Perfect, Timothy. Posted fb and twitter. (LOrion)  I am telling people not to ever complain about any health problems if they weren't out there on the front lines fighting for this.

Retired MD, Member PNHP

and a MAD AS HELL DOCTOR (I didn't even know we were a group!..go to the guys that demonstrated out front of the Whitehouse today.)

Oops and will share with Keith O and Rachel M too.

Exactly, and mark my words... In NO more than 50yrs, if health care/insurance does NOT get reformed: Private Health Insurance will Extinct itself! Why? At rising medical costs and Premiums 3X that of wages... and Employers dropping coverage and/or shifting the cost of Health Care Insurance, The vast majority of Americans will simply NOT be able to afford health insurance... Period! Hold me at my word, but I am pretty sure I am right about this...

We can't afford either.  Go back to the drawing board.

And these are only the financial costs. What price the ethical ones? The physical,emotional, mental costs? Will we be the 1st, and only industrialized country to make Poverty a Capital Crime?

Addresses the genesis of the movement.  NJ.

Is there a politician from either side who will be frank and press forward with what we all know (average American).

That's the problem!  We don't want the sugar coated lies that are unnecessary!

FACT- Medicare is going broke whether it should have been started or not

FACT-  We need the young to pay for the program (call em taxes;whatever) because the elders aren't on payrolls anymore.

FACT- Times are tough and the government has to trim (frugal)

Just fix it congress and kill the drama! Pass a sensible bill that addresses what we need and stop spending more money.

I don't get it, nor probably does the average American, why does this go on and on?

"Get R Done!"--Stew

I can't believe Rockefeller wants to make Insurance companies spend a whopping 10% of their 30% overhead on health. That's so they can get the 500 BILLION in subsidies FROM OUR TAX DOLLARS over the next ten years.

I'm no mathemetician, but that looks like it would pay for half of the bill for healthcare reform.

The other should be paid for by letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Why doesn't anyone want to talk about these two items?

It makes my blood boil to think they will continue to get subsidies. And don't let Baucus do the switcharoo on ya. Even if the subsidies are given to the insured to PAY FOR health insurance, guess who's pockets it still ends up in?

NO SUBSIDIES FOR INSURANCE COMPANIES, PERIOD!!!

WHat's WITH Rockefeller, anyways? He was my Hero.

Is   there 56 million people uninsured in America , and if some states are jacking premium rates then WHY DON'T WE ALLOW PEOPLE the COMMON decency of SHOPPING ACROSS STATE LINES for a Better price for health care insurance ?????????

Tort Reform is a partisan red herring.  Until there is an EFFECTIVE way to ensure quality control of health care AND some sort of recourse for what are HONESTLY medical mistakes or other infractions or failures in the practice of medicine (I've endured multiple medical mistakes in my life and that's not counting blatant violations of ethics or even the laws governing the practice of medicine), there has to be SOMETHING in place that both punishes doctors AS WELL AS protecting and compensating patients.  Just in my case alone, I'm not talking little things like a bandaid placed in the wrong direction.  I'm talking years of misdiagnoses (once 20 years of gastroparesis called IBS and another time sacroilitis called physical pain from depression and stress for 2 years before anyone even CHECKED my back), hours with a ruptured spleen and internal bleeding under the care of a doc who insisted it was a bruised rib and wouldn't even call for a consult as symptoms worsened until he was threatened with lawyers, docs who wanted to prescribe combination antibiotics containing penicillin despite knowing I'm allergic to penicillin (and who finally had to have my pharmacist demand a new antibiotic), etc.  Yet between the insurance company and state licensing to get a doc even investigated they have to pretty much felony assault someone (and generally sexually) or they have to be committing fraud or have committed malpractice resulting in death or at the very least REPEATED disfigurement or disability.  Worse, until the doctor is sanctioned at certain levels, that they've even been investigated is kept hidden. So a patient has no way of knowing they may be seeing a doc who, as I put it, shouldn't see live patients.

The problem isn't where you buy your insurance.  The problem is that we even HAVE insurance and how insurance operates in our health care system.  Insurance companies have manipulated a growing number of doctors and other providers so that they won't (or even can't due to their insurance company contracts) see cash patients and even when they will, what they want from a cash patient is often payment in full, up front as based on prices NO ONE with insurance would pay and a worst case scenario of what the bill might be.  It can be next to impossible to find a doctor who'll see you without insurance outside a sliding scale clinic or charity care system.  Even when you have insurance, it doesn't mean you have access to any doctors, any hospitals, to the care you need when you need it or that if you have access you can afford to use it. Health insurance can be like paying $5 to the cinnamon roll stand in a mall and finding out all you really are getting is the chance to stand downwind and breathe deeply - but not even a little frosting to lick off your fingers.

It's also not "the states" that are "jacking up premium rates".  It's the INSURANCE COMPANIES.  A price may be higher in (and I'm using random states here) California than North Dakota for many reasons.  Could be things one state requires of all policies that the other doesn't.  Could be something about how one state allows risk assessment but the other doesn't.  Could be that one state buys mostly one type plan but the other doesn't.  Could be that one state requires keeping all policy money in state but the other doesn't. Could be a difference in over head costs like offices and staffing.  I certainly wouldn't even think about this as a "solution" without knowing more about the why's and without standardizing some of the plan requirements - because otherwise what we'll find is that most or all plans are going to be based out of whatever state has the fewest regulations.  That won't solve anything.  It might even be worse than what we have now. 

But those who posted above are absolutely correct.  It is way past time to admit this isn't just about dollars and cents.  It's also about morals and ethics and human life.  Not fixing the system - even finding a way to keep it from getting any worse than it is RIGHT NOW - carries costs like avoidable deaths and disabilities in people who don't have insurance or who have insurance they can't afford to use, both of which work out to lack of access to health care or very limited access.  The cost goes beyond the individuals and their families too. It carries costs in things like increased poverty, increased social stresses and stressors, increased risk for certain conditions that come with poverty and high stress for those in the survivors' families, etc.  Plus society absorbs the cost of things like more welfare, more disability, lost production, more going onto Medicare/Medicaid, etc.  We're already paying for not fixing the system.  We're already abusing human rights because we won't fix the system.  It's time to quit playing politics with human lives and pandering to big business and FIX HEALTH CARE.

Tort Reform is a partisan red herring.  Until there is an EFFECTIVE way to ensure quality control of health care AND some sort of recourse for what are HONESTLY medical mistakes or other infractions or failures in the practice of medicine (I've endured multiple medical mistakes in my life and that's not counting blatant violations of ethics or even the laws governing the practice of medicine), there has to be SOMETHING in place that both punishes doctors AS WELL AS protecting and compensating patients.  Just in my case alone, I'm not talking little things like a bandaid placed in the wrong direction.  I'm talking years of misdiagnoses (once 20 years of gastroparesis called IBS and another time sacroilitis called physical pain from depression and stress for 2 years before anyone even CHECKED my back), hours with a ruptured spleen and internal bleeding under the care of a doc who insisted it was a bruised rib and wouldn't even call for a consult as symptoms worsened until he was threatened with lawyers, docs who wanted to prescribe combination antibiotics containing penicillin despite knowing I'm allergic to penicillin (and who finally had to have my pharmacist demand a new antibiotic), etc.  Yet between the insurance company and state licensing to get a doc even investigated they have to pretty much felony assault someone (and generally sexually) or they have to be committing fraud or have committed malpractice resulting in death or at the very least REPEATED disfigurement or disability.  Worse, until the doctor is sanctioned at certain levels, that they've even been investigated is kept hidden. So a patient has no way of knowing they may be seeing a doc who, as I put it, shouldn't see live patients.

The problem isn't where you buy your insurance.  The problem is that we even HAVE insurance and how insurance operates in our health care system.  Insurance companies have manipulated a growing number of doctors and other providers so that they won't (or even can't due to their insurance company contracts) see cash patients and even when they will, what they want from a cash patient is often payment in full, up front as based on prices NO ONE with insurance would pay and a worst case scenario of what the bill might be.  It can be next to impossible to find a doctor who'll see you without insurance outside a sliding scale clinic or charity care system.  Even when you have insurance, it doesn't mean you have access to any doctors, any hospitals, to the care you need when you need it or that if you have access you can afford to use it. Health insurance can be like paying $5 to the cinnamon roll stand in a mall and finding out all you really are getting is the chance to stand downwind and breathe deeply - but not even a little frosting to lick off your fingers.

It's also not "the states" that are "jacking up premium rates".  It's the INSURANCE COMPANIES.  A price may be higher in (and I'm using random states here) California than North Dakota for many reasons.  Could be things one state requires of all policies that the other doesn't.  Could be something about how one state allows risk assessment but the other doesn't.  Could be that one state buys mostly one type plan but the other doesn't.  Could be that one state requires keeping all policy money in state but the other doesn't. Could be a difference in over head costs like offices and staffing.  I certainly wouldn't even think about this as a "solution" without knowing more about the why's and without standardizing some of the plan requirements - because otherwise what we'll find is that most or all plans are going to be based out of whatever state has the fewest regulations.  That won't solve anything.  It might even be worse than what we have now. 

But those who posted above are absolutely correct.  It is way past time to admit this isn't just about dollars and cents.  It's also about morals and ethics and human life.  Not fixing the system - even finding a way to keep it from getting any worse than it is RIGHT NOW - carries costs like avoidable deaths and disabilities in people who don't have insurance or who have insurance they can't afford to use, both of which work out to lack of access to health care or very limited access.  The cost goes beyond the individuals and their families too. It carries costs in things like increased poverty, increased social stresses and stressors, increased risk for certain conditions that come with poverty and high stress for those in the survivors' families, etc.  Plus society absorbs the cost of things like more welfare, more disability, lost production, more going onto Medicare/Medicaid, etc.  We're already paying for not fixing the system.  We're already abusing human rights because we won't fix the system.  It's time to quit playing politics with human lives and pandering to big business and FIX HEALTH CARE.

Everyone is looking at the wrong end of health care like looking at the wrong end of a horse.   The problem end of this is medical science being in bed with the pharmaceutical companies and the government.   They do not want to cure diseases so has not been a cure for a disease in more then a half century.   No cures and the cost eventually goes beyond the ability to pay.   I know of one man on 19 drugs for 6 diseases and there are millions of people in the USA just like him.   He can’t pay that out of his pocket so he gets assistance.   Every disease he has is called incurable. 

If medical science cured just diabetes that would cut one dollar out of every ten in medical costs for the country.   But so far they haven't even cured a simple disease like herpes, Da.    

It would be like going to your mechanic and he tells you "I cannot fix the problem but I can treat it".   The cost for treatment is X dollars a month for the life of your car.   Every time you see him for another problem you get the same answer and another monthly bill.   Soon you will be looking for the government to help you keep your car running.   But you say I will just go to another mechanic; sorry all the other mechanics (such as naturopathic medicine) have been put out of business by the government outlawing them.  

Here is a beautiful example.   Four years ago there were 65 autoimmune diseases and everyone in the health field said “wow that is a lot”.   Today there are over 147 and climbing, it is an epidemic of 1 out of every 4 people will have an autoimmune disease.   And once you get one it is a given that you will get another one.   Here is the amazing thing about autoimmune diseases and health care.   Medical science has not cured one autoimmune disease and they say that they have no idea what causes them.

There is an irony here and that is modern medicine keeps asking us to "donate money to them find the cure", do you get it?

Modern medicine is like a black hole in space except this one sucks money.   Give it a little more time and health care costs will pass the military budget.

Paul

Sorry for the mistakes up there but writing through this little hole makes it difficult to see your finished product and when you can see it you can't edit it.     Paul

There is a call for action based on civil disobedience. The time to take action is NOW. Sign up and support in any way you can. We have not yet begun to fight.

http://www.mobilizeforhealthcare.org/

I agree completely Lauren and Danetta there are some rights that are conveniently set aside when it suits some people who feel money is more important than our freedoms or our lives.   Here is one we lost just recently, freedom of the press.  

We suffered a news blackout conveniently in America due to a need to protect a large monetary investment in vaccines this year.  

The the lives of everyone world wide was threatened and we still are by a Bio Laboratory mistake or terrorist act and America never got the news.   Some how someone completely blacked out the story (see below). 

Deerfield, Illinois-based Baxter Pharmaceuticals sent H3N2 seasonal flu vaccine to 18 countries mixed with deadly live Bio-Weapons grade H5N1 Avian flu viruses (the death rate from this virus is 9 out of 10 die) that could have caused a global pandemic and millions of deaths and our news media told us nothing.

This vaccine was shipped out in late December by Baxter.   The disaster was narrowly averted by alert subcontractors in the Czech Republic in early February when they tested the vaccine on ferrets and they all died, indicating Avian Flu virus.  

Who has the power to completely stop a story like that from being printed.   And who are they to decide what we can read and what we can't.   The Founding Fathers would be shaking their heads if they saw what we have been losing lately.    

 Paul

I hate to brake it to you right back Danetta but the cure for cancer was discovered in 1931 by Dr Otto Warburg and he received a Nobel Prize for his discovery.   But that was pushed aside and he and his discovery were slandered by those who have a monetary investment in disease not cures.   And diabetes has always been about diet.

You cure just one of the many diseases we have and a very large part the the multi billion dollar market goes down the drain.   But the treatment of just one persons disease for the rest of their life that is the best customer you can ever have.

Believe me Danetta there is a big picture here that no one wants to take a hard look at that is feeding this health care problem. 

Paul

I am all for civil disobedience. Unfortunately, it is far too late, Americans have become far too complacent, selfish,lazy and greedy and as for me, I have suffered too long in this messed up health care system to participate in anything that extreme. My health is simply failing beyond any hope of repair. I have fought with the last of my strength all year to continue my activism, including, very strongly, my fight for health care reform. I have determined that no one, including Obama, is truly serious about it. I wish I would have given up on America years ago and become a citizen of Canada when I still had enough health to do some good in the world. America has turned her back on her citizens in favor of greed and corruption. I am very sad to think any of this, let alone write it because I have always believed that in this country anyone can make a change if they work hard at it. I have been an activist and political reformer since I was 14 because I felt so strongly about this. I will still fight for change in the world, but the USA is a lost cause, I fear.

Oh I left out my counter point about autoimmune diseases.   Of those 147 autoimmune diseases there has emerged variations of each one.   Rheumatoid arthritis for instance has over 100 variations and these kinds of variations are emerging almost daily along with new autoimmune diseases.   It is as I said before an epidemic 1 in 4 Americans and once you have one chances are very high you will get another one and so on.   If you look at just one of them like Rheumatoid arthritis you can get Lupus to go with it.   This is not an easy disease there are variations that can kill you.

Medical care pretty much world wide is allopathic medicine only, which is one dimensional thinking about disease and medical treatment.   It is a huge business and businesses do not want competing ideas about their business or competition in their marketplace they make laws to stop that.   This was foreseen by Benjamin Rush when the Constitution of the United States was written.   And it was his fear that one group of medical practitioners would take over and outlaw the rest and that is just what happened.   What we are seeing now is just the beginning of some real problems with health care in America.

Of course I agree that as imperfect as it is it is what the majority of Americans will accept so that is what you get.   But their are some blatant problems like the obesity epidemic being laid at the door of where it belongs the food industry, agriculture department and farm subsidies that need to be addressed now.   The obese people through no fault of their own are being made the victims of many other diseases and have a low immune system which makes them a target for any virus that comes down the pipe. 

Watch terrific Peter Jennings video report about the cause of the obesity subject it was a link you may have to go to utube to see it
 How the Food Industry is Deceiving You by Peter Jennings

 Paul

Yesterday in the greater Hartford area there was a walkathon for......OBESITY. Yes Paul, the food industry is literally killing us, with grain products that are bought and sold as commodities and make billions of dollars for shareholders and not farmers. They are killing us with tainted animal products containing antibiotics, hormones and pesticide residues. They are killing us with genetically modified crops that may be responsible for the growing number of food allergies such as celiac and lactose intolerance.

This health reform movement is threatening a whole lot more folks than the insurance and drug industries. Big AGRA knows it is next. Wall Street is shuddering at the ripple effect through the entire market if the health insurance industry, invested within the market like a financial metastases, is ever to be "restrained". 

It is true Angela that things look pretty bleak but maybe just an extra little push from one of us will be enough to change it a little toward a realistic direction.  

Last week I was making comments like I do about this subject and ended up on a medical science blog and it seemed like I had fallen into a pool of sharks.   They came at me personal and for blood did not like what I had to say about their little sacred medical cash cow one bit ha ha ha.     

The people of America better wake-up because their are some real cold hearts out there who could not give a dam about the innocent suffering as long as they can line the pockets with green. 

Thanks to Angela, Lauren and Danetta

Paul      

Hi Danetta,
Actually, yes I am.  You speak like a true believer in allopathic medicine Danetta.  

About Dr Warburgs Work
Working backward is exactly what Western medicine does best so it should be easy for them.   Warburgs finding do apply to every cancer if you see beyond allopathic medicine's limited vision that each cancer is separate and different.   Naturopaths see them as all the same thing just cancer.   What part of the body the cancer shows up in depends upon the genetic weaknesses of the individual.   The causes are also the same and one of the prime cases is lack of oxygen.   Cancer is a cell that was once a normal aerobic and has now become anaerobic.   Below are the words of Dr Otto Warburg on the subject of curing cancer via oxygen.

Dr Otto Warburg
Most experts agree that nearly 80% of cancers could be prevented, if all contact with the known exogenous carcinogens could be avoided. But how can the remaining 20%, the endogenous or so-called spontaneous cancers, be prevented?

Because no cancer cell exists, the respiration of which is intact1, it cannot be disputed that cancer could be prevented if the respiration of the body cells would be kept intact.

        Today we know two methods to influence cell respiration1. The first is to decrease the oxygen pressure in growing cells. If it is so much decreased that the oxygen transferring enzymes are no longer saturated with oxygen, respiration can decrease irreversibly and normal cells can be transformed into facultative anaerobes.

        The second method to influence cell respiration in vivo is to add the active groups of the respiratory enzymes to the food of man. Lack of these groups impairs cell respiration and abundance of these groups repairs impaired cell respiration - a statement that is proved by the fact that these groups are necessary vitamins for man2.

                To prevent cancer it is therefore proposed first to keep the speed of the blood stream so high that the venous blood still contains sufficient oxygen; second, to keep high the concentration of hemoglobin in the blood; third to add always to the food, even of healthy people, the active groups of the respiratory enzymes; and to increase the doses of these groups, if a precancerous state3 has already developed. If at the same time exogenous carcinogens are excluded rigorously, then most cancers may be prevented today.

These proposals are in no way utopian. On the contrary, they may be realized by everybody, everywhere, at any hour. Unlike the prevention of many other diseases the prevention of cancer requires no government help, and no extra money.

 Wiesenhof, August 1966 OTTO WARBURG

Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis
In lupus, joint pain (arthralgia) is common. Joint swelling (arthritis) may be present in some cases, but the majority of those with lupus experience joint pain without swelling or only intermittent swelling. In rheumatoid arthritis (RA), joint swelling is always present and pain is common but less prominent. Because rheumatoid arthritis is more likely than lupus to cause joint deformities and bone destruction, joint replacement or reconstructive surgery is more often required in RA than in SLE. If a person with lupus develops severe arthritis with joint deformities, he/she should be considered to have rheumatoid-like arthritis. In some instances, the physician might have reason to believe that both diseases -- SLE and RA -- have occurred in the same person. 

A healthy diet in my naturopathic world is one that promotes a balanced ph.   For the average human that is 3/4 of the diet is raw produce.   The rest of the diet should be in its whole state as in whole grains, whole rice etc.

About cures that haven't been found yet, this is really good.   How could you possibly know if they have been found yet if no one can speak about it.   I cannot speak about a cure even if I know one exists because it is against the law to speak of any cures for any disease in the USA.   I can speak of curing my own cancer but I cannot tell you I know how the cure your cancer.   Or that eating the way I describe above will cure cancer because that is against the law.   Even doctors are on thin ice when it comes to talking about cures for any disease.   And this is not the only area of speech where what you say can brake the law in the United States.   So much for Freedom of Speech, Press, maybe even freedom to think differently.   To me freedom is just like being pregnant you are or you are not and that is a problem in America.   Thinking you are free does not mean it is so I am sorry to say. 

Paul

Subject: Health Care Solutions for the American People
 This is a logical solution and keeps the control over choice in the hands of the people . This needs to be done in the private sector and keep the Money from flowing solely to Washington because they suffer from Greed and will short the system  just like all power consolidators do .

help make health care affordable by:

Eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in our nation’s entitlement programs. Fixing medical liability rules that line the pockets of trial lawyers at the expense of patients and doctors. Giving incentives for states to redesign insurance laws to make health care coverage more affordable for their residents. Providing small businesses options to provide health care coverage for employees and families. Cutting regulations so insurance companies compete for your business and you can shop around for the best coverage and price. Focusing on prevention and wellness programs to help prevent costly procedures after you get sick. Fixing flawed government payment policies such as the Medicare physician payment formula, which shifts costs from government programs to private insurance. Increasing transparency to improve patients’ access to the best health care information available.

help small businesses cover their employees by:

Providing relief to small business through new pooling opportunities that encourage more small businesses to offer quality health coverage. Providing tax credits to help small businesses cover the administrative costs of establishing and maintaining health coverage.

help individuals receive health care coverage if their employer doesn’t offer it by:

Providing a refundable, advanceable tax credit for those with modest incomes. Allowing for tax deductions to offset the cost of purchasing individual insurance.

help people with pre-existing conditions by:

Creating a new Universal Access Program that allows the federal government to partner with states to improve programs that guarantee access to affordable coverage for those with pre-existing conditions

help make long term care affordable by:

Encouraging more Americans to buy private long term care insurance at an earlier age by permitting individuals to use flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and cafeteria plan funds to purchase long term care insurance and allowing some premiums to be tax deductible. Expanding home and community-based care options, rather than just institutional care.

Defensive medicine is a serious cost concern.  The tort reform will help.  Also, we could save money by addressing the issue of fraud,  Why are we addressing this just to save money, we should have been doing this the whole time.

Obama already has the distinction for spending the most money in a year (deficit 2 trillion, now, before health reform, what will it be after?).  Where is the rest of the money gonna come from?  Where is the fiscal responsability?

Last but not least let folks buy policies across state lines.  it's cheaper and costs go down. 

President Obama, don't tax our young people with mandatory insurance requirements.  Do you ever keep your promises?  Oh yah, we won't let illegal aliens use our health care.

If we were all united into one group under one set of non-discriminatory rules, working together to make sure all medical bills are paid without including the unnecessarily expensive, inefficient and immoral  middleman health unsurance industry, like the Amish do (Improved Medicare for All) then there would no longer be any need to sue each other constantly over who has to pay the bills.

Viola...tort reform of the very best kind.

Sheesh.  How dumb can we possibly be?  We keep paying a huge industry to fight (and looks like win) against our own best interests.

P.S.  The person paying for and narrating those insane ads falsely demonizing Canada's health coverage system is none other than Rick Scott, head of the largest profit-driven hospital corporation in the world that also paid the largest fine in history for fraudulent billing practices.  He stands to lose billions of our health care dollars if honest health coverage legislation is enacted.

I thought it was the righties who were using scare tactics? Seems like we've got tit for tat here. Still I have to defer to Mr. Dunham here and agree it's back to the drawing board. We can't afford an open ended public funded plan nor the status quo of the poor using the emergency room for primary care.

With both sides spitting out talking points and worrying more about political points than true reform we stand little chance of getting the health care system the American people deserve. There is nothing out there yet that fits the bill, yet as long as the discussion continues we have a chance. This "it has to be now" rhetoric is just another tactic. Now or in June of 2010? As long as it is the right bill it is worth the wait.  

Sorry Danetta I stepped directly on your toes there I did not mean to just very late here.   

The paragraph about Lupus and RA was written by the Lupus Foundation of America not me being tired I left out their reference.   

I picked on Lupus and RA because I have been on many Lupus and RA sites and I kept seeing people speaking of having both diseases.   The rising Autoimmune disease situation has become such a huge problem for so many people it is a sad tragedy and they just do not know what to do.   

So many people with Autoimmune diseases have put their faith in modern medicine to take care of them.   Many of their symptoms are being addressed but in doing so without addressing the root problem and by using immune suppressants they are open to catch any of the dangerous viruses that are out today.   I really worry about what could happen this winter.

For an immediate health issue using immune suppressants makes sense but it does not make sense to leave out the question why is the immune system attacking in the first place.

You are so right about the FDA not been very helpful.   The pharmaceutical money and influence is so powerful there.   The FDA could be a big part of the answer to the health crisis and instead they are part of the problem.   Their revolving door policy is a good example as in the case of Michael Taylor moving from Monsanto to FDA to Monsanto to FDA in time to make changes in policy that affect Monsanto’s business it just makes me sick.

As you said there are other things that work quite well naturally.   The problem has been that people are afraid to really apply them and they are afraid to trust themselves.   They want to rely on the doctor and take the doctor’s word for everything instead of question everything.   I could not count the number of times I have asked some one about their disease or the side effects of the medication they take and they know nothing.   I am a Thompsonian Naturopath and self reliance is a huge part of our philosophy.

When I was a little boy my father delivered grain to ranchers in Arizona.   One time we were at a ranch and my father cut his finger real badly a cut that needed stitching and we were hours from a hospital or doctor.   The rancher put cayenne pepper directly on the wound which stopped the bleeding immediately and wrapped the finger.   Hours later when my father cleaned the finger off, the wound had sealed he did not need stitches.   When I studied naturopathic medicine I learned the power of cayenne pepper to heal many medical problems.   I also learned to trust herbs and the healing techniques of naturopathic medicine and it could be helpful if it was allowed to flourish.                    

Autoimmune disorders are indeed a drain on our national health care "system" and more importantly, on the lives of those afflicted with these "diseases". I put diseases in quotes because i don't think they are necessarily diseases, but symptoms of an underlying infection caused by mycoplasmic infections. There is a strong link between strep and rheumatoid arthritis. Read about the work of Garth and Nancy Nicolson at the Institute for Orthomolecular Medicine. It is fascinating. 

A few years ago, my family had an experience with this and the antibiotic therapy worked wonders. Unfortunately, most physicians today would rather ignore science and rely instead on pharmaceutical sales representatives as their source for continuing education. Also, the theories of the Nicolson's promote maintaining a strong immune system in order for the body to battle the presence of these infectious agents. As long as we ignore the obvious link between health and nutrition we will fail to help people with their individual health  challenges.

Paul, you are right on about people being afraid to trust health modalities other than that which they have been brainwashed into trusting. Sadly, we are missing out on many substances that have been used in other cultures that  offer wide relief from a variety of health issues. In addition, this "magic fix" notion that places all the power in the hands of the physician has crippled people's ability to tap into their own powers of healing themselves. I am referring here to the work of Dr. Bruce Lipton.

As long as we have a health insurance industry operating in conjunction with the interests of big pharma, both blessed by our federal government to do with the public what they wish, we will continue to experience the medical bondage known as the American health care system. People must be free to choose the HEALTH CARE MODEL they believe is best while being afforded the opportunity to pursue those modalities. As long as private insurance companies decide what course of therapy is, we will never achieve true health freedom in this country. As long as people are viewed as opportunities to sell a medical product or service for profit, we will not achieve medical freedom. 

Practitioners and providers need to be compensated for their time and expertise. Creating a system of corporate profit around these professionals is immoral.

When I read this stuff it makes me wonder that maybe all they want is to control the Treatment of health care , not Cure Illnesses , when you learn about the issues with population controls that are being discussed and the fact that  This problem will only get worse ...

While population growth is slowing down, we are still adding 77 million hungry mouths to the planet every year.

In 1950, the world had 2.5 billion inhabitants. In 1999, it passed 6 billion, and we're quickly working on 7 billion. Most of this population growth is in developing countries.

At the same time, the world's arable land — land that is used for farming — is shrinking. Right now, only 10 percent of the world's surface is arable land. Good land is lost to urbanization and other uses every day. As a result, the world is losing one hectare (about 2.5 acres) of arable land every 7.67 seconds , so you can see the reason Bilderberg is calling for world population controls .

   Read these articles and then ask yourselves do they REALLY want to cure Illnesses or just get control over treatments and slow down treatments ?    http://www.aim.org/aim-report/obama-czar-favors-planetary-regime/  

http://zombietime.com/john_holdren_and_harrison_brown/  

http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/  

This shows you who is running the policies and planning events ;    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bilderberg_participants  

Read this article to understand the plan they have , it really makes no sense that cures for illness is the goal with health care reform  ; http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6350303.ece    

 What really is the plan for health care ? 

This is a fragment of what I have been researching for the last year.

The lack of healing cellular diseases is because of profits and big business not technology. The technology started in the 1890s with Nikola Tesla. http://www.frank.germano.com/nikolatesla.htm is a good site to start researching Tesla and the pattern of profits over the good of mankind.

From the time of J. P. Morgan on scalar electromagnetic technology has been suppressed. For instance, we have all been taught (space energy, aether energy, and zero point energy are all names for what we see as static electricity or lightening) cannot be harnessed or used as an energy source. This is precisely what Tesla, Dr. T Henry Moray and many others have done and are doing today. Look for the previously mentioned terms on youtube and you can see some of these devices in motion.

 Because the scientific community does not recognize scalar electromagnetic energy, any devices claiming to use scalar electromagnetic energy is classified as a perpetual motion device by the US patent Office and cannot be patented.

The following device uses Congical Scalar Electromagnetic waves and cannot be patented.

The following is an excerpt from the web site,      

     http://www.cheniere.org/priore/index.html

In the 1960's and 1970's, in France, Antoine Prioré built and tested electromagnetic healing machines of startling effectiveness.

In hundreds and hundreds of strictly controlled tests with laboratory animals, Prioré's machine cured a wide variety of the most difficult kinds of terminal, fatal diseases known today.

Funded by millions of dollars, Prioré's machines concretely demonstrated a nearly 100% cure of all kinds of terminal cancers and leukemias, in thousands of rigorous laboratory tests with animals. These results were shown to medical scientists as early as 1960.

The following is an excerpt from the following website of Tom Beardon 

http://www.cheniere.org/priore/index.html

11.     Cells use the process of moving back in a local time frame to heal themselves.

12.     Antoine Prioré found a method to generate these internal healing effects using high magnetic fields and mixed frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. This method was scientifically verified in France during the 1960's and 1970's.

13.     We can generate these internal healing fields much more efficiently based on a newly discovered theoretical framework, which no one in Prioré's day understood.  Part of the framework was not yet born.

Using this information, we can develop compact computer-controlled machines which can reverse the effects of disease, including that induced by bio-terror attacks.We need to get going with the development of these systems to cope with the anticipated more devastating attacks yet to come.

Please visit the website to see the full presentation including slides. 

Please give credit to Ph.D., nuclear engineer, retired Lieutenant Colonel (U.S. Army), and visit his web site at http://www.cheniere.org/toc.html . 

http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/chronic-care-2/

Chronic Care Entrepreneurship in Dallas. An example of a market-based approach to chronic care is American Physician Housecalls (APH), an entrepreneurial, for-profit enterprise in Dallas. APH has found a way to make money by meeting the needs of chronic Medicare patients with multiple health problems. It does so by treating patients in their own homes and assisted-living communities. Because different specialists who call on the patient need to know what other specialists are doing, an electronic medical record is essential to the APH business plan. Electronic prescribing is a natural concomitant.

Since patients don't have to accept APH services, the enterprise makes money only by satisfying them and meeting their needs. Since APH only provides outpatient care, they profit only so long as they keep their patients out of the hospital. If they make a mistake and a patient has to be admitted for treatment, APH loses a customer and loses Medicare revenue.

APH is a living, breathing example of for-profit medicine solving the problems of chronic care. But its existence has nothing to do with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). To the contrary. CMS (with help from Congress) tries to fully suppress any and all attempts to creatively and innovatively solve the problems of chronic care through the marketplace. APH  managed to find a space to do good (for themselves and for Medicare patients) that CMS (probably by accident) left available to them.

Health Savings Accounts and Chronic Care. For a long time, I have believed the greatest potential for Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) is in the treatment of chronic illness. I even wrote some fictional vignettes in a "vision" chapter in the National Center for Policy Analysis' Handbook On State Health Care Reform, describing how HSAs might work for diabetics and other patients. This was an application of a more general piece on "Designing Ideal Health Insurance" that many of you might be familiar with.

Turns out, truth is stranger than fiction. UnitedHealthcare is now using HSAs and Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs) to do something that almost never happens: aligning health incentives with economic incentives.

For diabetics, the program works like this. Deductibles and copayments are reduced to zero for four classes of medications, certain supplies and some office visits. Patients are further prodded by an online tracking and reminder system. And this is just the beginning. Patients who comply with their treatment regimes are rewarded with an additional contribution to their health account of up to $1,000 a year.

Here is my take:

Patients get an economic reward for doing things that have an economic payoff for the insurance pool as a whole. Let's say the insurer/employer expects to save $500 in medical costs if a diabetic patient is fully compliant. Then it makes sense to pay up to $500 to induce such compliance. The mirror image of a reward is a penalty. Since failure to be compliant means the patient forgoes the $500 reward, $500 is the opportunity cost of noncompliance. One way to think about this arrangement is to see that there is a social cost of noncompliance over and above the personal costs. The social cost is the cost that is imposed on others. In making choices, therefore, patients are encouraged to consider the total cost of their actions, not just the personal costs. There are other decisions patients make that do not have large spillover effects for the insurance pool as a whole. For these decisions, it makes sense to have the patient manage his/her own health care dollars. In doing so, patients will tend to weigh personal cost against personal benefits. That is appropriate. No employee is forced to participate in the program. However, there are two kinds of rewards for doing so (and implied penalties for not doing so): (a) a flat fee of as much as $500 for answering a health questionnaire and for undergoing screening tests, and (b) the prospect of zero out-of-pocket expense for some drugs, supplies and office visits. Presumably, these rewards reflect the value to the insurance pool as a whole to induce screening and enrollment.

Two general comments on the program:

The incentives here are not as finely aligned as I imagine they could be. Among other things, every diabetic gets the same financial deal, even though expected costs must surely vary a lot from patient to patient. Still, you have to give UnitedHealth credit for a major advance in getting the economics of health care right. Because of the rigidities of the HSA law, employees can have a zero deductible for some drugs but not others. Statins and beta blockers are okay (because they are considered "preventive" drugs), but insulin and antiglycemics are not okay (because they are considered "maintenance" drugs). This is one more reason to change the law and give the private sector a completely flexible account.

A news story description of how this program works for Affinia and other companies is here.

Spending quite a bit of time up between Seatac and the Washington, Canadian border I can only say that Bob Barr must have received a lot of votes! And they must have sold millionsof snuggies.

Look How Your Taxes are Being Spent!

We need to FIX wages earned between Public and Private Sector jobs too to go with Heath Care !!!!! http://www.thefreeenterprisenation.org/ohmy.aspx 

-The average federal employee compensation and benefits is $119,982 a year while the private sector worker averages $59,909. The difference, taken from the private sector and paid to federal workers, is $100 Billion a year! And on 1-1-09, they got $4 Billion in raises!

-The average federal worker can retire 10 years earlier than you can, at 30% of pay (which is already 60% higher than yours), PLUS Social Security, paid earlier.

-In Illinois, there are many teachers earning more than $100,000 a year; the highest paid driver's training teacher is paid $170,000!

-In Florida, there are 27,063 public employees who pay ZERO for their health care benefits which costs more than $1,000 a month for family coverage; and nearly 2,000 of them make more than $100,000 per year.

-In New York, an MTA train car repairman, with a base salary of $62,976, managed to earn an extra $220,397 from overtime. Another city worker added 2,455 extra hours in one year, nearly tripling her base salary from $38,500 to $110,841.

-In the U.S., thousands of government and public education workers have retired at over $100,000 a year. Many at much more. The highest paid retiree we could find was from the California state pension plan, receiving $500,000 a year!

-In Vallejo, California, More than 40% of city employees had salaries greater than $100,000 in 2008. when Vallejo filed for bankruptcy.

-A Texas city allows their workers to save unused sick time and vacation time and cash it in when they leave. Five key employees who left in 2007 and 2008 were paid and average of $173,000 each.

-Want to see more? And get angry? Really, really angry? Go to our website and look at the "Oh, MY!" category. It's everywhere!

Click here to see more "Oh, My's!" and to take action to stop government from taking even MORE taxes from us!

The way to bring costs down is to eliminate greedy, unnecessary, immoral middlemen and utilize efficiencies of scale.

The study below was rigorously done.  You can research the methodology.

From: Phantoms In The Snow: Canadians’ Use Of Health Care Services In The United States

Steven J. Katz, Karen Cardiff, Marina Pascali, Morris L. Barer and Robert G. Evans

PROLOGUE: Over the past three decades, particularly during periods when the U.S. Congress has flirted with the enactment of national health insurance legislation, the provincial health insurance plans of Canada have been a subject of fascination to many Americans. What caught their attention was the system’s universal coverage; its lower costs; and its public, nonprofit administration. The pluralistic U.S. system, considerably more costly and innovative, stands in many ways in sharp contrast to its Canadian counterpart. What has remained a constant in the dialogue between the countries is that their respective systems have remained subjects of condemnation or praise, depending on one’s perspective.

Throughout the 1990s, opponents of the Canadian system gained considerable political traction in the United States by pointing to Canada’s methods of rationing, its facility shortages, and its waiting lists for certain services. These same opponents also argued that "refugees" of Canada’s single-payer system routinely came across the border seeking necessary medical care not available at home because of either lack of resources or prohibitively long queues.

This paper by Steven Katz and colleagues depicts this popular perception as more myth than reality, as the number of Canadians routinely coming across the border seeking health care appears to be relatively small, indeed infinitesimal when compared with the amount of care provided by their own system.

Can you imagine what shape American seniors would be in without "socialized" Medicare?  It's the most cost-effective and humane system we have.  Should we work with that...or keep the most expensive and immoral non-system in place?

Sheesh.

Your mistake is thinking you are not vulnerable.  Become an actuarial lemon and see whether your employer or health plan drops you first.  BUt for the grace of God goes any American with few exceptions.  Even Superman Christopher Reeves was dropped by the company his grandfather co-founded.

Did I already say "sheesh"?

Mike, you can't just blame the people. Corporations buy legislators to allow Medicare to "foot the bill" for their products.

I am also quite sick and tired of hearing about handouts and no work ethic blah blah blah. The self-employed work and many cannot afford premiums. I should know, I am and I can't. Also, when one is sick, one cannot work, especially in the case of a serious illness. So if you want to call it a hand out, remember, sometimes people need that "handout".

People should not have to "make deals" with doctors to access the health care system. We can establish a collective provision of health care funding. We can stop all of this bullshit right now and give people the peace of mind they need when they are fighting an illness. 

Until we take the profit motive out of tending to the sick we will continue to have health insurers feeding off the flesh of sick Americans. We also will not see the revolutionary techniques in medicine and mind/body healing that is going to happen...just not here in America. We will fall behind the rest of the world as it pertains to the healing arts because we will favor capitalism over curing. As an American THAT should scare the pants off you.

Lauren,

All your points are good.  I don't even like worrying about my house:)

Things can be made more affordable by just passing some laws,  Spending huge amounts of money when others are talking about shedding US currency is perhaps not a good idea.

Why not pass paperwork legislation and see if it works?

Tort reform, free exchange of health care policies across state lines, and regulations so peolple can't be cheated are all good ideas.  We could as a country also take better care of those under the 30,000 mark.But:

Should we make kids buy insurance to add more money to the insurance pool?

Should the government take over health care?

There lies the problem for me.

The Service we will be getting from Government health care reform comes at a price of transferring the Power of decision making over these issues from Congress to the executive office of the President , and thats the problem I have , is that My congressman or woman losses the control of power over this decision making process that would be determined through a majority Will of the people of the USA , this is a direct  Conflict of Power of ,by and for the People as the Constitution is wrote .

 The power of making decisions should always be in the hands of members of congress , this way the will of the majority is always represented .

Using the 5th Amendment of the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution to Legally bring International Socialist Health Care costs into the Health care industry's price discovery process of health insurance cost structures ........

The 5th Amendment of the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution ,  would allow International Insurance Companies to compete in the health insurance industry of the US health care markets , LEGALLY !!!!!!!!, Why don't we look to this as a way to bring in Free and Fair competition , if all these other countries are cheaper health care cost effective even under a Socialized Structure there are still costs that could be injected into the price discovery process  , then the US Insurers would be forced to Compete with this cost structure , freely and fairly without the burden of Government getting directly involved in the decision making of the type of care administered  .

  Under the 5th Amendment  commerce clause of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations ", if we want free and fair Health care Insurance cost competition in America , why don't we allow what is covered under the US Constitution in the 5th Amendment to be used , and that is Foreign Insurance Companies to offer Insurance Plans that cover Americas in the same ways that people who travel to other countries buy health insurance for their person while they are traveling too and from another country ? ??????   This would average cost coverage and force a better price discovery process to emerge as the Domestic Insurance companies are forced Legally to compete through the 5th Amendment of the Commerce Clause ?????????

As I have already pointed out earlier this year. The people defying reform already know what this article points out to be so. These are the same type of people that believe that barack somehow fixed the elections and didn't win by a massive landslide. Tim, you can't argue a point with someone who already knows they are on the losing team. As their point fades into oblivion by the pressure of masses of pissed of civilians, they will not change their stance on this issue. Ever.

At this point in the debate. The facts have already been layed out a million times. Don't waste your time trying to convince them.

The right way to reform our healthcare is HR-676.  Will be a long hard fight; may take some civil disobedience.  I fear the cost of failure to fix our healthcare crisis will be in jobs and our economy.

A-For-Da-Ble Health' will save our economy,                            It is in the best interest of everybody,                            if every job moves out of the country,                                                                   than (tell me) whose gonna pay the medical fee?

The USA stands alone as the only first world democracy that doesn't have a Universal Healthcare plan. We have the most expensive system in the world, yet we price out 47 million.  In order for an employer to offer the health insurance benefit he has to charge more for his products; so customers find it more cost effective to buy oversea; American manufacturers and vendors either downsize or close their doors.

Maybe all these people just like their own ideas better than ones being forced on them.  This is happening while another freedom is swept away.  Barack is so so, but Clinton was awesome.

Thanks to everyone for all your comments. This discussion is now closed.