Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen
It is common knowledge that few, if any, Americans believe what US network TV tells them about health care. Most people don’t believe what the big newspapers tell them either. Americans think that our media is controlled – and it is. So, Americans, even those involved in conventional, status quo, health care seek real information elsewhere. And, where do they go? The answer to that question is readily obvious. They get information about what is really happening from those of us in the North American Health Freedom Movement; websites, newsletters, radio shows, TV shows, conferences, public speaking engagements, legislative efforts, etc.
In fact, just about everything we do works. We are being listened to by the people that matter. I’ll give you a demonstration further down the page.
Why do I say that?
A few day ago an acquaintance of mine sent me a video, which I’ll show you in a minute, of a speech delivered in a Senate candidate race in Michigan. The doctor delivering the speech was using his argument to attempt to get rid of US Senator John Dingle (D) Michigan in favor of a Republican candidate. His argument was that “ObamaCare” needed to be repealed and he was talking about why he thought that.
My friend wanted me to comment on the video, so I did. When I did that I realized something terribly important; that what this doctor was so angry about was that within “ObamaCare” the legislators had put provisions in place to deal with some of the VERY MAJOR US health care ISSUES that those of us in the Health Freedom Movement had been complaining about for years. For real.
More, not only had we, in the Movement been saying these things, but key people in conventional health care had picked up a large important part of our message and adopted it as their own.
Just below I am going to quote George D. Lundberg MD, the former Editor in Chief of Medscape, eMedicine, and the Journal of the American Medical Association. George, who I am eager to meet, wrote an interesting blog article in August of 2009 called “How to Rein In Medical Costs Right Now.” He was just as brutal in his condemnation of the system as I am – but the difference is that George is “in” the system. I’m not. George is high up in the system and he is listened to – as in the Obama Administration, and the US Congress, adopted his ideas (our ideas) so much so that this Michigan doctor wants to get rid of John Dingle and repeal Obamacare.
Here is what former JAMA Editor George Lundberg MD said needed to be done:
- Intensive medical therapy (like chelation?) should be substituted for coronary artery bypass grafting (currently around 500,000 procedures annually) for many patients with established coronary artery disease, saving many billions of dollars annually.
- The same for invasive angioplasty and stenting (currently around 1,000,000 procedures per year) saving tens of billions of dollars annually.
- Most non-indicated PSA screening for prostate cancer should be stopped. Radical surgery as the usual treatment for most prostate cancers should cease since it causes more harm than good. Billions saved here. (Just like Hulda Clark said).
- Screening mammography in women under 50 who have no clinical indication should be stopped and for those over 50 sharply curtailed, since it now seems to lead to at least as much harm as good. More billions saved. (Just like Hulda Clark said).
- CAT scans and MRIs are impressive art forms and can be useful clinically. However, their use is unnecessary much of the time to guide correct therapeutic decisions. Such expensive diagnostic tests should not be paid for on a case by case basis but grouped along with other diagnostic tests, by some capitated or packaged method that is use-neutral. More billions saved.
- We must stop paying huge sums to clinical oncologists and their institutions for administering chemotherapeutic false hope, along with real suffering from adverse effects, to patients with widespread metastatic cancer. More billions saved. (Just like Hulda Clark said).
- Death, which comes to us all, should be as dignified and free from pain and suffering as possible. We should stop paying physicians and institutions to prolong dying with false hope, bravado, and intensive therapy which only adds to their profit margin. Such behavior is almost unthinkable and yet is commonplace. More billions saved.”
Does all that sound familiar? You bet it does.
Now go listen to this Michigan doctor whine about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HnkxIh62dQ
My response to my Michigan acquaintance was:
“What this guy is saying is fairly true but he is not putting his comments into the right frame of reference. In the first part he is actually talking about a hospital’s three major profit centers, all of which are, frankly, a rip-off – (1) “the end of life treatment protocol,” where when they know the end is near and they trot out the costly tests, and “new protocols” that do virtually nothing, but use up the remainder of the patient’s lifetime insurance allotment, and get nothing for it. And, (2) where a hospital will order test after test, on an everyday patient, to run up the bill, and call in every specialist on staff they can think of. (3) The use of Chemotherapy for cancer is an expensive not-funny joke. Chemo works in less than 2% of cancers. Watch Michael Douglas die – the media is following it. Then look at Suzanne Somers. Chemo is horribly expensive – but immensely profitable. Decisions on treatment, in hospitals, are made, not by what’s best for the patient, but on the basis of what will make the hospital, and the doctor the most money. And, it is not just being done over cancer. Treatment for heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, is just as bad.
This second thing happened to me recently, when I went to the Emergency Room with a blood pressure reading of 217. They kept me for two days, tested and tested, found nothing I didn’t already know and referred me to a specialist outside the hospital. After I got out I called a very smart Doctor in Indiana who said to me “how much magnesium are you taking every day? How much fish oil? How much Vitamin C? I wasn’t taking any – so he put me on a high dose, and five days later I woke up with a blood pressure reading of 118 – and it stays there. So, with a little common sense, and for about eight bucks a month…
About 30% of all health care costs are spent on “end of life…” What they are talking about is forcing the hospitals to NOT offer expensive, high profit, stuff that might(?) extend life for another week (in a coma). Yes, they would calculate the cost benefit.
And, yes, there is a plan to fine doctors and hospitals – and I agree with it. Remember, that most patients have a co-pay, and if a hospital talks a patient’s family into ordering end treatments of little value, the patient’s family better have their assets in a trust, because the hospital collection department will come after a widow’s home within weeks after a death.
I am surprised that I would agree with the Editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on this issue – but I do.
I had two good articles from a Guest Editor (John Rappaport) I just emailed out to my newsletter Subscribers. Go to the front page of the www.BolenReport.comwebsite and find the “The Starfield Revelation, Revisited….” Read that – and you will get the feeling that a whole lot is wrong with our health system that is NOT being dealt with.
Then, for another piece of the health care dilemma, go over to the far left article column, on the www.BolenReport.com website, and scroll down to the second article down called “Why the Doctor’s Data v Barrett case is important to North America…” Read it.
There is no question that US health care needs reform.
That doctor said that we will lose MDs. Well, guess what? In the year 2000 we had 770,000 practicing MDs in the US. By the end of 2005 we were down to 520,000. Where’d they go? Answer – they left the EXISTING system.
Two more things – there are 750,000 Autistic children which will take full lifetime care – and when their parents die who will take care of them? Of course vaccines are responsible. Those “silver fillings” in your mouth are 54% mercury – which leeches out, over the years, and inhibits your immune system.
Reform of our health care system needs a LOT of reform. We have just started.”
There is no question that the world is paying attention to our Movement.
Stay tuned.
Tim Bolen – Consumer Advocate