Call Emergency Services to Lighten Your Purse!

The Medical Industrial Complex has been running radio ads advising people to call emergency responders and get themselves turned over to the Medical Industrial Complex immediately if they have any symptoms of STROKE.

Well, I wondered what treatment is needed immediately for a stroke. Its not like they can pound on your brain or give you electric shock like they do for heart attack. So I did some reading on-line.

If you are having a stroke they give you a lot of "tests." The ONLY approved drug for stroke is a preventer/dissolver of blood clots which is said to be helpful in about 1/3 of strokes. The blood clot medication is supposed to be given within 3 HOURS to be effective.

They will probably give you oxygen, and IV (water) to rack up the bill. They will give you CT scans, and lab tests. $$$$$$. If you have high blood pressure you could take some nitroglycerin pills, or have it added to your IV. But many heart patients take their own nitroglycerin pills at home. If you are having a burst blood vessel stroke (not a clot blockage stroke) there is nothing they can do. Burst blood vessels are often fatal.

From reading the medical treatment, my conclusion is that calling emergency services for a stroke serves to greatly reduce the weight of your purse, but that's about it. If your stroke was caused by the weight of a heavy purse then emergency treatment would be effective, but heavy purse is not listed as a common cause of stroke.

Its not like a heart attack where electric shock, etc., can stop someone from dying. Has anyone observed any effective immediate treatment for stroke? Other than emptying your purse is emergency treatment for stroke effective or worthwhile? Or, are they running the radio ads because their income is down in a down economy? From reading on-line medical advice, it appears that reducing the weight of your purse is the primary reason for the radio ads.

Reforming The Medical Industrial Complex

UPDATE August 25, 2009

Two more disturbing bits of news on the fascist "Blanc Check" medical industry takeover.

First: The Obama regime already controls medical care for aging veterans under the long established veteran's benefits programs. Obama rolled out its "euthanasia" plan for elderly veterans without waiting for Congress to enact a similar "death for the elderly" plan for all Americans. Elderly veterans now are to receive "counseling" on "Hospice," and pain medication in lieu of medical treatment. Meanwhile FactChuck keeps telling us that the Obama (Blanc Check) plan does not include euthanasia for the elderly.

Second: The Obama regime has extorted millions of dollars from pharmaceutical corporations by threatening them with loss of their monopoly protection, or loss of approval of their products by the FDA. They are being forced to pay for promotion of his (Blanc Check) fascist takeover of the medical industry. You may have noticed the ads on network TV praising Democratic Senators for their support of Obama fascism and asking you to phone them with more encouragement. When you see those ads, think "fascist extortion" being used for a fascist propaganda program.


Original Post. August 20, 2009

THE PROBLEM, A GOVERNMENT CREATED MONOPOLY

Everybody in the US knows that medical treatment has become so expensive that an average working man cannot afford it. Employers have responded by paying for insurance to spread the extreme cost of medical treatment over a whole population. Insurance makes people pay whether they need medical care or not. Mostly insurance makes men pay for the medical treatment of women. Men pay about 80% of medical insurance premiums and women receive about 75% of medical treatment.

From an economic perspective company paid medical insurance is part of the “real wages” that an employer pays to hire you. It gets deducted out of your pay before the taxes are calculated, but its a cost per employee that the employer has to pay. It is part of your pay. And no, of course, the Obama regime wants to tax your total wages, not just your paycheck wages. And you thought he said he wouldn't raise taxes on working people. ROFLMAO!!!

Little by little medical treatment has become so expensive that many employers can no longer afford to pay that much for employees. They have to compete with the next company down the road and so company paid insurance has become a huge expense that they are no longer paying.

Why, you might ask, is medical treatment so expensive? What you get for $400 is 45 minutes waiting in a room full of sick people, 10 minutes of a junior level nurse taking your weight and pulse, and maybe 5 minutes of a doctor's time during which he ignores most of your concerns and tells you to take the latest pills being pushed by some pharmaceutical corporation. The pills cost another $100. If you have insurance you only pay $15 or some token amount while the doctor has to hire 3 office staff to fill out the paperwork from insurance companies and government.

Why does that need to cost $500? Answer: It doesn't have to cost so much. It costs that much because it is a government created and enforced monopoly scheme to bleed your wallet. It is fundamentally a government created “pay or die” extortion scheme. How does the scheme work you might ask? Everyone in the media is talking about “reform” of the health care industry. Are they suggesting anything that will lower these extortion level prices? No, sorry. When you or I think about “reform” of a monopoly extortion racket we think about lowering costs and increasing our freedom of choice. That isn't what the Obama regime, the Democrats, nor the socialist propaganda outlets mean by “reform.” Whenever a corrupt politician is talking about “reform” what they are imagining is a creative new scheme to increase government control over your life and bleed the remaining life out of your wallet.

Instead of actually reforming the government's medical industrial monopoly, the Obama regime is planning to write them a massive blank check from your wallet, to pay all of their extreme prices and whatever they want to charge. They will save costs, as Obama said, by giving the elderly “pain pills” instead of medical treatment.

NEEDED REFORMS -- FREEDOM

Here is a list of reforms that the government could do to greatly lower the extreme cost of medical care. If government would get their corrupt evil hands out of health care the prices would drop back to where you or I could just go into a clinic and buy some.

1. End the government's quota system that limits medical schools and the number of doctors. Our Congresscunt's web page whines about how “concerned” she is over the shortage of doctors, but she says nothing at all about ending the government's quota system. The function of the quota has nothing to do with quality of doctor education. It is solely intended to reduce price competition, create a shortage of doctors, and allow doctors to get rich by selling their time to the highest bidder. When Bob was in University the highly respected medical school accidentally graduated more doctors than allowed by its quota. The AMA/government threatened them with loss of license to educate doctors because the QUOTA had been exceeded. No allegations were made that the huge state university wasn't able to train twice as many quality doctors. They could educate many doctors, if they were allowed to. Its a quota. They exceeded the quota. Too many doctors would create completion and break the government monopoly.

2. Stop the ridiculously expensive over-schooling of doctors. The quota system goes hand in hand with the greatly over expensive training of doctors. It adds nothing to a doctor's medical education to require 16 plus years of school before being allowed to apply for medical school. The Bachelor's degree with “A” average that medical schools require for admission is used to cut the number of doctors and keep an artificial limit on supply, to keep prices up. For most General Practitioner and Family Doctor work it doesn't even really take 4 or 5 years in medical school followed by another 4 years as a “resident” doctor in training at a hospital.

Most medical treatment could be just as effective if done by a doctor who had 4 years of schooling, including part time apprentice work with senior doctors. In the small percentage of difficult cases or complicated surgeries a more expensive and more highly educated doctor could be hired. It is ridiculous and grossly over expensive to require all doctors to be massively over educated for the work they are doing.

The reason why you cannot choose a less expensive general practice doctor is because the government monopoly does not allow less expensive doctors to provide services at reduced cost. No freedom to choose. Lots of government control. A huge and extremely expensive government mandated monopoly is what we have. Will it be reformed? LOL. Not by the Obama regime.

3. Break the government monopoly's control of our basic right to purchase medication when we decide that we need it. Take for example, a typical man “Charlie” who needs another year of Alopurinol for gout. Charlie has been taking Alopurinol for years along with millions of other gout sufferers. One pill a day keeps gout away.

Twenty years ago Charlie consulted a doctor and was prescribed Alopurinol to stop the recurring gout attacks. Consulting with a doctor for a new malady is a good option that Charlie was glad to have. But that was 20 years ago, and the gout continues for the rest of your life if Charlie is like other men.

All the information about Alopurinol is available on the Internet, including the patient information and the “doctor” information. Charlie has read all that, has 20 years of personal experience dealing with gout, and relies on Alopurinol for prevention. Sometime this month Charlie's year supply of pills is running out. In order to purchase another year supply Charlie must have (by government fiat) the permission of a government monopoly overpriced doctor. The government will not allow Charlie to just buy some pills. That would not feed the monopoly that contributes so much to the reelection funds of Congressional swine.

In order to purchase another year of Alopurinol for his gout, Charlie has to pay $100 or more, wait in some stupid room full of sick people for an hour, and endure the indignity of having his body poked, prodded and touched in unfriendly ways. If he's lucky he will only have to pay $100 for the monopoly's permission to purchase his pills. Depending on the doctor Charlie could end up paying $400 or more.

Once Charlie has permission to purchase his pills, he can go to a government regulated pharmacy and pay another $100 for a package of pills that would be priced at $50 in Canada or $25 in Mexico. The reason that health care is so expensive in the US is because the government mandates that millions of men like Charlie have to pay $200 (or more) to purchase $10 worth of pills.

The people have a fundamental right to choose our own doctor, to choose a highly skilled specialist or an inexpensive general practitioner for a routine problem. We have a right to buy another year of our pills without paying the government monopoly for permission. It is the government that is responsible for extremely high prices in the medical industrial monopoly.

In Charlie's case, 95% of the cost is waste and abuse caused by government. That is typical of the whole medical industrial monopoly. Real “reform” would get the government out of our lives, out of our doctor's offices, and off our backs.

4. Break the trial lieyer's fraudulent lawsuits against doctors. In a typical fraud, Senator Edwards made a large fortune by filing fraudulent lawsuits against OBGYN doctors in small rural areas where uneducated juries could be found. Edwards would convince juries with crying women rather than facts and evidence. His lawsuits raised the price of a typical OBGYN's malpractice insurance greatly. Edwards is single handedly responsible for raising the cost of OBGYN services to the average woman by about 25% across the whole US. Lieyer Edwards made a huge fortune, and spent some of his money getting himself elected to the US Senate.

The Edwards fraudulent lawsuits of OBGYNs are just one example of out of control single party and class action suits that plague doctors every day. Something like 1/3 of all the money doctors and hospitals charge goes to their malpractice insurance. Many doctors also use “defensive” tests, expensive unneeded tests, done solely as a hedge against frivolous and costly lawsuits.

Sometimes called “Tort Reform” a law limiting medical lawsuit damages to reasonable actual damages and barring “punitive” extra damages would greatly reduce medical costs. Yes, it is sad when some patient suffers because a doctor made a mistake. Raising the price of medical care for all the other patients in the US will not restore an arm, vision, or life that was lost by the mistake.

Tort reform would prevent unscrupulous lieyers like Edwards from getting rich on the backs of hard working men and women who need medical care. Will the Senate consider Tort reform? Is Edwards a Senator? Who's ox is getting gored? You figure it out.

5. End the government required monopoly in the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry pays big contributions to Congressmen to protect them from low priced competition. For example, several states that have free medical programs for poor people discovered that they could buy pills in Canada for less than the price in the US. The government passed a law making it illegal to purchase US made pills in Canada for lower prices than they are sold for in the US.

The price we pay for pills in the US is often 100 times what we should be paying without the government monopoly. A package of pills that costs 25 cents to produce will be sold for $2.50 in Africa, $25 in Europe, $50 in Mexico, $100 in Canada, and $250 in the US. If the government monopoly would allow competition, some small business startup would be producing the very same quality pills (or better) in your town and selling them for a handsome profit at $5. The rest of the $250 is the government monopoly.

Some will argue that the big corporate pill pushers are assuring quality. But small business often produces better quality than impersonal corporations. For example, the beer industry. Local small business often makes far better beer than big corporations. Local small business is much more sensitive to customers turning away when the quality slips. Big corporations can and often do sell crap to customers who can't tell the difference. The quality of corporate products is especially bad when they know that they have a government monopoly so you buy their crap made pill or die.

Some will argue that giving massive profits to corporations allows them to fund medical research. Okay, that's nice, but how many billion of our dollars goes to greedy profits and congressional corruption? There are far better ways to fund medical research than by giving a total monopoly to all the huge corporations for all the generic pills that can be produced on any corner.

Cutting off the government monopoly in the pharmaceutical industry would cut pill costs in the US to less than 10% of what we pay now. It would cut pharmaceutical corporation contributions to corrupt politicians by the same percentages. That's why they don't do it.

SUMMARY OF NEEDED REFORMS
1.End the quota system for doctors
2.End the mandated extremely over-education of doctors
3.Allow free citizens to purchase pharmaceuticals at our own decision. It's our body.
4.Break the Lieyer scum with Tort Reform
5.Break the pharmaceutical monopoly by allowing open manufacture and sale of pills.

WHAT CONGRESS AND OBAMA ARE DOING

Obama, Congress, and the Fascist NYC propaganda machine are all taking about “reform” of medical care in the US. They are not suggesting any of the needed reforms. When a fascist politician talks about “reform” what he means is that he has invented a new scheme to further extend control of your life and bleed your purse even more than it is being bled now.

None of the Congress, of either party, are talking about real reform in medical care. Only the Republicans are talking about Tort Reform and they only bring it up because they know the Dem's won't talk about it.

Congress is planning to write a blank check to their obscenely overpriced medical industrial monopoly, and pay for the check by taxing YOUR bank account or wages. They are proposing to require all Americans to pay for the bloated sow of monopoly medicine whether you are healthy or sick, and to extend free benefits to every illegal alien who can run across the border. Obama promised free medical care to every Mexican who can get into the US during his recent trip to Mexico.

WHAT CAN YOU DO

Bob does not advocate insurrection, sedition, murder, violence, assault, or any other criminal or illegal acts. You can only take every opportunity to speak with corrupt politicians and demand real reform. Don't expect the fascist government and corrupt politicians to listen to the people.

Perhaps when the total economic collapse that will inevitably come from their incompetent and corrupt mismanagement the people can reorganize a more just government. Save whiskey for trade goods.

Affordable Health Care For All

America needs to improve medical care while doing something about the horrible medical industrial complex. Just yesterday Bob was told about a man who went to a hospital for a 3 year follow up of a bypass surgery. While there the hospital gave him a drug resistant staph infection and a blood infection. The poor guy almost died. He will take weeks to regain some semblance of health. And what’s worse, the statistics on bypass surgery is that it DOES NOT extend life, on average. The average 5 year life expectancy after bypass surgery is no better than without bypass surgery. The surgery patient gets NO expected increase in life expectancy, but does get a guaranteed 6 months of severe physical pain and suffering. He also gets a severe depletion of his life savings, which the medical busine$$ takes.

For decades the AMA has held a tight monopoly on medical treatment, a monopoly authorized and ensured by the federal government. Breaking the monopoly of a single provider pricing at extreme “pay or die” prices should be a first priority. Breaking the pharmaceutical monopoly should be second. A month’s worth of pills that costs $0.25 in Africa will cost $25 in Europe and $250 in the US. The monopoly pricing must be broken, and Americans must be able to buy from low priced sources at home or abroad. Better information is needed. People need to be told before their $400,000 bypass surgery that the average patient doesn’t live any longer, but does suffer 6 months of surgical pain. People need to know that hormone treatments given to females for 40 years kill more patients than they save. Men need to know that prostate tests have more false positives than correct readings, and that even if you know you‘ve got it, there is no effective treatment for prostate cancer. The US medical business is fairly good at fixing broken bones, but beyond that they are often worse than useless.

For some years we have heard numerous Democratic politicians whining about guaranteed medical care for everyone. But NONE of them is even willing to talk about actually doing anything to improve medical care. All they ever propose is to write a massive blank check to the medical industrial complex at taxpayer expense. The medical industrial complex, AMA, doctors, hospitals, and drug companies all pay huge sums to campaign funds to buy politicians.

Hussein Obama plans to write a blank check for universal health care Here

Senatrix Hitllary plans to write a blank check for universal health care Here

John Edwards plans to write a blank check for universal health care Here

Bill Richardson plans to write a blank check for universal health care Here


On the Republican side there is a little less uniformity, some attempts at innovation, and fewer proponents of blank check solutions.

Senator McCain advocates restructuring the medical industrial complex to bring competition into health care. Here

Rudy Giuliani focuses on “insurance” coverage which, again, is simply writing a blank check to the medical industrial complex. He talks about “innovative approaches” but missing is any thought of breaking the AMA monopoly or the pharmaceutical monopoly. Here

Mike Huckabee recites much of the same old saw about improving “insurance” blank check medical care. No improvement there either. Here

Ron Paul talks about making health care more affordable by elimination of government regulation, but has no specific proposals. He also does not mention breaking health care monopolies and monopoly “pay or die” pricing. Here

Fred Thompson talks about innovation lowering costs and reducing regulations to allow competition. No blank check is proposed Here

Mitt Romney is a big city liberal who’s narrow vision focuses on ways to pay the blank checks demanded by the medical industrial complex. Here

Bob’s suggestions
1. We need to break the AMA monopoly on doctor education and licensing. High prices are maintained by limiting the number of doctors and unreasonably extending the difficulty of new doctors in medical schools. End the government sponsored AMA quota system that limits medical school enrollments. Allow medical schools to train as many doctors as they are capable of training.

2. We need to allow some lesser practitioner for lower technical medications. Routine medications should just be available from trained pharmacists. Stitching up cuts and bruises doesn’t need 6 years in medical school. Save the high priced doctors for the highly technical or unusually difficult, non-routine, injuries and illnesses.

3. Surgery should be subject to the same kind of “safe and efficacious” standards that drugs are subject to. Hundreds of thousands of needless or harmful surgeries should just be eliminated, surgeries that do not prolong life or increase quality of life.

4. “Heroic” end of life care should be drastically reduced. One report said that 80% of “health care” is spent in the last 6 months of people’s lives, after which they die. Much of the time the only effect of the “treatment” is to reduce the quality of life during the person’s final few months, and to empty their life savings into the bank accounts of the doctors.

5. Medications should be available on Internet order from the lowest cost provider, whether American or off shore. A month’s supply of pills that costs $0.25 in Africa should be available by Internet order for about a buck plus shipping. The $250, pay or die, pricing of American monopoly pharmacies must be broken. There is no reason to require me to pay another $100 to visit an AMA member for permission to pay $250 for overpriced medicine. I can read the manufacturer’s web site with all the “doctor” information just as fast as the AMA member can. I am the consumer who has to pay. I have a right to buy from the low priced supplier without government standing in my way.

I don't see any of the politicians talking about the real solutions that Bob has proposed. Only John McCain even talks about real reform, but his platform is not very well thought out.