Just Say No to Obama Care

Since the members of the US Congress and Barack Obama are not at all interested in accepting the health care program being propagandized across the country, why should any US citizens accept it?

There is a federal caveat that does not allow for discriminatory practices, yet this is exactly what the Beltway Bandits are whipping up.

And there is a better way to achieve affordable and good quality access to care without all the bureaucratic bungling.

Yesterday on "ABC-TV" (better known as the all Barrack channel) during the "network special on health care".... Obama was asked:

"Mr. President will you and your family give up your current health care program and join the new 'universal health care program' that the rest of us will be on?".....

(bet you already know the answer)...

There was a stoney silence as Obama ignored the question and chose not to answer it.... in addition, a number of Senators were asked the same question and their response was..."We will think about it." And they did.

It was announced today on the news that the "Kennedy health care bill" was written into the new health care reform initiative, ensuring that that Congress will be 100% exempt !

This should speak volumes to all of us. so, this great new health care plan that is good for you and me... is not good enough for Obama, his family or Congress...??

We (the american public) need to stop this proposed debacle asap!

This is totally wrong !!!!! If you agree please pass this on .... If not plan to suffer with the Obama health care plan ....for free.... while our self-serving politicians make sure that they take care of themselves and their families at our expense. (Various sources as compiled by Rense.com)

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Posted in: health care reform,Jeff Rense,members of Congress,natural health news

Insurance Caveat You Don't Hear About

As a health care consumer you really do need to wake up to the issues addressed in this article and also to the fact that Big Insurance has controlled the medical industry for a good three decades if not longer and it is the biggest cost driver there is.

RELATED ARTICLE: Six Lobbyists for Every Member of Congress

The "death panels" are already here
Sorry, Sarah Palin -- rationing of care? Private companies are already doing it, with sometimes fatal results
By Mike Madden, Aug. 11, 2009

The future of healthcare in America, according to Sarah Palin, might look something like this: A sick 17-year-old girl needs a liver transplant. Doctors find an available organ, and they're ready to operate, but the bureaucracy -- or as Palin would put it, the "death panel" -- steps in and says it won't pay for the surgery. Despite protests from the girl's family and her doctors, the heartless hacks hold their ground for a critical 10 days. Eventually, under massive public pressure, they relent -- but the patient dies before the operation can proceed.

It certainly sounds scary enough to make you want to go show up at a town hall meeting and yell about how misguided President Obama's healthcare reform plans are. Except that's not the future of healthcare -- it's the present. Long before anyone started talking about government "death panels" or warning that Obama would have the government ration care, 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, a leukemia patient from Glendale, Calif., died in December 2007, after her parents battled their insurance company, Cigna, over the surgery. Cigna initially refused to pay for it because the company's analysis showed Sarkisyan was already too sick from her leukemia; the liver transplant wouldn't have saved her life.

That kind of utilitarian rationing, of course, is exactly what Palin and other opponents of the healthcare reform proposals pending before Congress say they want to protect the country from. "Such a system is downright evil," Palin wrote, in the same message posted on Facebook where she raised the "death panel" specter. "Health care by definition involves life and death decisions."

Coverage of Palin's remarks, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's defense of them, over the weekend did point out that the idea that the reform plans would encourage government-sponsored euthanasia is one of a handful of deliberate falsehoods being peddled by opponents of the legislation. But the idea that only if reform passes would the government start setting up rationing and interfering with care goes beyond just the bogus euthanasia claim.

Opponents of reform often seem to skip right past any problems with the current system -- but it's rife with them. A study by the American Medical Association found the biggest insurance companies in the country denied between 2 and 5 percent of claims put in by doctors last year (though the AMA noted that not all the denials were improper). There is no national database of insurance claim denials, though, because private insurance companies aren't required to disclose such stats. Meanwhile, a House Energy and Commerce Committee report in June found that just three insurance companies kicked at least 20,000 people off their rolls between 2003 and 2007 for such reasons as typos on their application paperwork, a preexisting condition or a family member's medical history. People who buy insurance under individual policies, about 6 percent of adults, may be especially vulnerable, but the 63 percent of adults covered by employer-provided insurance aren't immune to difficulty.

"You're asking us to decide that the government is to be trusted," Gingrich -- who may, like Palin, be running for the GOP's presidential nomination in 2012 -- told ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday. But as even a quick glance through news coverage of the last few years shows, private insurers are already doing what reform opponents say they want to save us from. (The insurance industry, pushing back against charges that they're part of the problem, said last month that "healthcare reform is far too important to be dragged down by divisive political rhetoric." The industry has long maintained that its decisions on what to cover are the result of careful investigations of each claim.) Here is a look at a handful of healthcare horror stories, brought to you by the current system. It took Salon staff less than an hour to round these up -- which might indicate how many other such stories are out there.

-- In June 2008, Robin Beaton, a retired nurse from Waxahachie, Texas, found out she had breast cancer and needed a double mastectomy. Two days before her surgery, her insurance company, Blue Cross, flagged her chart and told the hospital they wouldn't allow the procedure to go forward until they finished an examination of five years of her medical history -- which could take three months. It turned out that a month before the cancer diagnosis, Beaton had gone to a dermatologist for acne treatment, and Blue Cross incorrectly interpreted a word on her chart to mean that the acne was precancerous.

Not long into the investigation, the insurer canceled her policy. Beaton, they said, had listed her weight incorrectly when she bought it, and had also failed to disclose that she'd once taken medicine for a heart condition -- which she hadn't been taking at the time she filled out the application. By October, thanks to an intervention from her member of Congress, Blue Cross reinstated Beaton's insurance coverage. But the tumor she had removed had grown 2 centimeters in the meantime, and she had to have her lymph nodes removed as well as her breasts amputated because of the delay.

-- In October 2008, Michael Napientak, a doorman from Clarendon Hills, Ill., went to the hospital for surgery to relieve agonizing back pain. His wife's employer's insurance provider, a subsidiary of UnitedHealthCare, had issued a pre-authorization for the operation. The operation went well. But in April, the insurer started sending notices that it wouldn't pay for the surgery, after all; the family, not the insurance provider, would be on the hook for the $148,000 the hospital charged for the procedure. Pre-authorization, the insurance company explained, didn't necessarily guarantee payment on a claim would be forthcoming. The company offered shifting explanations for why it wouldn't pay -- first, demanding proof that Napientak had tried less expensive measures to relieve his pain, and then, when he provided it, insisting that it lacked documentation for why the surgery was medically necessary. Napientak's wife, Sandie, asked her boss to help out, but with no luck. Fortunately for the Napientaks, they were able to attract the attention of a Chicago Tribune columnist before they had to figure out how to pay the six-figure bill -- once the newspaper started asking questions, the insurer suddenly decided, "based on additional information submitted," to cover the tab, after all.

-- David Denney was less than a year old when he was diagnosed in 1995 with glutaric acidemia Type 1, a rare blood disorder that left him severely brain damaged and unable to eat, walk or speak without assistance. For more than a decade, Blue Cross of California -- his parents' insurance company -- paid the $1,200 weekly cost to have a nurse care for him, giving him exercise and administering anti-seizure medication.

But in March 2006, Blue Cross told the Denney family their claims had exceeded the annual cost limit for his care. When they wrote back, objecting and pointing out that their annual limit was higher, the company changed its mind -- about the reason for the denial. The nurse's services weren't medically necessary, the insurers said. His family sued, and the case went to arbitration, as their policy allowed. California taxpayers, meanwhile, got stuck with the bill -- after years of paying their own premiums, the Denney family went on Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid system.

-- Patricia Reilling opened an art gallery in Louisville, Ky., in 1987, and three years later took out an insurance policy for herself and her employees. Her insurance provider, Anthem Health Plans of Kentucky, wrote to her this June, telling her it was canceling her coverage -- a few days after it sent her a different letter detailing the rates to renew for another year and billing her for July.

Reilling thinks she knows the reason for the cutoff, though -- she was diagnosed with breast cancer in March 2008. That kicked off a year-long battle with Anthem. First the company refused to pay for an MRI to locate the tumors, saying her family medical history didn't indicate she was likely to have cancer. Eventually, it approved the MRI, but only after she'd undergone an additional, painful biopsy. Her doctor removed both of her breasts in April 2008. In December, she went in for reconstructive plastic surgery -- and contracted a case of MRSA, an invasive infection. In January of this year, Reilling underwent two more surgeries to deal with the MRSA infection, and she's likely to require another operation to help fix all the damage. The monthly bill for her prescription medicines -- which she says are mostly generics -- is $2,000; the doctors treating her for the MRSA infection want $280 for each appointment, now that she's lost her insurance coverage. When she appealed the decision to cancel her policy, asking if she could keep paying the premium and continue coverage until her current course of treatment ends, the insurers wrote back with yet another denial. But they did say they hoped her health improved.

-- Additional reporting by Tim Bella
-- By Mike Madden

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Posted in: consumer health,health care reform,medical insurance,natural health news

Health Care Debate?

UPDATE: 13 August - If you've missed it because mainstream media dis little to report it, Obama mad a deal with Big PhRMA some weeks back that basically let them off the hook regarding Plan D in Medicare and price negotiating.

Thanks to Huffington Post we have a story that confirms what Natural Health News knew when the "deal" was briefly reported.

Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaways In White House Deal With Big PharmaA memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week.

The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return.

It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government's leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada -- and also agreed not to pursue Medicare rebates or shift some drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D, which would cost Big Pharma billions in reduced reimbursements.

In exchange, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) agreed to cut $80 billion in projected costs to taxpayers and senior citizens over ten years. Or, as the memo says: "Commitment of up to $80 billion, but not more than $80 billion."
complete article

First of all, Listen up! The US does not have health care, The US has sickness care and every effort to make you think otherwise is just smoke and mirrors.

Sickness drives profit and for a minute don't believe that insurers or drug companies have one altruistic cell in their high rolling enterprises.

I've got plenty of examples collected over 3+ decades as I found myself in various positions in the medical industry. I'm just a very good observer with a photographic memory.

So here's the latest in the "debate" (more like forced pablum) that caught my eye this morning. And I am trying not to post on weekends...or so I tell myself, and really trying not to be cynical.

Drug industry backing Obama's health care plan

Consumer protections lost in health care debate

I happened to see news coverage of a meeting WA Rep Rick Larsen held in the district. I watch this district because I used to live in it. I'm also not a Larsen fan because he is, like Gary Locke and Maria Cantwell, one of those penultimate politicians who's in it for lining his pockets. He's also skilled in the art of the slippery and fork-ed tongue, the best any politician can hope for, eh?

If you see this news video, the look on Larsen's face was most telling when a fellow in the audience stated that he wanted the same health care as members of Congress enjoyed. There was a dead pan face and dead silence from Rick.

Now of course we did hear from Obama that the constituents would get the same care as members of Congress, but then you've probably noticed that's dropped off the radar of late.

What you do read and hear on every radio or TV channel is that Big Insurance and Big PhRMA are rolling out the big PR campaigns to reign in any substantive change in the way people get care from the medical establishment in the US.

Big PhRMA's already conned the Seniors by their pitiful deal with the Obama insiders to drop costs in Medicare D's "doughnut hole" by 50 percent. I'd personally rather see Obama scrap the Bush corporate welfare handout to PhRMA and re-create it with required price negotiation. I'm sure unsuspecting Seniors who've been made drug dependent via the medical industry would like this too!

However, the biggest jolt to getting reform off dead center would be required use of the universal claim form.

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Posted in: Big Insurance,Big PhRMA,consumer health,health care reform,natural health news,Obama,Rick Larsen,universal claim form

Medical Insurance Issue in SPIN: Obama's Way Off the Fulcrum

UPDATE: 10 June - Interesting to note that Aetna has been cited for loss of records for 450,000 people as reported by UPI.
If this is the case for one of the top medical insurance firms, just think of how secure your electronic health records AREN'T.
If you missed Ralph Nader's talk on the Politics of Health Care aired on public radio recently you can find out more about how he is saying exactly what we have said for decades.
Though we are not as famous as Nader we concur with the majority of his findings.
Yes, 60 + years since reform in the medical industry was proposed as was single payer. I'll be posting more information shortly but consider that the universal claim form would save billions and this has been ignored for at least 30 years.
There's more to consider.
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The SPIN cycle is in overdrive and it is clear that those in the US get wrung out in the wash one more time as this insurance issue debate begins picking speed.

For one, I'd say Barack is too close to insiders based on his wife's former job as a hospital executive.

I'd say he'll waffle on this one and once again people will be the losers, Big Insurance and SOS will be the winners. It's all in the politics of "as if consituents don't matter".

If you read the reports on what Kennedy and Baucus are up to you can see clearly through the smoke and mirrors and know exactly what's on the block to be spun out the other end of the sausage stuffing machine. Remember it's small intestine that's stuffed with you don't know know what, then gets sold as sausage.

I know the medical industry and I know the history of "reform" over about the last 50 years. It has never worked. I am pretty sure that what is coming form the pundit's high priced mouth spilling out of congressional and oval offices is about as close to real change as a dead skunk in the middle of the road.

All this talk about electronic medical records is not worth the $20+ million or more destined to be spent on failed software that we know the government gets taken for in almost every agency. The cost of implementing this fiasco is much more that what ever will be saved. Real economists know this.

And, did anyone ask the question about how many people will opt out because of privacy concerns if electronic records are a mandate? I know I would.

The there are those of us that know the medical system in the US is failed and we do not want MOS. We want right of choice and coverage for natural care not provided by the hybrid NDs that are wanna be docs and want to hang on the same old Newtonian mechanistic model based on insurance reimbursement. Aye, there's that Idaho law I helped revamp that is a voice in the wilderness.

No talk yet on prevention. Can't be because there's no money in prevention nor is there money in keeping people healthy and well.

And just what was the problem 20-30 years ago with implementing the UNIVERSAL CLAIM FORM?

Haven't heard a word on this huge money saver. Obama could put it in immediate effect with the swipe of his hand. Being a "lefty" too I'd like to push him along this path, pronto.

Big Insurance was against it, all those different forms let the different companies add on to time and money in their pocket, less care delivered and no monitoring of real outcome.

Stay tuned for the next SPIN cycle. And in the interim, contact those idiots you elected to "represent "you and demand Universal Claim Forms NOW!

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Posted in: Baucus,health care reform,Kennedy,medical insurance,natural health news,natural news,Obama,SPIN

Today's Drug Promoting Insanity

As I've been saying lately, what we have in the US is medical care, not health care. And the medical care we have ranks very low in comparison to many other countries.

There are many reasons for this poor state of affairs, and here are a few reasons why things are as they are -

1. Older people should take anti hypertensive drugs even if they do not have hypertension.

This idea seems to be the brainchild of some medical researchers in the UK. They believe a "polypill" made up of the standard drugs used currently as the cookie cutter treatment for blood pressure will prevent heart disease and stroke.

My choice would be vitamin E and magnesium, plus a more customized individual plan for anyone concerned about these issues.

2. The anti-cholesterol drug fenofibrate (Tricor or Triglide)appears to reduce risks of amputation for diabetics by as much as 36 percent, a study has found. This drug runs about $75 for 90 pills. And it has some great side effects I know everyone wants to experience, especially when hit with their impact by surprise because the prescriber overlooked explaining them, as required by law.

The study was published in a special edition on diabetes by The Lancet, which included another study on how rigorous monitoring and control of blood sugar reduces heart attacks.

Well, just for starters, how is amputation directly related to controlling blood sugar and reducing heart attacks?

Perhaps these medical whiz kids need to go back to the drawing board to read the research that says anti-cholesterol drugs do not reduce risk of heart attack, and they don't really do much for LDL or blood sugar lowering either.

However, if a person with diabetes takes adequate amounts of vitamin E daily, they will find that they can prevent neuropathy and the reduce the risk of losing toes, feet, or limbs.

And because vitamin E is an oxygenator it can act to lower blood pressure as doing is increased over time.

A little Alli-C thrown in the mix easily increases the benefits, and garlic has some blood sugar lowering effect as well.

Then there is Kufner's Powder, heavily laden with B vitamins and trace minerals, shown in the very first hospital based study to reverse gangrene in a limb of an older man with diabetes. And consider enzymes, especially lipase, it might be beneficial.

Seems to be another indication we need more open minds and more creative thinking in medicine now days...

3. "A study by Cancer Research UK found that pancreatic cancer can spread quickly to a tumor, despite a healthy blood supply, and gave evidence why conventional cancer treatments such as Eli Lilly and Co's Gemzar were often ineffective.

The study found that combining cancer treatment Gemzar with Infinity Pharmaceutical's experimental drug IPI-926 made the treatment work better in mice with pancreatic cancer."

Yes, the treatment works better in mice!

And the statistics are not good: "Pancreatic cancer is diagnosed in 230,000 people across the world each year, with 7,600 new cases in Britain and 37,000 new cases in the United States, according to Cancer Research UK."

So what might you do?

Well, there is a natural treatment that has been proven in an FDA funded study that seems to get up to an 83% cure rate.

It has lots of vitamins and enzymes, plus a different nutritional approach.

And after you've looked over just these three items consider that in 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued an alarming report titled "To Err is Human," detailing the toll of preventable medical errors in the U.S; it estimated that up to 98,000 Americans die annually from them.

Comments on this study show that now a decade later as more than 100,000 people are dying from the same cause, as the CDC reports, why aren't the "right" questions being asked.

Are we really hoping for reform in medical care?

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Posted in: amputation,diabetes,disease prevention,health care reform,high blood pressure,medical errors,natural healing,natural health news,pancreatic cancer,Vitamins improve health

Health Care and Economics

Perhaps one reason we have a problem with job loss today is that holders of the Oval Office brought us NAFTA and GATT. You aren't hearing this in the news, however. These "agreements" are among the reasons why so many jobs have been lost over the last few decades, and things aren't going much better right now.

It seems too that health care is taking a bigger than expected hit as the fat cats get their bonuses and people lose jobs and insurances. We have not heard that Congress, their staff and bureaucrats offer to take a cut in pay, lesser perks, and forgo bonuses. There is a transparency issue here, Barack!

This could not be a better time to take a hard look at what you can do to become more in charge of your health.

It is also a time when mainstream media would be talking with people like me who can give valid and scientifically based information about how natural health care can be of great help during these times.

Not being a TV watcher I just happened to zero in on 60 Minutes last night because of a health related report. The focus was on people in Nevada who have been pushed into a dark hole of no access to care because of cuts at University Medical Center in Las Vegas, especially the cancer care services.

I think CBS and UMC should get together to make the useful facts about how herbs, vitamins, supplements and nutrition do heal people from cancer and other chronic disease. Of course on the front end these approaches prevent dis-ease too.

This BLOG has, along with our long-established domains on the web, provides information to help do just this. We also have much more information that we could ever get posted on any of our three sites, and in collaboration with other friends and colleagues.

We are not trying to overtake the market like a competitor with a similar name, seemingly obsessed with SEO and control of information.

We are trying to get you to not give up hope and to know there are things you can do to help, and keep, your health.

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Posted in: 2009,60 Minutes,Cancer,health access,health care reform,natural health news,Scott Pelley,UMC Las Vegas

Health Care Reform Has Hefty Price Tag

As the ball park figure for health care reform creeps up not-to-slowly, not unlike the Wall Street-Banking Bail Out fiasco, from $634 billion to $1.5 trillion, maybe you'd better make plans to sign up for our on-line classes or get our list of recommended books, so you can start reducing your health prevention and maintenance learning curve....

Maybe this goes along with that agenda item for your employee health benefits to be taxed as income.

Where's the Beef? or should it be asked. "Is it real or Memorex?"...

Health care overhaul may cost about $1.5 trillion
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Guaranteeing health insurance for all Americans may cost about $1.5 trillion over the next decade, health experts say. That's more than double the $634 billion 'down payment' President Barack Obama set aside for health reform in his budget, raising the prospect of sticker shock at a time of record federal spending. Administration officials have pointedly avoided providing a ballpark estimate, saying it depends on details to be worked out with Congress. The White House had no immediate response to questions Tuesday.

Still, the potential costs are raising concerns among Republicans and some Democrats as Congress prepares to draft next year's budget. "We shouldn't just be throwing more money on top of the present system, because the present system is so wasteful," said Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee.

The health care plan Obama offered as a candidate would have cost nearly $1.2 trillion over ten years, according to a detailed estimate last fall by the Lewin Group, a leading consulting and policy analysis firm. The campaign plan would not have covered all the uninsured, as most Democrats in Congress want to do. But it is a starting point for lawmakers.

John Sheils, a senior vice president of the Lewin Group, said about $1.5 trillion to $1.7 trillion would be a credible estimate for a plan that commits the nation to covering all its citizens. That would amount to around 4 percent of projected health care costs over the next 10 years, he added.

The cost of covering the uninsured is "a difficult hurdle to get over," Sheils said in an interview.

"I don't know where the rest of the money is going to come from," he added.

Some of the leading advocates of coverage for all are using cost estimates of around $1.5 trillion.

"Honestly...we can't do it for the $634 billion the president put in the reserve fund," John Rother, public policy director for AARP told an insurance industry meeting in Washington last week.

"In all likelihood, it will be over $1 trillion," he added, citing his own estimate of $1.5 trillion.

Economist Len Nichols, who heads the health policy project at the New America Foundation, said he calculates that guaranteeing coverage will cost $125 billion to $150 billion a year, when fully phased in.

Nichols said the Obama administration is not being "cagy" but "strategic" in refusing to be pinned down on an estimate. Taxpayers will get a better idea when congressional committees try to draft legislation later this year. "Until that gets revealed by the Congress, it would be highly premature for the president to assert that sort of number," Nichols said.

White House budget director Peter Orszag told the House Budget Committee earlier this month that the president's $634 billion fund is "likely to be the majority of the cost." Roughly half of the money would come from spending cuts, and the other half from tax increases.

But whether the $634 billion represents 50 percent, 60 percent, or 70 percent of the cost "will depend on the details of whatever is finally done...as we move through the legislative process," Orszag added.

The overall cost matters because the expansion of health coverage is meant to be a permanent reform. That means future generations will have to bear the cost.

"We are dealing with huge numbers," said David Walker, a former U.S. comptroller general and now head of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a group that promotes fiscal responsibility. "We need to have a much better sense of what we are talking about doing, and whether or not it's affordable and sustainable over time."

The costs could force the administration and Congress to make unpopular decisions on where to cut the nation's $2.4 trillion health care tab.

"Nobody disputes the fact that there's going to be some startup costs," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. "But to have credibility in terms of going to the public, you've got to show you are making some savings in the existing system."

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press

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Posted in: 2009,health care reform,learn natural health care,natural health news,printing money out of thin air,rising cost of health care

Here's Your Chance

UPDATE:

White House to hold healthcare forums across U.S.
Fri Mar 6, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama's administration will organize healthcare forums across the United States in the coming weeks to involve Americans and local policy makers in a push for reform, the White House said on Friday.

Obama vowed on Thursday to break the political stalemate that has blocked past efforts and pass a comprehensive plan to cut healthcare costs and expand insurance coverage this year.

The regional meetings, which will take place in California, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina and Vermont in March and early April, are meant to gather ideas from local communities about how to fix the system.

"The forums will bring together diverse groups of people all over the country who have a stake in reforming our health care system and ask them to put forward their best ideas about how we bring down costs and expand coverage for American families," Obama said in a statement.

"The time for reform is now and these regional forums are some of the key first steps toward breaking the stalemate we have been stuck in for far too long."

The events will be hosted by the participating states' governors and will include doctors, elected officials from the Democratic and Republican parties, and "everyday" citizens, the White House said.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
Copyright © 2009 Reuters Limited

There is a conduit set up now to take your views on health care and reform.

Of course I hope it isn't lip service as the government hasn't been too trustworthy for several decades now.

Just don't overlook the change and of course you can contact The White House directly as well.

Now that daylight savings time arrives this coming weekend, perhaps more light on issues will bring better outcomes.

I see this as a very good time to push acceptance of coverage for supplements and more inclusion of natural care as a way to lower costs and raise effectiveness of acre. I am not endorsing that this be under the control of MDs, however.

Remember, you can dodge the rat-pack mass herding mentality and skip a currently circulating SEO generated petition by submitting your own comments directly via the links in this post and to your representatives at Congress.org.

Obama says U.S. can't afford to wait on healthcare
By David Alexander, Mar 5, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Saying Americans cannot afford to put off an overhaul of healthcare, President Barack Obama vowed on Thursday to break the political stalemate that has blocked past efforts and pass a comprehensive plan this year.

Obama formally launched a drive for healthcare reform at a White House forum, telling about 120 experts the costly and inefficient system was dragging down the ailing U.S. economy.

"Health care reform is no longer just a moral imperative, it is a fiscal imperative," Obama said. "If we want to create jobs and rebuild our economy, then we must address the crushing cost of healthcare this year, in this administration."

Obama said he understood skepticism about the initiative given the failure of President Bill Clinton's plan in the 1990s, which died amid heavy opposition from insurance and drug companies.

"I know people are afraid we'll draw the same old lines in the sand and give in to the same entrenched interests and arrive back at the same stalemate that we've been stuck in for decades," he said.

"This time is different. This time, the call for reform is coming from the bottom up, from all across the spectrum -- from doctors, nurses and patients; unions and businesses; hospitals, health care providers and community groups," he said.

Obama's drive for a healthcare overhaul, a core promise of his Democratic candidacy, is another big-ticket item on a jammed White House agenda that includes programs to ease the economic crisis, rescue the financial system and cure an ailing housing market.

But Obama said the U.S. economic crisis made the healthcare task even more critical, and he reiterated his goal to pass a comprehensive healthcare measure by the end of the year.

"By a wide margin, the biggest threat to our nation's balance sheet is the skyrocketing cost of health care," he said.

U.S. healthcare costs have grown to $2.5 trillion annually and the ranks of the uninsured have swollen to 46 million people. The country consistently ranks lower than other rich countries in preventing and treating many diseases such as diabetes.

MOMENTUM GROWING FOR REFORMS

Political momentum for an overhaul has grown in recent years. Obama and his Republican rival in the presidential election, Senator John McCain, both proposed extensive changes in the healthcare system during the campaign.

More than 80 percent of Americans think the U.S. health system needs fundamental change or a complete overhaul, a 2008 Harris Interactive poll found. In his budget plan, Obama proposed setting aside $634 billion to help pay for the overhaul over the next 10 years.

"Now is the time for action," said Senator Edward Kennedy, a Democrat and champion of healthcare reform whose appearance at the forum's closing session sparked a standing ovation.

"I'm looking forward to being a foot soldier in this undertaking," said Kennedy, who has brain cancer. "This time we will not fail."

The attendees at the White House session include congressional, industry, union and think tank experts including some, such as insurance and pharmaceutical industry lobby groups, which may oppose a final plan.

Healthcare stocks were down across the board on Thursday. The Morgan Stanley Healthcare Payor index of health insurers fell more than 9 percent, including steep drops for Humana Inc and Cigna Corp.

Obama has not presented a specific reform plan to Congress, seeking to avoid the problems that killed Clinton's effort and build support before he settles on an approach.

"It is clear there is tremendous momentum," said Democratic Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. "How do we do this? The fact is this is going to be incredibly difficult."

Baucus and Senator Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said they were aiming to put together a healthcare bill by June.

Representative Joe Barton, the top Republican on the House panel that leads on healthcare, complimented the president on getting all sides together and said "if this is a real process and we're listened to, folks like me will participate."

"I don't consider what happened in the '90s a failure," Barton said, adding he worked hard to kill the Clinton plan. "But this is a different time and a different approach."

Clinton was criticized for hatching the reform plans behind closed doors, but Obama said he would ensure the process was transparent and inclusive. The Health and Human Services Department unveiled a new website devoted to the issue at www.healthreform.gov.

(Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Maggie Fox and David Storey)
Copyright © 2009 Reuters Limited.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-IL, is serving on the House committee writing the health care bill, contact her too.

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Posted in: 2009,consumer health,health care reform,health freedom,natural health news,natural news

The Importance of Being Earnest

In the Oscar Wilde play of the same name Wilde uses Lady Bracknell to embody the mind-boggling stupidity of the British aristocracy, while at the same time, he allows her to voice some of the most trenchant observations in the play.

Lady Bracknell state's “I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.”

Perhaps we are dealing with mind boggling ignorance of the pundits in the new administration - and Members of Congress - when it comes to the health care debate.

If one is familiar with current health care concerns, they know all too well that people who are the "Medicare eligibles" and "Medicaid recipients" are in between the proverbial 'rock and a hard place' because they already are being turned away from care because of low reimbursement rates.

Now on top of the excessive costs and privacy risks of electronic health care records, Obama wants to further reduce reimbursement.

"...make big changes to health care, including lower reimbursements for Medicare and Medicaid treatments and prescription drugs."

We do not see any effort to reduce reimbursements, treatments and Rx from the health care plan used by members of Congress.

We also haven't seen any move to reverse the horrendous gift to the drub industry by Bushites AKA Medicare Plan D. Changes here would save millions, just starting with bidiing for supplying the drugs and elimination of the estra level of bureaucracy called "case management".

I remind you that it is a violation of the equal protection clause to continue these dualistic and more costly in the long term type of patches to the long broken health care system.

Your effort in learning what you can do to build your health is the key. You'll find some of our many health education programs at TOC, and of course we also offer consultation to you and to health care providers.

A move to reign in lobbyists is just as massive an undertaking - and of course we have the culture of bureacracy, something not unfamiliar with the new crew in the White House and the pack of hardline cronies with no vested interest in real change.

Obama challenges lobbyists to legislative duel
By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer Charles Babington, Associated Press Writer
Sat Feb 28, 3:39 pm ET

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama challenged the nation's vested interests to a legislative duel Saturday, saying he will fight to change health care, energy and education in dramatic ways that will upset the status quo.

"The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long," Obama said in his weekly radio and video address. "But I don't. I work for the American people."

He said the ambitious budget plan he presented Thursday will help millions of people, but only if Congress overcomes resistance from deep-pocket lobbies.

"I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they're gearing up for a fight," Obama said, using tough-guy language reminiscent of his predecessor, George W. Bush. "My message to them is this: So am I."

The bring-it-on tone underscored Obama's combative side as he prepares for a drawn-out battle over his tax and spending proposals. Sometimes he uses more conciliatory language and stresses the need for bipartisanship. Often he favors lofty, inspirational phrases.

On Saturday, he was a full-throated populist, casting himself as the people's champion confronting special interest groups that care more about themselves and the wealthy than about the average American.

Some analysts say Obama's proposals are almost radical. But he said all of them were included in his campaign promises. "It is the change the American people voted for in November," he said.

Nonetheless, he said, well-financed interest groups will fight back furiously.

Insurance companies will dislike having "to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that's how we'll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs," the president said. "I know that banks and big student lenders won't like the idea that we're ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that's how we'll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won't like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that's how we'll help fund a renewable energy economy."

Passing the budget, even with a Democratic-controlled Congress, "won't be easy," Obama said. "Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington."

Obama also promoted his economic proposals in a video message to a group meeting in Los Angeles on "the state of the black union."

"We have done more in these past 30 days to bring about progressive change than we have in the past many years," the president in remarks the White House released in advance. "We are closing the gap between the nation we are and the nation we can be by implementing policies that will speed our recovery and build a foundation for lasting prosperity and opportunity."

Congressional Republicans continued to bash Obama's spending proposals and his projection of a $1.75 trillion deficit this year.

Almost every day brings another "multibillion-dollar government spending plan being proposed or even worse, passed," said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who gave the GOP's weekly address.

He said Obama is pushing "the single largest increase in federal spending in the history of the United States, while driving the deficit to levels that were once thought impossible."
___

On the Net:Obama address: http://www.whitehouse.gov
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

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Posted in: 2009,consumer health,health care reform,independent health news,Medicaid,Medicare,natural health news,natural news,no plan for CHANGE,Obama,Plan D

Health Lobby Still Plans to Stick with Health Reform

With Tom Daschle now selected to head HHS, don't think he won't be followed by a pack of lobbyists. Don't expect anything different in the House or Senate.

The pack of thieves are circling the wagons, and guess who might just be the target...

I suppose if you say reform you have to ask by whose definition and on whose standards.

Daschle has been in a lobby group lately and he is for vaccines and mammogram.

Surely we can't believe that his tenure in the US Senate led him to stay clear of the rafts of rubles handed out by the lobby groups, even under the cover of supposed change and reform.

What happens can cgange but only if you are wililng to stand up to the status quo and fight for your health rights, level the playing field, and get the agenda to truly be people first!

Health Care Reform Stays in the Picture; Health Lobby Probably Does, Too
By Andrew Green
Conventional wisdom had it that the current economic morass might temporarily sideline President-Elect Obama’s push to reform health care. But today brings news that a handful of influential Washington players might not be willing to wait.

Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat and the chairman of the Finance Committee, today released a 104-page position paper mapping his vision of health care reform. Meanwhile, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy is convening a spectrum of stakeholders in hopes of getting legislation together by Obama’s inauguration, according to The Washington Post.

And health care reform advocates are likely not the only ones excited by this news. The health care lobby — one of Washington’s largest — is probably already gearing up for a fight similar to that of the early ’90s, when the Clinton administration unsuccessfully attempted to overhaul the health care system. The Center spent a year documenting the millions of dollars and thousands of hours spent lobbying various players in the health care reform effort, culminating in our 1994 report, Well Healed: Inside Lobbying for Health Care Reform.

The landmark investigation ripped the lid off the special-interest hijacking of the Clinton administration’s efforts to reconstitute our country’s health care system. Among its findings: At least 80 former congressional and executive branch officials had gone through the “revolving door” to work for health care interests. Almost a hundred public relations, lobbying, and law firms were hired to influence the debate. Hundreds of special interests cumulatively spent in excess of $100 million to affect the outcome.

Now, 14 years later, is there any doubt that those numbers will do anything but go up?

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Posted in: Baucus,Daschle,health care reform,health lobby,health news,Kennedy,natural health news,natural news,no plan for CHANGE,Obama,special interests

Drug Trials Only Adverts?

An exquisite essay on just how it is!

Clinical Drug Trials: See them for what they often are — advertisements
by Warren Bell, MD

Just about every week, an announcement is made about research concerning some sort of new treatment. In just about every case, the treatment is a drug.

This does not mean, however, that drugs are the most important or valuable type of therapy, but rather that modernday, multi-national “big pharma” drug corporations have enormous, financial clout. Due to their patent-based monopolistic profits, drug companies earn 10 times more than all other types of treatment combined. Cnsequently, they can afford to hire the best advertising and public relations experts to relentlessly promote their products in the industry and public media.

So-called announcements from big pharma can more accurately be described as advertisements. They are, in point of fact, carefully crafted propaganda for the latest product generated by clever drug development teams, whose most important members are often public-relations experts and lawyers.

Reading between the profit lines

Let’s look at a hypothetical but typical drug announcement, one piece at a time:

“The results of a double-blind, multicenter trial of the new drug Zaronda, announced today by a research team at the University of Great Hill, reveal that this new breakthrough treatment significantly lowered levels of LDL cholesterol compared to placebo. Dr. Ronald McDonald, chief researcher and Head of the Department of Internal Medicine at UGH’s University Hospital, noted that this new drug represented “An exciting development in the battle against the growing epidemic of heart disease.”

Zaronda was developed in the research laboratories of Muck, Rake and Klink. Share values for the company rose 18 percent after the results of this study were announced.”

Double blind, multi-center trial:

This kind of phrase is used to make the ad sound scientifically impressive. “Double-blind” is thought of as the golden star of study models because neither the subject nor the researcher knows who is receiving the actual treatment in comparison to the placebo (dummy pill). The model and term are used in this case to create the impression of impartiality and rigour.

Multi-center trial: Using such a phrase suggests that large numbers of experimental subjects were involved, implying that it was a serious trial that cost a lot of money.

In actual fact, of course, size counts for nothing in many cases. In 1747, an experiment using only 12 subjects proved that limejuice prevents scurvy and ensured British naval dominance for 150 years.

The new drug: Drug companies want you to believe that what you’re reading about is “hot off the press,” creating the impression of excitement and hope.

Zaronda: Believe it or not, advertising geniuses in the drug industry have
figured out that certain letters are more “sexy.” The letters Z, X, and Y, for example, sell more drugs than most others. That’s why you see strange names for drugs, such as Xanax, Zostrix and Zyloprim.

Research team at the University of Great Hill: Drug companies know that there is still a veneer of respectability attached to educational institutions. They strive to mention either a university or hospital in association with any new drug research. Even if the research is carried out in the company’s own laboratories, the university or hospital connection will likely always come first.

Breakthrough: A key of almost all drug advertisements is the “breakthrough.”
Once again, the word creates the sense of excitement and drama that drug companies know will help to sell their product to desperate people. However, in a typical year, with say 800 new drug submissions, no more than half a dozen can actually be termed useful, let alone a breakthrough.

Significantly lowered levels of LDL cholesterol: Contrary to what many people think, high or low cholesterol is not a significant measure of your health, which makes this phrase a surrogate marker. Getting sick or dying is significant, but changing the amount of a substance in your bloodstream is not. (Some skeptical experts believe that there is no direct connection between cholesterol and heart disease.)

By taking advantage of the fact that many people—including many doctors—mistakenly
equate the lowering of cholesterol with improving a person’s health, drug companies cleverly create the impression that their drug can help. One of the most famous drug trials in medical history involved a drug that lowered cholesterol dramatically but markedly increased the number of deaths from gallbladder disease.

Compared to placebo: Here is one of the best tricks of the drug industry. Instead of comparing a new treatment to older, established treatments, the industry almost always compares a new product to a placebo. That way, they don’t have to worry that the public will compare the new drug to something already on the market—something that might be as good as the new product or even better.

Dr. Ronald McDonald... Chief...Head: The impression created here is of a researcher with an armload of qualifications and exceptional scientific expertise. What is never mentioned is that the good doctor is undoubtedly receiving substantial sums of money from the company making the drug being tested. Numerous studies in medical literature have shown that when this happens, research studies almost always show that the drug works well. He who pays the piper, plays the tune.

An exciting development in the battle against the growing epidemic of heart disease: Once again, this phrasing is attempting to drum up the impression of action, movement and excitement.

Heart disease is mostly caused by over consumption of food, lack of exercise and other lifestyle factors. Taking an expensive pill to deal with this behaviour can hardly be considered an effective weapon. Nevertheless, drug companies use military jargon and scare tactics to drum up business.

Share values for the company rose 18 percent: This kind of information is increasingly tagged onto the end of these ads. The fact that it’s there at all
reveals the true underlying purpose of these so-called treatment creations. They are designed to make money for shareholders of giant multinational corporations.

Patents for profit

By now you may think I’m against all drug companies, but I’m not. Evidence shows that approximately one percent of new drugs are significantly useful. I feel that the real problem with clinical trials is that the vast majority are done on patented drugs.

No one is eager to do trials on vitamins, herbal preparations, homeopathic remedies, physical therapies, or any of the other numerous non-pharmaceutical interventions that many people use every day. Why? Because the profit margin on these approaches
is trivial compared to the windfall profits earned by patented drugs.

If even one-tenth of the money currently wasted on patented drug trials were diverted into independent studies of natural health products, manual treatments and community health-related programs, therapy would be revolutionized overnight.

Treatments and interventions would become safer, less expensive, more accessible
and more sustainable.

Until that happens (and it will require public funding to be done properly)we’re going to have to go on swimming in a sea of flagrant advertisements for drugs of questionable value and unknown risk, disguised as legitimate.

My hope is that this article throws you a modest life raft to help you avoid
drowning.

Warren Bell, MD, is a HANS member practicing in the heart of the Okanagan Valley. He’s also President of the Association of Complementary and Integrative Physicians of BC.

Courtesy HANS.org magazine.

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Posted in: Big Pharma,double blind studies,drug trials,health care reform,health news,Madison Avenue and your health,natural health news,natural news,PR,profit motive

Daschle at HHS?

Tom Daschle, former Senate Majority Leader from South Dakota, gives his objectives in a June 2008 speech. His analysis of the health care crisis is this:

Daschle is for fluoridation which is known NOT to prevent cavities; it causes many other severe health problems. The fluoride based drugs cause problems as well.

Maybe if RFK is open to overseeing EPA we can get rid of fluoride once and for all.

Daschle is for mammogram which the FDA has always known the procedure promotes breast cancer.

Electronic records are known to be easily hacked. The data is also collected and sold or otherwise circulated without your permission. HIPPA saw to this little hidden fact.

What are Daschle's ideas on supplement parity and protected access to services outside the medical mafia?

Lots of questions need to be asked.

Maybe he is the political pick but are his ideas too out of date. Is he really reading the research or just parroting what he's been given from the propaganda grist mill at CDC et al?

US Healthcare has three major problems: 1) Cost containment. We spend $8000/capita – 40% more than the next most expensive country in the world (Switzerland). Last year businesses spent more on healthcare than they made in profits. General motors spends more on healthcare than they do on steel.

2) Quality control. The US system cannot integrate and create the kind of efficiencies necessary. The WHO has listed us as 35 in overall health outcomes. Some people ask, "If we have a quality problem, why do kings and queens come to the US for their healthcare?" They come to the best places like the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, or Johns Hopkins. They don't go to rural South Dakota. We have islands of excellence in a sea of mediocrity.

3) Access. People are unable to get insurance if they have a pre-existing condition. 47 million people don't have health insurance. We have a primary care shortage, and hospitals turning away patients because they're full.

His solutions are these:

Universal coverage. If we don't have universal coverage we can't possibly deal with the universal problems that we have in our country.

Cost shifting is not cost savings. By excluding people from the system we're driving costs up for taxpayers – about $1500/person/year.

We must recognize the importance of continuity of care and the need for a medical home. Chronic care management can only occur if we coordinate the care from the beginning, and not delegating the responsibility of care to the Medicare system when the patient reaches the age of 65.

We must focus on wellness and prevention. Every dollar spent on water fluoridation saves 38 dollars in dental costs. Providing mammograms every two years to all women ages 50-69 costs only $9000 for every life year saved.

Lack of transparency is a devastating aspect of our healthcare system. We can't fix a system that we don't understand.

Best practices – we need to adopt them.

We need electronic medical records. We're in 21st century operating rooms with 19th century administrative rooms. We use too much paper – we should be digital.

We have to pool resources to bring down costs.

We need to enforce the Stark laws and make sure that proprietary medicine is kept in check.

We rely too much on doctors and not enough on nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and physician assistants. They could be used to address the primary care shortage that we have today.

We have to change our infrastructure. Congress isn't capable of dealing with the complexity of the decision-making in healthcare. We need a decision-making authority, a federal health board, that has the political autonomy and expertise and statutory ability to make the tough decisions on healthcare on a regular basis. Having this infrastructure in place would allow us the opportunity to integrate public and private mechanisms within our healthcare system in a far more efficient way.

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Posted in: EPA,health care reform,health news,HHS,natural health news,natural news,RFK

Big Insurance Seeking Spoils

While the Obama transition team wields the ugly power of spoils for the victor, all those with vested interests are jockeying viciously for position.

And while everyone seems to have been spoon fed on the idea of national health insurance, Big Insurance is seeking an eye on profits as it uses ploys that are trendy and seem to get them a big payoff for superficial pandering with their manipulated media statements in line with what their pundits think COngress will swallow.

Of course Hillary is back in this fray, trying to cut deals, hubby Bill trying to cut deals, and Teddy Kennedy seemingly blocking some of them.

Kennedy has been wheeling and dealing with the big players on a health plan, but you can be sure it isn't with Joe and Jane Six-Pack in mind.

Maybe its more like roulette, le juet sont fait!

I'm not against everyone having access to care, but the question has to be who really is controlling the care.

The Hillary Plan was dead before it started in her husband's administration. Has she really kept in touch with the "outside" over all these years to allow her to start on this with a clean slate?

We need reform on many levels. Reform requires new ideas and fresh folks who aren't mired in the Beltway Bandit band and their tunnel vision.

If you haven't been keeping up with the G8 that is now the G20, you do need to know what their plan is and how it will effect your health. If you dare to risk reading much more truthful interpretations of their actions than what you'll ever read or hear in the media as it is today start here.

Insurers make pitch for health coverage mandate
By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The health insurance industry says it will support a national health care overhaul that requires them to accept all customers regardless of pre-existing medical conditions.

In return, the industry said Wednesday, it wants Congress to require that everyone buy coverage.

Lawmakers have signaled their intent to craft health care legislation early next year, and the insurance industry's support would make passage much easier. That legislation is expected to closely track the proposals of President-elect Barack Obama.

Karen Ignagni, president of the board of directors for America's Health Insurance Plans, says she hopes the endorsement will help members of Congress fashion their proposal.

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Posted in: Big Insurance,health care reform,health insurance,health news,Hillary,Kennedy,natural health news,natural news,Obama,politics

Doctors to Quit

To me this is no surprise. It is, in effect, a wake up call to everyone that the health care system in the US is in much worse shape than you've been told.

One problem is the shift that started back in the 1980s toward limits to exactly what is the definition of 'a doctor visit'.

When the managed care model came into vogue patient care really started a down hill slide. I notice things like this more easily than a person who hasn't been in the health care industry, perhaps more so because I've been both a provide and an administrator.

Today you can see your doctor for one issue only. That means if you happen to have a headache and a sore knee you have to make two appointments. This of course increases billable hours and the bottom line. It also fragments care.

If you are in an HMO or similar managed care you might not always get the same doctor so continuity of care is out the window.

Insurance regulations contribute to this. Pharmaceutical control and restrictive licensing issues are factors.

And then there is the factor relating to the inability to provide high quality care to people with chronic health problems, and a focus on prevention and cure.

Perhaps we need to get on a track to lead health care to a system as if people mattered.

Another way of looking at this is to get on a train to education so you can learn what measures you can take to improve your health and increase the use of natural care in your health maintenance options.

Certainly we need to overhaul USDA and FDA controls on health care options. We also need to have a level approach to health care where everyone gets the same basic coverage.

Now everyone in Congress, everyone employed or corporate fat cats will all get the same services.

In the mean time I am going to continue taking my vitamins and other herbs and supplements, in spite of news reports saying otherwise.

This protects my health. It can protect yours too!

Many doctors plan to quit or cut back Tue Nov 18, 2008

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Primary care doctors in the United States feel overworked and nearly half plan to either cut back on how many patients they see or quit medicine entirely, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

And 60 percent of 12,000 general practice physicians found they would not recommend medicine as a career.

"The whole thing has spun out of control. I plan to retire early even though I still love seeing patients. The process has just become too burdensome," the Physicians' Foundation, which conducted the survey, quoted one of the doctors as saying.

The survey adds to building evidence that not enough internal medicine or family practice doctors are trained or practicing in the United States, although there are plenty of specialist physicians.

Health care reform is near the top of the list of priorities for both Congress and president-elect Barack Obama, and doctor's groups are lobbying for action to reduce their workload and hold the line on payments for treating Medicare, Medicaid and other patients with federal or state health insurance.

The Physicians' Foundation, founded in 2003 as part of a settlement in an anti-racketeering lawsuit among physicians, medical societies, and insurer Aetna, Inc., mailed surveys to 270,000 primary care doctors and 50,000 practicing specialists.

The 12,000 answers are considered representative of doctors as a whole, the group said, with a margin of error of about 1 percent. It found that 78 percent of those who answered believe there is a shortage of primary care doctors.

More than 90 percent said the time they devote to non-clinical paperwork has increased in the last three years and 63 percent said this has caused them to spend less time with each patient.

Eleven percent said they plan to retire and 13 percent said they plan to seek a job that removes them from active patient care. Twenty percent said they will cut back on patients seen and 10 percent plan to move to part-time work.

Seventy six percent of physicians said they are working at "full capacity" or "overextended and overworked".

Many of the health plans proposed by members of Congress, insurers and employers's groups, as well as Obama's, suggest that electronic medical records would go a long way to saving time and reducing costs.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox; editing by Chris Wilson)
Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited.

U.S. Trails Other Nations in Chronic Illness Care
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) Nov 13 - Chronically ill Americans are more likely to forgo medical care because of high costs or experience medical errors than patients in other affluent countries, according to a study released on Thursday.

The study comparing the experiences of patients in eight nations reflected poorly on the U.S. health care system as President-elect Barack Obama and his allies work on plans to rein in health costs and extend insurance to more people.

The researchers questioned 7,500 adults in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Britain and the United States. Each had at least one of seven chronic conditions: high blood pressure, heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, cancer, arthritis and depression.

Dutch patients had the fewest complaints, while the Americans had plenty, according to the study by the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based health policy research group.

Fifty-four percent of Americans surveyed said high costs prevented them at some point from getting recommended medical care, filling prescriptions or seeing a doctor when ill. Seven percent of the Dutch cited cost as a barrier to treatment.

In addition, 41 percent of the U.S. patients said they spent more than $1,000 over the past year on out-of-pocket medical costs. That compared to lows of 4 percent in Britain and 5 percent in France.

A third of U.S. patients said they were given the wrong medication or dosage, experienced a medical error, received incorrect test results or faced delays in hearing about test results, more than any of the other countries.

WASTED TIME

Almost half of the U.S. patients said their time had been wasted because of poorly organized care or had received care of little or no value during the past two years. These views were lowest in the Netherlands and Britain.

Only Canadians reported visiting an emergency room at higher rates in the past two years than the Americans.

The Commonwealth Fund's Cathy Schoen, who worked on the study, said the United States spends twice as much on health care as the others, with the current economic woes putting more people at risk of losing employer-provided health insurance.

"Overall, the United States stands out for chronically ill adults reporting the most negative experiences," Schoen said in a conference call with reporters.

"In short, the U.S. patients are telling us about inefficient, unsafe and often wasteful care. The lack of access, combined with poorly coordinated care, is putting these patients at very high health risk and driving up costs of care."

The U.S. Census Bureau has reported that 15 percent of Americans, 45.7 million people, had no public or private health insurance last year.

The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, was the latest to show the U.S. health care system is performing worse than those in comparable countries. Unlike many rich nations, the United States does not have universal health care.

(Editing by Maggie Fox)

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Posted in: chronic care,doctors quit,health care ranks low in US,health care reform,health education,health insurance,health news,level playing field,natural health news,prevention