2004 hasn’t been a good year for conventional thinking in health care, anywhere. If California is a world leader in new thinking, as it usually is, conventional health care (Medicine) is in for a hard road – one it justly deserves.
Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen
For in Election 2004, California overwhelmingly SMASHED conventional medicine in four separate ballot initiatives, clearly indicating a message – It’s over for conventional thinking in health care. What happened in California will happen throughout North America, and then throughout the world. California is the fifth largest stand alone economy in the world.
There’s no question that the American health care system is broken. The hospital based system, used under full control, is the Number One killer of Americans, and Heart disease is number two, and Cancer is number three. Everybody, with a brain, knows that the combination of Big Pharma, Big Hospital, and Big Health Insurance is holding back REAL health care in favor of a status quo system that simply is too expensive and doesn’t work. Americans are suffering and dying from it – and the American sleeping giant is awakening.
Everybody knows that there are cures for heart disease, cancer, and almost everything. They’re not available to the general public, openly, simply because “the system” suppresses them. Everybody knows that it is better to be “healthy” than “medicated.”
“Underground” health care permeates the North American system. Over 50% of the total US health care dollar is now spent on alternatives to conventional offerings. The only thing propping up the conventional system (paying for it) is insurance and Medicare. The American public won’t pay an out-of-pocket nickel for it. 88% of US adults use, and believe in, some health alternative – for good reason.
The Ballot Initiatives…
Proposition 72 was a ballot initiative which would force employers of 20 or more employees to provide health insurance to those employees. It would also force employers with 200 or more employees to, not only provide health insurance to those employees, but for their families as well.
What was of interest is that the proponents of the argument proclaimed “the rising costs of health care” as reason to vote for the initiative. They were claiming that health care costs were rising because “some people were uninsured.”
Huh?
The health insurance companies shoveled a pile of money into this campaign, and enlisted the Unions to help. The Unions focused on the fact that Wal-Mart didn’t provide insurance to their employees – and this fact was somehow costing the taxpayers of California 32 million dollars a year.
The measure FAILED. Californians aren’t STUPID. Why would we want to FORCE a costly failing system on small companies, when it isn’t working for BIG companies? California voters said “NO.”
Proposition 67, which would have increased phone taxes by more than $500 million a year in an attempt to, supposedly, shore up the state’s emergency-care system also FAILED. For months scare tactic advertising talking about “68 Emergency Rooms have closed…” claiming lack of funding.
But the opponents did a good job – they said “The initiative would create a costly new bureaucracy that doles out cash to hospitals and doctors with no requirement that this windfall be used to improve health care in California.”
Amen to that… 72% of the California voters said “NO.”
Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative. The $3 billion bond issue was approved, and would make California the nation’s leader in funding for embryonic stem cell studies by providing an annual $300 million to create a California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. That would be 12 times what the federal government spends on embryonic stem cell research and 18 to 33 times what California spends on breast cancer and AIDS research, respectively.
59.1% of California voters voted for this initiative. The message is clear – Californians want “cures” not endless, expensive, go-no-where, “treatments.” Stem Cell Therapy is NOT Big Pharma.
The big issue, between proponents in California, and opponents in Washington is not that Stem Cell Therapy has merit – because both sides agree that it does. The argument is over the use of human fetuses – whether that’s ethical or unethical. Anti-abortion proponents can easily visualize an industry ripping the unborn from a welfare mother’s womb, and tossing the fetus into a blender, and sending “mom” home with 25 bucks in her pocket.
But, the “insider” argument in Stem Cell Therapy isn’t so well known. David Steenblock DO, a well known stroke re-hab doctor, using hyperbaric oxygen, etc., and scientist, is probably one of the world’s leading experts on Stem Cell Therapy, and he says “there is no need, in Stem Cell Therapy, to use fetus material. Everything you need can be found in the umbilical cord. Umbilical cords are discarded after a successful birth. There is NO worry about ethics. Umbilical Stem Cells are, in fact, FAR BETTER, and FAR SAFER to use than embryonic.”
Steenblock knows what he’s talking about. Just this last October 20th, Steenblock spoke at UC Irvine’s “Developing Stem-Cell Therapies.” More about Steenblock can be found here.
59.1% of California voters said “YES” to Stem Cell Therapy.
Now for a laugh…. Everybody who reads my newsletter knows that I hold the “quackbusters” in low regard. I never hesitate to point out when one of their top players loses a battle, pees his own pants (did I tell you about that?), or just does something incredibly sleazy or stupid.
Of course, some quackbuster would involve himself in the Stem Cell Therapy debate. Why wouldn’t they? They’re accustomed to telling the world about their expertise in a subject they just heard about ten minutes ago – and offering to testify about it…
So, it won’t surprise you that Stephen Barrett, the author of the dubious website quackwatch.com has done a piece on it – and of course he mentioned Steenblock. The article, goofy from beginning to end, represents Barrett’s inability to get much of anything right.
In the article called “The Shady Side of Stem Cell Therapy,” Barrett proves once again what I’ve always said of him “Barrett, in his effort to slime cutting-edge health practitioners, does POOR, if any, research.” Barrett accuses Steenblock of doing “embryonic” Stem Cell Therapy. Embryonic?
Proposition 64, which changed the state’s business competition law to end “shakedown lawsuits” against small businesses.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had joined several citizen’s groups in taking a formal stand against certain sleazy “quackbuster” activities. The Governor, along with a citizen’s group, “Californians to Stop Shakedown Lawsuits (CSSL), promoted California ballot Proposition #64, described by Schwarzenegger to accomplish the following:
“”Proposition 64 will stop the legal practice of shakedown lawsuits, in which private lawyers file suits without any client or any evidence of harm. This turns lawyers into bounty hunters, stalking innocent small businesses that create jobs and opportunity in California.” Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
The “quackbuster’s” flagship, the self-styled National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF), just a few years ago, stalked, and sued, over forty innocent victims in California using the “shakedown” lawsuit principal. According to delicensed MD Stephen Barrett, the NCAHF’s Vice President brags “NCAHF sued about 40 defendants, and I have also been involved as a consultant or expert witness in similar cases filed by other parties. Overall, at least ten have been settled…”
If the “quackbusters” hadn’t been stopped DEAD in their tracks by the North American Health Freedom Movement, no doubt, they would have sued, not forty, but thousands of victims in California.
58.9% of California voters said “YES” to stopping quackbuster “shakedown” lawsuits for all time.
The message is clear.
Stay tuned…
Tim Bolen – Consumer Advocate