee status- where they seek refuge for a stable salary from the government onslaught. Benefit: they are now under the control of a couple hundred giant hospital corporations - the new "Accountable Care Organizations" (and thus hospital administrators), which can then be much more easily controlled by the federal government.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><b>Next step:</b> Bundled lump sum payments from Medicare / Medicaid - and federally organized state-wide insurance monopoly exchanges- to hospitals and their employed, salaried doctors- now run as "Accountable Care Organizations"- to force employed doctors to ration out medical services to patients under financial or administrative pressure or threat - from hospitals- under threat or risk of their own financial self- sacrifice or self-destruction or professional self-destruction/ job loss by their powerful ACO employer.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><b>Next step:</b> Structure all private and employer-provided health insurance in such a way that insurance premiums will be driven progressively higher, and simultaneously institute much less expensive fines. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">This provides a double incentive for individuals and employers to forgo buying - or just dump- their own private coverage and for businesses to stop providing employee health coverage and dump their employees into the federally -run, state-labelled insurance monopoly exchanges.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">As premiums rise, the private insurers which were jumping up and down with delight when ObamaCare was passed thinking they were now guaranteed massive profits by all the people and businesses now *forced* to buy their products- will progressively fail financially and dump their newly uninsured onto the government exchanges and directed onto the government Medicaid roles. Presto: single payer government run health care. One payer- the US government- sets all the rules and the payments.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><b>Next step:</b> Let the blood-letting and cost cutting begin. Across the board cuts to all hospitals/ ACO's and their employed doctors while simultaneously and progressively squeezing more and more work for them for less pay like blood like a stone- far worse than the current situation. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><b>Next step:</b> Meltdown across the system- Physicians and nurses will resign from the employed status under slave labor conditions in beautiful glass and steel hospital structures (don't worry - the physical plant will rapidly deteriorate as number of support staff get cut) , with diminishing numbers of demoralized, overworked, underpaid medical staff with lower and lower staff to patient ratios, higher stress and ever expanding hours and responsibilities with prison-like working conditions. Mass exodus- back into fee for service system or out of medicine entirely for self-preservation. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">All of this , of course, will be happening simultaneously over the next several years- rather than in discrete steps - and all is brought to you by your federal government- who "cares' about your health care....</span></span><br />
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RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-67306890220567071202012-11-15T14:47:00.001-08:002012-11-15T14:49:09.318-08:00Why States Should Resist ObamaCare and Refuse to Setup Exchanges | MediBlog<b style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white; font-size: large;">IMPORTANT WEBINAR VIDEO:</span></b><br />
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<b style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.medibid.com/blog/2012/11/states-resist-obamacare-refuse-exchanges/?utm_source=Newsletters&utm_campaign=fd6ccce3c7-Exchange_Contacts_Attendee11_13_2012&utm_medium=email">Why States Should Resist ObamaCare and Refuse to Setup Exchanges | MediBlog</a></span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute, Byron Schlomach and Nick Dranias of the Goldwater Institute, and Twila Brase expose the pitfalls of having the state set up an Obamacare exchange and the advantages of not doing so. This webinar was presented to elected officials in Tennessee and concerned citizens.</span></span><br />
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</span></span> <span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Michael F. Cannon is the Cato Institute’s director of health policy studies. Previously, he served as a domestic policy analyst for the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee.</span></span><br />
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</span></span> <span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Dr. Byron Schlomach is an economist and works as the Director of the Center for Economic Prosperity at the Goldwater Institute. He has 15 years of experience working in and around state government.</span></span><br />
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</span></span> <span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Nick Dranias, is an attorney and the director of the Joseph and Dorothy Moller Center for Constitutional Government at the Phoenix, AZ think tank the Goldwater Institute.</span></span><br />
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</span></span> <span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Twila Brase, RN, is the founder and President of the Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom, a free-market resource for designing the future of health care.</span></span><br />
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</span></span> <span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Ralph Weber of MediBid.com moderated this panel discussion</span></span><br />
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</span></span> <b style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">WATCH THE VIDEO HERE:</span></b><br />
<b><a href="http://www.medibid.com/blog/2012/11/states-resist-obamacare-refuse-exchanges/?utm_source=Newsletters&utm_campaign=fd6ccce3c7-Exchange_Contacts_Attendee11_13_2012&utm_medium=email" style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;">Why States Should Resist ObamaCare and Refuse to Setup Exchanges | MediBlog</span></a></b><br />
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</span></span> RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-33852809362802190522012-11-14T19:00:00.000-08:002012-11-14T19:03:51.606-08:00Action Alert!! Tell Your Governor to Say “No” to ObamaCare Exchange<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18.66666603088379px;"><a href="http://www.aapsonline.org/index.php/site/article/tell_your_governer_to_say_no_to_obamacare_exchange/"><span style="color: cyan;">Action Alert!! Tell Your Governor to Say “No” to ObamaCare Exchange</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 17.999998092651367px;"><b><span style="color: white;">From the American Association of Physicians & Surgeons :</span></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 17.999998092651367px;"><b><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></b></span>
<span style="background-color: black;"><b style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 17.999998092651367px;">"States have been asked to submit to HHS their intention with regard to a state health insurance exchange as outlined in Obamacare by Friday, November 16.</span><br style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 17.999998092651367px;" /><br style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 17.999998092651367px;" /><span style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 17.999998092651367px;">Please contact your governor ASAP, asking him or her NOT to commit to </span></b></span><b style="color: white; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 17.999998092651367px;">any kind of Obamacare health insurance exchange. Even if your state has already declared its intention, please voice your opposition before Friday.</b><br />
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<a avglsprocessed="1" href="http://www.aapsonline.org/index.php/site/article/tell_your_governer_to_say_no_to_obamacare_exchange/" rel="nofollow nofollow" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: cyan;">http://www.aapsonline.org/index.php/site/article/tell_your_governer_to_say_no_to_obamacare_exchange/</span></b></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><u style="color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"><strong>More Info:</strong></u><br style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;" /><em style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"><strong><a href="http://www.cchfreedom.org/files/files/Contact-Your-Governor(1).pdf"><span style="color: cyan;">A list of contact information</span></a></strong></em><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"><b><a href="http://www.cchfreedom.org/files/files/Contact-Your-Governor(1).pdf"><span style="color: cyan;"> for all 50 state governors</span></a></b><span style="color: white;"> can be found </span><span style="color: cyan;"><b><a href="http://www.cchfreedom.org/files/files/Contact-Your-Governor(1).pdf">here</a></b>:</span></span><br style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;" /><a href="http://www.cchfreedom.org/files/files/LetterToGovernorDayton%281%29.pdf"><em style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"><strong><span style="color: cyan;">Sample letter </span></strong></em><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"><b><span style="color: cyan;">sent to governors</span></b><span style="color: white;">.</span></span></a><br style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;" /><br style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;" /><em style="color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"><strong>Webinar Video:</strong></em><span style="color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"> </span><b><a href="http://www.medibid.com/blog/2012/11/states-resist-obamacare-refuse-exchanges/?utm_source=Newsletters&utm_campaign=fd6ccce3c7-Exchange_Contacts_Attendee11_13_2012&utm_medium=email"><span style="color: cyan;">Why States Should Oppose ObamaCare Exchanges</span></a></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"><span style="color: cyan;">,</span><span style="color: white;"> featuring Michael Cannon of Cato, Twila Brase of CCHF, Nick Dranias & Brian Schlomach of the Goldwater Institute, hosted by Ralph Weber of MediBid.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><br /><em style="color: white;"><strong>According to Michael Cannon of Cato:</strong></em><br /><span style="color: white;">"Operating an Obamacare exchange would be illegal in 14 states. Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia have enacted either statutes or constitutional amendments (or both) forbidding state employees to participate in an essential exchange function: implementing Obamacare's individual and employer mandates."</span><br /><a href="http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/obamacare-is-still-vulnerable" style="color: white; text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank"><b>http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/obamacare-is-still-vulnerable</b></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.cchfreedom.org/files/files/15-REASONS-TO-OPPOSE-EXCHANGES.pdf"><span style="color: cyan;"><strong>1</strong><strong>5 REASONS: Oppose Obamaʼs Health Insurance Exchanges</strong></span></a><br /><span style="color: white; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"> </span><br /><span style="color: white;">1. </span><strong style="color: white;">Exchanges are Federal Takeover Centers, not marketplaces. </strong><span style="color: white;">The federal government controls the health plans and the benefits—and oversees patient care. Exchanges will also become </span><em style="color: white;">single-seller bureaucracies </em><span style="color: white;">where only government- approved health plans are sold and no real “market” exists. It is expected that all people in the future will be required to buy insurance from the Exchange. (see #5)</span><br /><span style="color: white;"> </span><br /><span style="color: white;">2. </span><strong style="color: white;">States will lose. </strong><span style="color: white;">State-run exchanges will hide the federal takeover; enable federal access to state-held data on citizens, patients and providers; and shift the </span><em style="color: white;">annual</em><br /><span style="color: white;">$10 million - $100 million cost of operating the exchange to State taxpayers.</span><br /><span style="color: white;"> </span><br /><span style="color: white;">3. </span><strong style="color: white;">State-run Exchanges are not required. </strong><span style="color: white;">That would be commandeering of the state by the federal government. Obama’s health care law acknowledges this fact by having a fallback plan for creation of a Federal Exchange—but no money to do it. They’ve asked for ~$750 million, but Congress has thus far refused.</span><br /><span style="color: white;"> </span><br /><span style="color: white;">4. </span><strong style="color: white;">All Exchanges are Federal Exchanges. </strong><span style="color: white;">State-run Exchanges must follow the federal law and all federal rules. They are required to report annually to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and are under control of HHS.</span><br /><span style="color: white;"> </span><br /><span style="color: white;">5. </span><strong style="color: white;">State-run Exchanges are part of a National Exchange. </strong><span style="color: white;">State exchanges are 50 state-named website portals of a national system. They are extensions of the federal government into each state through the “Federal Data Services Hub,” which will receive and share private data. Data entered online to buy insurance is sent for verification through the Federal Data Services Hub (“Hub”) to at least</span><br /><span style="color: white;">five federal agencies, and compared with myriad state databases and data systems</span><br /><span style="color: white;">made accessible to the Hub by state government.</span><br /><span style="color: white;"> </span><br /><span style="color: white;">6. </span><strong style="color: white;">The Exchange is a national registration and enforcement tool. </strong><span style="color: white;">The National Exchange (with 50 website portals) will register the insurance status of every citizen and allow the IRS to enforce the penalty-tax for refusing to buy health insurance. </span><em style="color: white;">The purpose is universal coverage — national health care</em><span style="color: white;">. Registration takes place through purchase of insurance or online registration of an exemption.</span><br /><span style="color: white;"> </span><br /><span style="color: white;">7. </span><strong style="color: white;">The Exchange will create an unprecedented tracking system. </strong><span style="color: white;">Whether they pay taxes to the Federal government or not, everyone must </span><em style="color: white;">annually register </em><span style="color: white;">with the IRS either on their own through the Exchange or through their employer. State governments are already considering how to “pre-populate” the exchange using other databases such as state taxpayers, voting registration, and vital statistics.</span><br /><span style="color: white;"> </span><br /><span style="color: white;">8. </span><strong style="color: white;">The Exchange will enable Obamacare fines. </strong><span style="color: white;">Employers face significant fines if even one of their employees buys health insurance on a state-based Exchange.,,,</span></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">See the rest here:</span></b></div>
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<a href="http://www.cchfreedom.org/files/files/15-REASONS-TO-OPPOSE-EXCHANGES.pdf" style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan;"><strong>1</strong><strong>5 REASONS: Oppose Obamaʼs Health Insurance Exchanges</strong></span></a></div>
RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4738249621305323729.post-71980575865680943102012-11-13T20:04:00.001-08:002012-11-13T20:04:59.279-08:00We Stand FIRM: Hsieh Forbes OpEd: Protect Yourself Against Obamacare.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/We%20Stand%20FIRM:%20Hsieh%20Forbes%20OpEd:%20Protect%20Yourself%20Against%20Obamacare."><b style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: cyan;">We Stand FIRM: Hsieh Forbes OpEd: Protect Yourself Against Obamacare.</span></b></a><br />
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</span></span> <span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">"The 11/13/2012 Forbes has published Dr. Paul Hsieh's latest OpEd: "5 Ways To Protect Yourself Against Obamacare".</span></span><br />
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</span></span> <span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In it, he discusses 5 practical strategies ordinary Americans should consider now, even as the fight for health care freedom continues. They include:</span></span><br />
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</span></span> <span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">1) Get a good primary care doctor, if you haven't already done so.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">2) Use a Health Savings Account (HSA).</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">3) Consider a concierge or "direct pay" physician.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">4) Consider medical tourism, when appropriate.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">5) Help your doctor work on your behalf.</span></span><br />
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</span></span> <span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">For more details, see the full text of </span><span style="color: cyan;"> </span><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulhsieh/2012/11/13/5-ways-to-protect-yourself-against-obamacare/"><b><span style="color: cyan;">"5 Ways To Protect Yourself Against Obamacare"</span><span style="color: white;">.</span></b></a></span><br />
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RadsDocDancerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07289956775620758534noreply@blogger.com0