The Medical Freedom Channel

Let’s try this once more; it doesn’t seem to be filtering into the public memes very well so far …

One of the biggest obstacles to serious “healthcare reform” (from aftercare and masking symptoms … to wellness, prevention and cures!) is the present “employee benefit” model for providing “health insurance.” Until that huge momentum (and inertia) toward largescale, third-party payments – with little regard to the actual costs of “medical services” (or to market-based pricing of any sort?) – is reversed (i.e., abolished or VERY severely restructured), there can be no real-world solution to skyrocketing costs of keeping one’s carcass intact and functioning properly.

I’ve made this point at least a couple dozen times over the course of this blog’s existence (it’ll be four years in October). But it apparently has not filtered out to enough thinking people; witness the commentary this week on AlterNet, by Trudy Lieberman of the Columbia Journalism Review. In her rather hysterical screed, Ms. Lieberman bemoans the healthcare reform plan by Presidential wannabe Sen. John McCain – not because it would focus (at least marginally) more on market solutions than on nationalizing the problem, but because his programs would endanger (she uses the word “gut”) the present model of “employer-paid health insurance.”

Perhaps this disconnect is due to this editor’s failure to trace the history of this alleged “benefit”; very well, here is a thumbnail sketch of that heritage:
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Well, now they’ve done it! Now they want to insulate the danged “minute clinics”!

According to a Boston Globe news story, the recent rise in low-cost walk-in clinics, sponsored by various chain-stores (Walgreen’s, CVS, et alia), has attracted the interest of the HMO world, at least in Massachusetts.

As the story, “Insurers to cover drugstore clinic visits,” reports, both Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan have signed contracts with CVS Caremark, and are in negotiation with Walgreen’s, seeking to “cover” most of the costs of patient visits to CVS and similar “minute clinics,” by offering reduced “co-pays” to those under their umbrellas who seek care at the clinics.

To some, this might seem a good thing, since the programs call for much lower co-payments from the patients than those exacted for more conventional healthcare visits (doctor’s offices or emergency rooms). Instead of the $75-150 customary for ER drop-ins, the patients will likely be paying only $15-25 for a clinic appearance.

The problem is, the wider effect of this could be the perpetuation of the very thing that got us into the healthcare mess in the first place: the “employee benefit,” third-party payor, institutionalized model for maintaining wellness. Read the rest of this entry »

Another apology … wearing thin, I suspect by now.

After a rather arduous move (not a long distance, just a lot of things to deal with, including a complete computer rebuild), this editor is firmly ensconced in the new digs and looking forward to expanding this website/blog into the valuable and valued resource it should have been all along.

This is of course the final edition for this week, but there should be a new vitality in next Monday’s renderings. If not it means that yet another level of communications-gremlin has struck, but I intend to find a new level by then regardless …

stay tuned; this could get interesting

Chaotic situations, slow recovery … getting there soon …

This space has not changed in about a week, and the daily news/commentary updates have also flagged. Mea maxima culpa; this will soon be remedied, and with new things to come … I promise!

You may notice a gap since the last editorial comment; due to a physical relocation and some iffy internet connections … this may continue for another day or two. Your patience is appreciated and admired.

You may notice a gap since the last editorial comment; due to a physical relocation and some iffy internet connections … this may continue for another day or two. Your patience is appreciated and admired.

Still too many choices to make on good stories to follow upon …

ForMONDAY:

NEWS

1. Report: FDA generic drug reviews delayed - Reuters

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration failed to review on time nearly half the applications from generic drug makers seeking approval to sell cheaper versions of brand-name pharmaceuticals, according to a government report released on Friday.”

Okay, so this says that the affordable versions of drugs alleged to treat symptoms of illness, the ones that show up on the market once the patented high-dollar ones have run their terms, are taking much longer to receive approval than their Big Pharma predecessors. It’s hard to believe anyone thinking this is a good thing! (Of course, the claim is usually made that this is only indicative of how THIS administration’s FDA operates, and how different it will be when the OTHER party’s stooges are in place … does anybody else out there believe that crap, either?)

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN1331291620080614

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2. Five reasons women get pregnant in spite of pill - Fox News

“The pill is 99 percent effective in preventing pregnancy. Even so, between 2 and 8 percent of women become pregnant each year while using it. And doctors say it’s not the pill that’s failing women, but women failing the pill.”

Once again we get an “it’s mostly your fault” take on accidental pregnancy; although there is at least some shared responsibility shown in a couple of the “reasons” (generics not as effective, etc.), the main finger-pointing is at women who are not meticulous about their pill-taking (missing a day, only slightly worse than not taking them at the same time each day …). And once again, there is no discussion about how if contraception were more reliable and less complicated, and less reliant on “perfect attendance” (to detail) of some sort, the entire abortion issue would barely be a ripple on the political front … sigh!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,366741,00.html

===== COMMENTARY

1. Was Tim Russert killed by heart medication?
Natural News - Mike Adams

“NBC commentator Tim Russert was taking prescription medications when he suffered a heart attack and died yesterday at the age of 58. The mainstream media is reporting that Russert died from a ‘heart attack,’ but no press outlet has yet bothered to ask: ‘What caused the heart attack?’ … Pharmaceuticals, you see, do not solve any underlying health problems. They do not cure heart disease, nor do they prevent it. Rather, they simply “control” the symptoms of disease by artificially lowering or inflating numbers on a blood test … when, in reality, no fundamental health improvements exist at all. That’s why pharmaceuticals that are used to treat heart disease actually promote the continuation of disease and discourage patients from taking other, more proactive steps to resolve their underlying health problems and eliminate the need for medication.”

It’s actually hard to know how to improve on this commentary; Adams has as usual done his homework, as well as correctly noting the distortions that Big Pharma’s “symptom blockers” produce on otherwise healable conditions in the body. Nobody else has been bold enough to question the MSM account of this story.

http://www.naturalnews.com/023434.html
Read the rest of this entry »

I’m still finding filling this space weekly a challenge. So I’ll continue my new plan, those Editor’s Notes I keep trying to shoehorn into a few words in each daily posting. A bit less brief, and it keeps this space moving along; a win-win situation.

THURSDAY:

News

1. Two more girls die after Gardasil - Natural News

One more case of trying to turn a questionable “remedy” for a disease some will never even encounter … into a childhood “inoculation” that is turning out to have almost as many side effects and dangers as the rare disease it claims to prevent! Anyone else surprised?

http://www.naturalnews.com/023419.html

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2. Obesity: Higher bills, despite shortened lives - USA TODAY

One more in the DUH category? If you let your body go to hell, it costs more to keep it functioning … even if you only get to function for a little while, the last days are ka-ching!

http://tinyurl.com/5mkgj2

===== COMMENTARY

1. The overmedicating of America
Health News Digest - Allan Sosin, M.D.

This is almost redundant in this space, but great to see in HND, a fairly mainstream health site most of the time … The key part is the opening:

“Americans take so many drugs that 100,000 of us die every year because of those drugs. It is not illness that causes those 100,000 deaths, but the damaging effects of drugs taken for illness. Beyond these deaths there are millions of adverse drug reactions every year, resulting in hospitalizations, lost days from work, lost income, and sometimes chronic disability. … Higher doses of drugs, and combinations of drugs, increase the risks.”

http://tinyurl.com/68ew8g

2. Hay belly nation: The FDA & the o-word
CounterPunch - Deborah Rich

That is “o” for “organic” foods, of course. And the continued foot-dragging by the FDA & the DOA (and other Big Pharma & Big Food servants) in admitting that at least some of these foodstuffs not created in laboratories and factory farms ARE actually both better for you AND natural healers of many ailments we have been conditioned to think only respond to pills!

http://www.counterpunch.org/rich06112008.html

3. Social anxiety … or just shyness?
Boston Globe - Christopher Lane

Christopher Lane, as the tagline notes, is “a professor of English at Northwestern University [and] author of Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness.” So you mean to say this SAD “ailment” (pun intended) is metastatizing all over the place … just like ADHD, PTSD and similar recently spawned “industries”? Na-a-ah, you must be delusional, and we’ve got a pill for that!

http://tinyurl.com/66zw4z

4. Drug addiction is easy to cure
News With Views - Dr. James Howenstine, MD.

“When a health condition persists despite the availability of a simple safe solution for the condition, one needs to be suspicious that powerful entrenched interests are at work preserving their turf. This seems to be the situation with drug addiction …”

This should be common knowledge … that it is not tells you how many people owe their livelihood to “helping addicts cope” — instead of supporting them in either curing or maintaining their level of “addiction” … Having been “addicted” (according to commonly held current definitions) at various times in my life to … lessee: tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, sugar, caffeine, sex (that’s good for starters) … I know whereof I speak. (Some of those things I no longer touch; others are occasional indulgences … addiction has not been an issue for years.)

And now we find out orange juice, or its main citrus component, is the secret? Sheesh!

http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james66.htm

Read the rest of this entry »

As noted last week, I’ve reached the point where filling this space weekly is not only a burden, but an impossibility! Either I have no good ideas, or I have so many I can’t choose among them … or I just don’t get the juice and the time to do them justice …

So for the time being I’m going to use this spot for those Editor’s Notes I keep trying to shoehorn into a few words in each daily posting. I can be a bit less brief, and I can keep this space moving along; a win-win situation.

So without further ado, the comments:

WEDNESDAY:

News

1. Lasik surgery: Worse vision & neverending pain? - Natural News

Note: I’ve been hearing horror stories (not many, just enough …) about Lasik and its negatives for some time now. It makes me glad in some ways that I have been unable to justify the expense to turn my myopia/astigmatism/ocular degeneration into clear and lensless vision 24-7. It would hardly surprise me, given my complete LACK of allergies and other ailments, to find I was among that 5-10% with adverse reactions to this procedure. At any rate, I shall certainly refrain from any of the “cut rate offers” for such services.

http://www.naturalnews.com/023344.html

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2. MA: Health insurance gains detailed - Boston Globe

Note: The news that “86,000 people paid a state tax penalty rather than buy insurance” almost says it all; what will they do next: start locking folks up for not playing along? Admittedly, it’s more than a slim majority (71%) who are complying, but among those not previously having insurance, it drops below that magic “mandate” (to 44%). This should be a warning to those who try to impose it nationally.

http://tinyurl.com/5e2kgb

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Commentary

1. More profit than progress in cancer research
MSNBC - Robert Bazell

Note: A good analysis of the failures of cancer research to actually “cure” anything, as well as a pinpointing of how the industry is really about increasing profits to Big Pharma, by maintaining a “user base” of ailing patients — keeping them barely alive a bit longer, as captive customers.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24930000/

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2. Insured or not, few are secure
Daytona [FL] News-Journal - Pierre Tristam

Note: And it is here that the real problem lies: Even the insured folks are in constant fear of “pre-existing conditions” — as well as “coverage denied” for a variety of other (often arbitrary) reasons — and ignoring the fact that in many cases the cost of their “coverage” over even a fairly short time might have been able to go directly to … health and wellness! Mr. Tristam nails this issue cold.

http://www.news-journalonline.com/ColEssays.htm

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3. My mother was right about healthcare
San Francisco Chronicle - Luisa Morenilla

Note: Well, perhaps … Momma’s right that you might need some way of paying for emergencies, and the possibility of catastrophic illness, somewhere in the future; however, as a 20something now, if you chose to begin putting those premium-payments into a savings account (and leaving the funds there only for such emergencies) right NOW … you’d have a sizable cash fund built up by the time you need it, and I’ll just bet that you’d find a doctor or two willing to negotiate price for such a “paperless” transaction! (Seeing this kind of “help me, Massah!” attitude from even our nation’s young folks … just scares the hell out of me!)

http://tinyurl.com/62vppb

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve reached the point where filling this space every week is not only a burden, but an impossibility! Either I have no good ideas, or I have so many I can’t choose among them … or I just don’t get the juice and the time to do them justice …

So for the time being I’m going to use this spot for those Editor’s Notes I keep trying to shoehorn into a few words in each daily posting. I can be a bit less brief, and I can keep this space moving along; a win-win situation.

First off, the Commentaries:

FRIDAY:

Principle determines course of healthcare
Tennessean - Richard Cowart

This is a fairly well considered thinkpiece, from a writer identified as “chairman of the health law and public policy departments of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz and a past president of the American Health Lawyers Association.” It directly addresses the question of how we might balance the alleged desire to take care of everyone else around us, with the reality of taxes as the revenue-source for such largess. The only real problem is how blithely he steps over the fact that a “desire to help” should come from one’s own charitable sentiments and resources — NOT at the expense of others against their will. He does admit, however, that even in his worldview of coercion, pragma overcomes philanthropy: “The ultimate lesson learned from TennCare is that we cannot afford, as taxpayers, to do all we want to do as admirable citizens.”

http://tinyurl.com/6j8src

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2. The Florida revelation …
Wall Street Journal - staff

This could bear watching, since it attempts to de-governmentize the concept … Similar notice could be given to New Jersey, which is attempting to knock down the state barriers for those seeking “coverage.” The possibility now that one or more states might lower their list of mandated services, then allow even outsiders to buy such streamlined policies from companies operating there, could bode well in the healthcare reform process.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121201589150427551.html

===== News

1. Tamiflu linked to convulsions, delirium & deaths - Natural News

So now we are finding that a Big Pharma drug, developed to combat an illness that has yet to be proven to exist among humans (except via DIRECT physical contact with diseased Asian birds?) … turns out not only to not prevent such an illness, but be dangerous and even lethal to those who ingest it … Hmm … why am I not surprised?

“An FDA advisory panel has recommended stronger warnings on two influenza drugs after reviewing evidence linking them to neurological and psychiatric problems that have led to deaths in some cases. The current warning on Roche Laboratories’ Tamiflu (generic name oseltamivir) urges close monitoring of flu patients, particularly children, for ‘increased risk of self injury and confusion shortly after taking Tamiflu.’”

http://www.naturalnews.com/023324.html

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2. Oops! Did I remember to take my pill? - Boston Globe

As has been noted numerous times in this space, contraception should be a major focus of our pharmaceutical labs: With safe, simple, easily reversible and 100% effective contraception (coupled with an attitude that affirms the right to experience and share peaceful and voluntary pleasure among adults, instead of condemning “licentious behavior”) we could virtually eliminate the entire abortion issue from our discussions, and focus on wellness, prevention and affordable necessary healthcare.

http://tinyurl.com/49rben

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