Your Doctor Serves The State, Not You

[redcliffsw]

Your Doctor Serves The State, Not You
by Michael Scott, MD

As a physician thoroughly frustrated with our State medical apparatus, I read a large number of opinion pieces and news articles on its perceived woes and proposals for its reform. Though I have read some excellent works on these pages and at the Mises Institute site, the majority found in the popular media reek of economic ignorance and worship of the State. Most private physicians knowingly groan when they encounter such garbage, and simply go about the business of their day caring for the sick in the often impossible system which they find themselves. In sharp contrast, many in academic medicine and professional societies such as the AMA cheer, spread it amongst their colleagues, and write additional State-supporting propaganda, the latest of which to come to my attention was the proverbial straw for this camel, and from which I include a particularly remarkable quote:

    "It would be such a shame if we once again fail to cover the uninsured because of hang-ups over costs. Physician decisions drive the majority of expenditures in the US health care system. American health care costs will never be controlled until most physicians are no longer paid fees for specific services."

So begin the fantasies of yet another healthcare dictator in the making, proceeding to issue his decree specifying exactly which types of medical services should and should not be provided in this country. At the stroke of his mighty pen, many common services demanded by patients are restricted or (even better) prohibited. Today he limits his list to seven broad categories, including coronary bypass, angioplasty and stenting, prostate cancer screening and treatment, mammography, and CT/MRI (which he interestingly refers to as "art forms"). Tomorrow, who knows which unthinkable ways he will devise to save money for his benefactor the State. Forget the decisions of millions of patients and physicians across the country, they're wrong, all wrong. After all, unlike us common grunts providing the care he seeks to limit, he has the proper credentials! He's used his medical degree to specialize in pathology, work as a professor, laboratory director, journal editor and now "serves" as President and Chair of the Board of The Lundberg Institute, named for himself, whose mission is to "forge a patient-physician alliance based on trust, providing leadership, strategies, and communications that promote evidence-informed, efficient, and effective health care delivery to benefit the health and well-being of patients, physicians, and the public." While possessing a truly impressive résumé in the academic world, it is woefully devoid of virtually any experience in that one often messy matter which is the essence of the profession: actual face-to-face contact with living, breathing patients. To summarize, perfect for our newest Czar.

rest of story:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/scott-m1.1.1.html

[pamsback]

 I read these things you post Red, even tho more often than not I think they are ridiculous. Sometimes I find a few things I agree with. Would you like to know what I find offensive about most of these people? The thing I find I can't stand about most of them is that they operate from the position of "the general public is an uneducated, grasping, gimmee gimmee, writhing mass of mutant idiots who believe everything the government or their agents or anybody else tell them".

[pepelect]

We are sheep.....We must be spoon fed..... We have no individual brain or ability to function without the collective....

Insurance companies are the biggest and easiest target.  Eliminate them.  Put value back into the services provided.  Start over with a level playing field.  Quit letting insurance companies trade on the stock market.  The bottom line profit at all costs to share holders is in direct conflict with the principal purpose of insurance which is to assess risk.  Start the ponzi scheme all over again.  Make the insurance company partner with the medical field and produce better results instead of dictating procedures and denials.


Make sure the check clears by the third..........

[jprxmkt]

The system is completely broken now. It took me a complete hour Monday to fill 1 prescription becasue I was on the phone for that long with the insurance company so I could get paid for that 1 prescription!  The great Medicare D plan that the lawmakers put together with the donut hole after your drug costs reach $2400.  Grandma and grandpa then continue to pay their monthly premium plus ALL of the drug costs until they reach $5100.  Who came up with that crap!  Now they are going to get "coverage" for the whole country. Give me a break! 

[srkruzich]

I read these things you post Red, even tho more often than not I think they are ridiculous. Sometimes I find a few things I agree with. Would you like to know what I find offensive about most of these people? The thing I find I can't stand about most of them is that they operate from the position of "the general public is an uneducated, grasping, gimmee gimmee, writhing mass of mutant idiots who believe everything the government or their agents or anybody else tell them".

Hate to tell ya but They Do! 

[srkruzich]

The system is completely broken now. It took me a complete hour Monday to fill 1 prescription becasue I was on the phone for that long with the insurance company so I could get paid for that 1 prescription!  The great Medicare D plan that the lawmakers put together with the donut hole after your drug costs reach $2400.  Grandma and grandpa then continue to pay their monthly premium plus ALL of the drug costs until they reach $5100.  Who came up with that crap!  Now they are going to get "coverage" for the whole country. Give me a break! 

I hear ya. The only way they could get the medicare part d approved is if they did that.  They couldn't sell the plan with its initial cost so they created that donut hole that just so happens to be a big chunk of folks that would fall into it but never make it to the other side so taht got the government off the lam for the bill.

I know one thing if you can possibly do it, refuse to take part D medicare, and go apply to the pharmaceutical companies for the 5 dollar drug program they offer.

[flintauqua]

The system is completely broken now. It took me a complete hour Monday to fill 1 prescription becasue I was on the phone for that long with the insurance company so I could get paid for that 1 prescription!  The great Medicare D plan that the lawmakers put together with the donut hole after your drug costs reach $2400.  Grandma and grandpa then continue to pay their monthly premium plus ALL of the drug costs until they reach $5100.  Who came up with that crap!  Now they are going to get "coverage" for the whole country. Give me a break! 

And who came up with the broken system we have now.  The drug manufacturers and insurance companies that paid off enough of Congress in years past; the same ones that are now doing everything possible to derail meaningful reform to insure their profits.

[jprxmkt]

I know one thing if you can possibly do it, refuse to take part D medicare, and go apply to the pharmaceutical companies for the 5 dollar drug program they offer.

That works sometimes, and short-term but it isn't a very realistic longterm fix to rely on the drug companies for cheap meds for a few when the majority pay over-inflated prices set by those very same drug companies.

[srkruzich]

I know one thing if you can possibly do it, refuse to take part D medicare, and go apply to the pharmaceutical companies for the 5 dollar drug program they offer.

That works sometimes, and short-term but it isn't a very realistic longterm fix to rely on the drug companies for cheap meds for a few when the majority pay over-inflated prices set by those very same drug companies.
[/quote]

Yeah i know but like me, i have to not buy some of my meds cause i can't afford the medicare costs.  They pay for some and deny other drugs.  IF it weren't for the walmart and dillons 4 dollar prescription program i wouldn't get my needed drugs right now.   I know one drug i used to take, til i got a wonderful doctor that managed to repair the damage done by another doctor, its called ranexa.  It was costing me 1200 every 3 months. I hit that donut hole and bam i was screwed.  So what i ended up doing is take half my meds to make it the other six months without meds.  It stopped my angina when i took it properly, but since i couldn't get enough i had to time my pills so that i was resting when i couldn't take it.   

Now thank God i don't have to take it anymore and have probably 3 months of it sitting on the cabinet in there. 

Do I begrudge or fuss about the manufactuers cost? Not a bit cause i know what went into discovering this new drug and the relief it has given many people.   Just wish it could be made cheaper.

[jprxmkt]

Also, the CEO's of most of the insurance companies earn millions of dollars each for their "important" jobs.  What is it exactly that they do that merits these high incomes while so many families that have survived cancer can no longer get health insurance or it is so expensive they can't afford it?

FYI on the $4 prescriptions. Check their prices on ANYTHING that isn't on that $4 program.