On VACATION!!!
Yearly Archives: 2009
No Stone Left Unturned One of the biggest indicators of how much we need health care reform is the extent and costs of the battle that the special interests of the medical-pharmaceutical-industrial complex are waging to kill it. Theirs’ is a well financed, coordinated, no-holds-barred war, leaving no stone un-turned in their efforts to influence...
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That Was Then…And This Is Now That Was Then: Republican President Nixon told a press conference in July of 1969: “We face a massive crisis in health care. Unless action is taken within the next two or three years….we will have a breakdown in our medical system.” An article in Fortune magazine at the...
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Health care is a sick business Imagine an entity that is both amoral and soulless; its guiding precept is profit and growth. This is the foundation of the modern American conglomerate; including those of the health care, pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Witness: “Health insurance giant Aetna is planning to force up to 650,000 clients to...
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This is a Test? Wow! What a week of reversals in medical testing guidelines for mammography screening and Pap smears. Let’s sideline the emotional issues for women, who for decades have been inculcated in the necessity and life-saving benefits of annual Pap smears and mammograms. Some women may now feel betrayed for having been put...
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First, Do No Harm Imagine running a scam that earned you $3 billion dollars a year! Imagine having legal counsel calculating and telling you, ahead of time, that it might take the Feds 3 or 4 years to catch on, and another 2-5 years of court battles to reach the guilty verdict you anticipate. Imagine,...
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A Green Thumb Here is a little thinking exercise I like to work through with my patients. I call it the green thumb analogy. What does it mean when we refer to someone as having a green thumb? Everyone knows that it refers to someone who has a natural skill for gardening, or growing plants....
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The Fountain of Youth Almost every cell in your body is being continually regenerated, some at faster rates than others. The cells lining the stomach are replaced about every five days. The epidermis, or surface layer of skin cells, recycles about every two weeks. Red blood cells last about four months while liver cells are...
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Bus 31 On my way home, stopped at a light in North Adams, I spotted BRTA (Berkshire Regional Transit Authority) Bus 31 stopped, facing me in the oncoming lane. Its digital display was flashing its route: WalMart-Hospital, WalMart-Hospital…with the return route, presumably, Hospital-WalMart, Hospital-WalMart. Irony becomes reality: a literal mass-transit loop between mass-consumerism and mass-sickness....
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Republican vs. Democratic Health Reform Plans US Representative Alan Grayson, from the great state of Florida, sums up, simply and precisely, the Republican Health Reform Plan vs. the Democratic Health Reform plan, the public option. What don’t people get?
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