Hey, it’s the beginning of the year. Get back to the gym for a few weeks before quitting. I’ve already seen them there sweating off the pounds.
healthcare
Most Of The Pricks Trying To Destroy The USA In One Picture
Pfizer-Mectin, Because They Are Running Out Of People to Jab, And Profits Are Headed Down – Another Big (P)harma Scam
Both Pfizer and Merck are introducing pills that actually help cure Covid, unlike the Vaxx, which is proving to be both not effective and comes with more side effects and deaths than all others combined.
So they will now have a pill to cure them from Covid that their vaxx didn’t prevent. They’ll have to create another pill for the damage done by their jab. All of this and the cure, Ivermectin is being banned because they can’t make enough money on it.
Here is the crux of the story from The Last Refuge. You can scan this part because the selected comments really tell the story. They will be below. Note: they’ve used the Red Pill from The Matrix, like the one I have above (I took the Red Pill). Pfizer’s is a ruse.
The majority of prior studies for the COVID-19 vaccinations -writ large- generate an efficacy range around 60 to 70 percent in prevention of COVID hospitalization. The efficacy for virus infection is essentially nil. The vaccine does nothing to prevent infection or transmission; their only claims are now a reduction in hospitalization rates.

Therapeutics, preventative medicines and healthy lifestyle choices to avoid negative outcomes, have been mostly ignored, often ridiculed, and largely downplayed by politicians, media and Big Pharma. Instead their preferred collective strategy has been a massive, overemphasized and almost exclusive effort to force vaccinations as the only medical option for SARS-CoV-2 infections.
The most studied and widespread therapeutic treatment on a global scale has been the use of an oral antiviral pill known as Ivermectin and a regime of supportive medications. Japan and India have embraced the Ivermectin protocol with reported large scale success rates.
However, the U.S., Europe and Australia have focused exclusively on treating and chasing the SARS-CoV-2 virus with vaccines for the virus and boosters for the variants.
Today Pfizer, the #1 vaccine maker on a global scale, is introducing their version of a pill form of therapeutic. With Ivermectin, a Merck product, costing somewhere around 30¢/dose, it appears Pfizer sees an opening for a $xx/dose pill option to enhance their growing profit margin. It is interesting to note the Pfizer study for their pill was conducted on a non-vaccinated population.
(VIA ABC) – A course of pills developed by Pfizer can slash the risk of being hospitalized or dying from COVID-19 by 89% if taken within three days of developing symptoms, according to results released Friday by the pharmaceutical company.
The net of it is that the side effects of the Jab are about to be exposed, hurting their bottom line. They are down to jabbing kids because the dupes who got stabbed have done it and the educated have decided they don’t want it in their DNA, harming their immune systems.
Conversely, Merck doesn’t have a jab, but they have the actual cure, Ivermectin. Their problem is that it is out of patent and doesn’t make enough money. So they re-invent the same thing and voila, a new cure.

NOW THE COMMENTS
it is likely to rapidly lead to drug resistant viruses if used as a single agent (as has happened with HIV). Historically, serine proteases have problems with specificity and toxicity. that is all I can say for now.
— Robert W Malone, MD (@RWMaloneMD) November 5, 2021
Note: Malone invented the mRNA for Pfizer and recommends against it.
Grumpy Old Woman November 6, 2021 10:01 am Reply to Farmkid
“If ‘they’ had not repressed HCQ and Ivermectin(plus others)” then big pharma would not have been able to make billions of dollars on vaccines and boosters and thousands of people would not have died. Both outcomes were intended.
Wvvet November 6, 2021 12:30 am
I’ve read that both of these new drugs work in the same manner as Ivermectin. If you look at the chemical structure, they are similar to Ivermectin.
47Yinzer November 6, 2021 9:18 am Reply to Big Earl
If true, Pfizer has advanced to Level Two of their financial scam. First they convinced the goobermint to mandate their jabs (and pay handsomely for each one). Now they may have de-generic’d a generic drug so as to patent it, jack up the price, and get the goobermint to mandate it as well. Crony capitalism pays off handsomely, does it not.
Jocko November 6, 2021 5:47 am
Repackaged Ivermectin at 100 times the price?
IF YOU DON’T READ ANY OTHER COMMENT, READ THIS ONE
regitiger November 6, 2021 6:31 am
Fluvoxamine ( “other name”: LUVOX)Last Updated: April 23, 2021
Fluvoxamine is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) that is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder and is used for other conditions, including depression. Fluvoxamine is not FDA-approved for the treatment of any infection.
the mouth jab “pill”
Considerations in ChildrenFluvoxamine is approved by the FDA for the treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder in children aged ≥8 years.9 Adverse effects due to SSRI use seen in children are similar to those seen in adults, although children and adolescents appear to have higher rates of behavioral activation and vomiting than adults.10 There are no data on the use of fluvoxamine for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 in children.
also this:
https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/immunomodulators/fluvoxamine/
also this:
also this:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(21)00448-4/fulltext
and NOW, for the BIG LIST….check this out and see what is going down with actual phase three trials in the sidelines right now? spot anything familiar?
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04727424
Allocation:Randomized Intervention Model:Parallel Assignment Intervention Model Description:Patients will be randomly allocated to one of six treatment arms in a 1:1:1:1:1:1 ratio:
- Fluvoxamine
- Ivermectin
- Doxazosin
- Peginterferon Lambda
- Peginterferon Beta
- Placebo We will use a centralized random allocation schedule, generated by computer and stratified by site and age.
I will circle back with some information about the drug
- Fluvoxamine
Then when time provided will do a full report on the other therapeutic drugs in the pipeline:
these specifically:
- Ivermectin ( THERE IT IS)
- Doxazosin
- Peginterferon Lambda
- Peginterferon Beta
regitiger November 6, 2021 6:42 am
LUVIX IS fluvoxamine
note the dangers with the drug
note also these dangers:
Exclusion Criteria:
- Severe illness enough to require hospitalization or already meeting the study’s primary endpoint for clinical deterioration
- Patients who cannot take oral medication
- Pregnancy or breastfeeding
- History of the psychiatric disorder including major depressive disorder
- Patients who are taking or took selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor, or tricyclic anti-depressants within 2 weeks
- Patients who are taking an anti-epileptic drug
- Patients who are taking co-prescribed drugs (as below) which are contraindicated by manufacturers due to drug-drug interaction
- Alosetron, tizanidine, theophylline, clozapine, olanzapine (drugs with a narrow therapeutic index that are primarily metabolized by cytochrome P450 1A2)
- Donepezil, sertraline (sigma-1 receptor agonists)
- Warfarin (increased risk of bleeding)
- Phenytoin (rationale: fluvoxamine inhibits its metabolism)
- Clopidogrel (fluvoxamine inhibits its metabolism from pro-drug to active drug which raises the risk of cardiovascular events)
- Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (linezolid, rasagiline, selegiline), triptans (sumatriptan, naratriptan, almotriptan, frovatriptan, zolmitriptan, rizatriptan), lithium, tramadol (rationale: to prevent the possible development of serotonin syndrome)
- Alprazolam, diazepam (fluvoxamine modestly inhibits the metabolism of these drugs): The patient could be enrolled in case of agreeing 25% dose reduction of these medications.
- Already enrolled in another COVID-19 medication trial
- Medical comorbidities such as severe underlying lung disease (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on home oxygen, interstitial lung disease, pulmonary hypertension), decompensated cirrhosis, chronic viral hepatitis, congestive heart failure (stage 3 or 4 per patient report and/or medical records), chronic kidney disease, or end-stage renal disease requiring renal replacement therapy
- Immuno compromised (solid organ transplant, bone-marrow transplant, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, on biologics and/or high dose steroids [>20mg prednisone per day])
- Unable to provide informed consent (e.g., moderate-severe dementia diagnosis)
- Unable to perform the study procedures (self-assessment of oxygen saturation, blood pressure, and temperature using self-monitoring equipment)
The Current State of Our Healthcare Explained Through Sarcasm
26,041 Deaths 2,448,362 Injuries Following COVID Shots in European Union’s Database
Why do governments, Big Pharma, the MSM and Big Tech keep pushing this death shot on us? The obvious is money and control. The less obvious, but has been mentioned are: population control, the great Re-set and One World order.
Check the stats below. They are killing people instead of curing them.

A Health Impact News subscriber in Europe ran the reports for each of the four COVID-19 shots we are including here. It is a lot of work to tabulate each reaction with injuries and fatalities, since there is no place on the EudraVigilance system we have found that tabulates all the results.
Since we have started publishing this, others from Europe have also calculated the numbers and confirmed the totals.*
Here is the summary data through September 25, 2021.
Total reactions for the mRNA vaccine Tozinameran (code BNT162b2,Comirnaty) from BioNTech/ Pfizer – 12,362 deaths and 1,054,741 injuries to 25/09/2021
- 28,662 Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 172 deaths
- 29,569 Cardiac disorders incl. 1,834 deaths
- 277 Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 23 deaths
- 14,027 Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 9 deaths
- 822 Endocrine disorders incl. 5 deaths
- 16,330 Eye disorders incl. 30 deaths
- 92,590 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 514 deaths
- 274,633 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 3,517 deaths
- 1,186 Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 59 deaths
- 10,876 Immune system disorders incl. 65 deaths
- 36,113 Infections and infestations incl. 1,214 deaths
- 13,804 Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 191 deaths
- 26,554 Investigations incl. 387 deaths
- 7,555 Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 225 deaths
- 138,223 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 155 deaths
- 837 Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 78 deaths
- 185,082 Nervous system disorders incl. 1,341 deaths
- 1,347 Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 39 deaths
- 172 Product issues incl. 1 death
- 19,436 Psychiatric disorders incl. 159 deaths
- 3,605 Renal and urinary disorders incl. 205 deaths
- 24,848 Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 4 deaths
- 46,177 Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 1,443 deaths
- 50,420 Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 111 deaths
- 2,007 Social circumstances incl. 15 deaths
- 1,034 Surgical and medical procedures incl. 34 deaths
- 28,555 Vascular disorders incl. 532 deaths
Total reactions for the mRNA vaccine mRNA-1273 (CX-024414) from Moderna – 6,907 deaths and 306,490 injuries to 25/09/2021
- 6,051 Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 67 deaths
- 9,283 Cardiac disorders incl. 744 deaths
- 122 Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 3 deaths
- 3,769 Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 1 death
- 248 Endocrine disorders incl. 2 deaths
- 4,627 Eye disorders incl. 20 deaths
- 26,405 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 269 deaths
- 82,564 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 2,617 deaths
- 500 Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 29 deaths
- 2,659 Immune system disorders incl. 11 deaths
- 9,570 Infections and infestations incl. 487 deaths
- 6,759 Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 127 deaths
- 5,811 Investigations incl. 128 deaths
- 2,944 Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 158 deaths
- 38,397 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 139 deaths
- 369 Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 42 deaths
- 53,562 Nervous system disorders incl. 706 deaths
- 583 Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 8 deaths
- 62 Product issues incl. 2 deaths
- 5,772 Psychiatric disorders incl. 118 deaths
- 1,772 Renal and urinary disorders incl. 114 deaths
- 4,576 Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 5 deaths
- 13,315 Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 682 deaths
- 16,453 Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 62 deaths
- 1,366 Social circumstances incl. 28 deaths
- 1,032 Surgical and medical procedures incl. 71 deaths
- 7,919 Vascular disorders incl. 267 deaths
Total reactions for the vaccine AZD1222/VAXZEVRIA (CHADOX1 NCOV-19) from Oxford/AstraZeneca – 5,468 deaths and 1,008,357 injuries to 25/09/2021
- 12,160 Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 226 deaths
- 17,334 Cardiac disorders incl. 623 deaths
- 163 Congenital familial and genetic disorders incl. 6 deaths
- 11,826 Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 1 death
- 522 Endocrine disorders incl. 4 deaths
- 17,753 Eye disorders incl. 26 deaths
- 97,985 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 280 deaths
- 265,482 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 1,320 deaths
- 866 Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 53 deaths
- 4,104 Immune system disorders incl. 25 deaths
- 26,800 Infections and infestations incl. 347 deaths
- 11,472 Injury poisoning and procedural complications incl. 153 deaths
- 22,152 Investigations incl. 129 deaths
- 11,805 Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 77 deaths
- 151,690 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 76 deaths
- 536 Neoplasms benign malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 17 deaths
- 209,576 Nervous system disorders incl. 872 deaths
- 456 Pregnancy puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 11 deaths
- 164 Product issues incl. 1 death
- 18,858 Psychiatric disorders incl. 50 deaths
- 3,752 Renal and urinary disorders incl. 49 deaths
- 13,707 Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 2 deaths
- 35,537 Respiratory thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 654 deaths
- 46,297 Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 40 deaths
- 1,328 Social circumstances incl. 7 deaths
- 1,199 Surgical and medical procedures incl. 24 deaths
- 24,833 Vascular disorders incl. 395 deaths
Total reactions for the COVID-19 vaccine JANSSEN (AD26.COV2.S) from Johnson & Johnson – 1,304 deaths and 78,774 injuries to 25/09/2021
- 737 Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 32 deaths
- 1,315 Cardiac disorders incl. 129 deaths
- 26 Congenital, familial and genetic disorders
- 687 Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 1 death
- 47 Endocrine disorders incl. 1 death
- 1,067 Eye disorders incl. 6 deaths
- 7,102 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 59 deaths
- 20,536 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 333 deaths
- 98 Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 9 deaths
- 321 Immune system disorders incl. 7 deaths
- 1,943 Infections and infestations incl. 79 deaths
- 743 Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 17 deaths
- 3,998 Investigations incl. 79 deaths
- 465 Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 29 deaths
- 12,263 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 33 deaths
- 37 Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 2 deaths
- 16,253 Nervous system disorders incl. 148 deaths
- 26 Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 1 death
- 21 Product issues
- 1,059 Psychiatric disorders incl. 11 deaths
- 311 Renal and urinary disorders incl. 15 deaths
- 1,139 Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 4 deaths
- 2,786 Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 148 deaths
- 2,426 Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 5 deaths
- 235 Social circumstances incl. 4 deaths
- 572 Surgical and medical procedures incl. 43 deaths
- 2,561 Vascular disorders incl. 109 deaths
The Critical Factors Driving Up American Healthcare Costs vs. Other Countries
Why can’t the US get it right vs. other countries? It is explained below. Most of all, our politicians have gotten in the way of actual healthcare. We need to get rid of them first, although that is not the nature of this article, but the crux of how we got where we are.
Check out the one where other countries deal with their population that smokes way more than the US does….need I say more?
The Bipartisan Policy Report titled “What is Driving US Health Care Spending? America’s Unsustainable Health Care Cost Growth” issued in September lists seven factors increasing American health care costs. The “fiscal cliff” debates include many of these arguments.
While these factors do indeed play roles in American health care, almost all are at work in other industrialized countries, all of whom provide better care to more people for half what we spend. Good intentions aside, the report overlooks critical (and dysfunctional) characteristics of American health care and instead distracts itself with factors never mastered by any country (including ours).
The report was prepared under the direction of former Senate majority leaders Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), former Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and former Congressional Budget Office Director Dr. Alice Rivlin. With such participants, the report certainly qualifies as bipartisan, but unfortunately the final product does not qualify as accurate.
Here are the seven factors. They are largely irrelevant in our quest for better care at less cost.
1. Many industrialized countries pay providers on a fee-for-service basis, seemingly rewarding more care rather than better care. Yet their costs are lower and their citizens are healthier.
2. Other countries face aging populations with higher smoking rates and more chronic illnesses than we have. Yet their costs are lower and their citizens are healthier.
3. Other countries face patient demands for the latest therapies. Yet their costs are lower and their citizens are healthier.
4. Other countries do not financially penalize patients seeking care. Yet their costs are lower and their citizens are healthier.
5. Other countries provide patients with no more information about complex health decisions than we do. Yet their costs are lower and their health results are better.
6. Many hospital systems in other countries dominate their markets. Yet their costs are lower and their citizens are healthier.
7. The one exception making us unique is our malpractice costs. Yet defensive medicine costs $55 billion annually, just 0.2% of our $2.6 trillion health care spending.
Thus we face the same challenges every country faces. But American costs are increasing faster and are already twice as high. What are these other countries doing differently? They apply three characteristics missing from American health care:
- Everyone is included without discrimination against the sick. Unlike other countries, Americans encourage private insurance companies to insure only healthy patients, leaving sicker patients to government programs, charities, or no care at all.
- Patients can seek care without financial penalty. We are unique in using high deductibles and co-pays to discourage patients from primary care. Although patients in other countries see their physicians more frequently and spend more days in the hospital than we do, their costs are less and their citizens are healthier.
- Financing is provided exclusively by publicly accountable, transparent, not-for-profit agencies. Although providers make a profit in many countries, we are the only nation in which financing agencies make a profit.
No country, including ours, has ever resolved the Bipartisan Policy Report factors. Yet our health care costs are the world’s highest. Although the report is bipartisan, it misses the critical factors driving up American health care costs. And unfortunately so does the Affordable Care Act, another valiant but futile effort at addressing our health care crisis. If the US wants a health care system that provides better care to more people for less money, we should take our lessons from countries already doing so, not from think tanks speculating on economic theories never applied successfully anywhere.
Successful systems around the world can teach us proven methods of containing costs while providing better care, but if only we choose to learn from them. These policy makers chose to ignore these lessons. The rest of us should not.
The State of Healthcare Firsthand, From the Doctor
I went to a hospital today to have a procedure done. When the nurse apologized for the quantity of paperwork, I casually mentioned that things might become more complicated with Obamacare.
I was not ready for the answer. Actually, being in a very socially liberal city and healthcare system, I thought I was going to hear support for the program. I instead was told how government has corrupted the system, made it worse for both Doctors and patients and other horror stories. I replied that the government has not helped healthcare in a long time to which the nurse responded that the decline of morals in our culture was the beginning of the problem. How correct this nurse was.
Next, I met with the Doctor to go over what the procedure was going to entail. I again mentioned whether the healthcare system was affecting his job. Again I received a surprise answer.
The doctor told me of his passion for his practice all of his life. He then told me that what is being done to us by Washington has him considering getting out. He was honorable enough to not practice if he couldn’t do his best. It was a John Galt conversation. There are others like this doctor. I’ve found that if you are contemplating your retirement in your mind, you are already in the process of retiring.
To a person, the hospital staff admitted that Washington and the damage they have done and are doing to our healthcare system makes it worse for patients and providers. This is not a partisan statement for the record.
Let me point out that this was a highly successful practice with state of the art equipment and professional personnel making these perspicacious comments to me.
It was clear that they wanted to help people and do their job, but our own government is in the way. It seems obvious that they have overstepped their role in making sure that medicine is safe and lawful.
If I hadn’t heard it from the horse’s mouth, I wouldn’t have known. I did go in looking for a cure, but I left with a dose of information. It is easy to conclude that we need to fix or excise Washington from the healthcare system and put it back in the hands of the doctors.
After 18 years in private practice, many good, some not, I am making a very big change. I am leaving my practice.
No, this isn’t my ironic way of saying that I am going to change the way I see my practice; I am really quitting my job. The stresses and pressures of our current health care system become heavier, and heavier, making it increasingly difficult to practice medicine in a way that I feel my patients deserve. The rebellious innovator (who adopted EMR 16 years ago) in me looked for “outside the box” solutions to my problem, and found one that I think is worth the risk. I will be starting a solo practice that does not file insurance, instead taking a monthly “subscription” fee, which gives patients access to me.
I must confess that there are still a lot of details I need to work out, and plan on sharing the process of working these details with colleagues, consultants, and most importantly, my future patients.
Here are my main frustrations with the health care system that drove me to this big change:
- I don’t feel like I can offer the level of care I want for my patients. I am far too busy during the day to slow down and give people the time they deserve. I have over 3000 patients in my practice, and most of them only come to me when there are problems, which bothers me because I’d rather work with them to prevent the problems in the first place.
- There’s a disconnect between my business and my mission. I want to be a good doctor, but I also want to pay for my kids’ college tuition (and maybe get the windshield on the car fixed). But the only way to make enough money is to see more patients in my office, making it hard to spend time with people in the office, or to handle problems on the phone. I have done my best to walk the line between good care and good business, but I’ve grown weary under the burden of having to make this choice patient after patient. Why is it that I would make more money if I was a bad doctor? Why am I penalized for caring?
- The increased burden of non-patient issues added to the already difficult situation. I have to comply with E/M coding for all of my notes. I have to comply with “Meaningful Use” criteria for my EMR. I have to practice defensive medicine to avoid lawsuits. I have more and more paperwork, more drug formulary problems, more patients frustrated with consultants, and less time to do it all. My previous post about burnout was a prelude to this one; it was time to do something about my burn out: to drop out.
Here are some things that are not reasons for my big change:
- I am not angry with my partners. I have been frustrated that they didn’t see things as I did, but I realize that they are not restless for change like I am. They do believe in me (and are doing their best to help me on this new venture), but they don’t want to ride shotgun while I drive to a location yet undisclosed.
- I am not upset about the ACA (Obamacare). In truth, the changes primary care has seen have been more positive than negative. The ACA also favors the type of practice I am planning on building, allowing businesses to contract directly with direct care practices along with a high-deductible insurance to meet the requirement to provide insurance. Now, if I did think the government could fix healthcare I would probably not be making the changes I am. But it’s the overall dysfunctional nature of Washington that quenches my hope for significant change, not the ACA.
What will my practice look like? Here are the cornerstones on which I hope to build a new kind of practice.
- I want the cost to be reasonable. Direct Care practices generally charge between $50 and $100 per patient per month for full access. I don’t want to limit my care to the wealthy. I want my practice to be part of a solution that will be able to expand around the country (as it has been doing).
- I want to keep my patient volume manageable. I will limit the number of patients I have (1000 being the maximum, at the present time). I want to go home each day feeling that I’ve done what I can to help all of my patients to be healthy.
- I want to keep people away from health care. As strange as this may sound, the goal of most people is to spend less time dealing with their health, not more. I don’t want to make people wait in my office, I don’t want them to go to the ER when they don’t need to. I also don’t want them going to specialists who don’t know why they were sent, getting duplicate tests they don’t need, being put on medications that don’t help, or getting sick from illnesses they were afraid to address. I will use phones, online forms, text messages, house calls, or whatever other means I can use to keep people as people, not health care consumers.
- People need access to me. I want them to be able to call me, text me, or send an email when they have questions, not afraid that I will withhold an answer and force them to come in to see me. If someone is thinking about going to the ER, they should be able to see what I think. Preventing a single ER visit will save thousands of dollars, and many unnecessary tests.
- Patients should own their medical records. It is ridiculous (and horrible) how we treat patient records as the property of doctors and hospitals. It’s like a bank saying they own your money, and will give you access to it for a fee. I should be asking my patients for access to their records, not the reverse! This means that patients will be maintaining these records, and I am working on a way to give incentive to do so. Why should I always have to ask for people information to update my records, when I could just look at theirs?
- I want this to be a project built as a cooperative between me and my patients. Do they have better ideas on how to do things? They should tell me what works and what does not. Perhaps I can meet my diabetics at a grocery store and have a dietician talk about buying food. Perhaps I can bring a child psychologist in to talk about parenting. I don’t know, and I don’t want to answer those questions until I hear from my patients.
This is the first of a whole bunch of posts on this subject. My hope is that the dialog started by my big change (and those of other doctors) will have bigger effects on the whole health care scene. Even if it doesn’t, however, I plan on having a practice where I can take better care of my patients while not getting burned out in the process.
Is this scary? Heck yeah, it’s terrifying in many ways. But the relief to be changing from being a nail, constantly pounded by an unreasonable system, to a hammer is enormous.
Doctors Disagree on How, But Most Want To Fix Healthcare
From Kevin MD:
Three out of four dentists recommend this tooth brightening toothpaste — make your smile sparkle like never before! Six out of seven plumbers recommend this drain opening de-clogger — make your bathtub drain like never before! Nine out of ten doctors recommend improving the medical system in the United States — make your health care system heal like never before!
But how do we do that?
Do doctors think the Affordable Care Act is the soothing balm for the festering wound that is the economics of the American medical system—paying too much while delivering too little population health? What do our health care experts think about health care reform? Do we think it is a step in the right direction? A step towards doom and damnation? A small step for insurance companies, a huge leap for mankind?
It goes on to say that they need to read the bill to see what is in it.
However, here is what is in the bill click on it to find out what is in the bill and what rights we the people lose like financial control over our own assets and our own doctors. We do lose that despite what congress and the POTUS say to the contrary.
Self Help Healthcare
I checked in with KevinMD for this piece of helpful information. The free market will produce a better product than the government will ever be able to handle. Capitalism always provides competition which drives DOWN prices and drives UP services.
f you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.
-Lord Kelvin
Asking science to explain life and vital matters is equivalent to asking a grammarian to explain poetry.
-Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Of course the quantified self movement with its self-tracking, body hacking, and data-driven life started in San Francisco when Gary Wolf started the Quantified Self blog in 2007. By 2012, there were regular meetings in 50 cities and a European and American conference. Most of us do not keep track of our moods, our blood pressure, how many drinks we have, or our sleep patterns every day. Most of us probably prefer the Taleb to the Lord Kelvin quotation when it comes to living our daily lives. And yet there are an increasing number of early adopters who are dedicated members of the quantified self movement.
They are an eclectic mix of early adopters, fitness freaks, technology evangelists, personal-development junkies, hackers, and patients suffering from a wide variety of health problems. What they share is a belief that gathering and analysing data about their everyday activities can help them improve their lives.
According to Wolf four technologic advances made the quantified self movement possible:
First, electronic sensors got smaller and better. Second, people started carrying powerful computing devices, typically disguised as mobile phones. Third, social media made it seem normal to share everything. And fourth, we began to get an inkling of the rise of a global superintelligence known as the cloud.
An investment banker who had trouble falling asleep worried that his concentration level at work was suffering. Using a headband manufactured by Zeo, he monitored his sleep quantity and quality, and he also recorded data about his diet, supplements, exercise, and alcohol consumption. By adjusting his alcohol intake and taking magnesium supplements, he has increased his sleeping by an hour and a half from the start of the experiment.
A California teacher used CureTogether, an online health website, to study her insomnia and found that tryptophan improved both her sleep and concentration. As an experiment, she stopped the tryptophan and continued to sleep well, but her ability to concentrate suffered. The teacher discovered a way to increase her concentration while curing her insomnia. Her experience illustrates a phenomenon that Wolf has noticed: “For many self-trackers, the goal is unknown … they believe their numbers hold secrets that they can’t afford to ignore, including answers to questions they have not yet thought to ask.”
Employers are becoming interested in this approach in connection with their company sponsored wellness programs. Suggested experiments include using the Jawbone UP wristband to see if different amounts of sleep affect work performance such as sales or using the HeartMath emWave2 to monitor pulse rates for determining what parts of the workday are most stressful.
Stephen Wolfram recently wrote a blog illustrating just how extensive these personal analytics experiments in self-awareness could become when coupled with sophisticated technologies. Wolfram shares graphs of his “third of a million emails I’ve sent since 1989” and his more than 100 million keystrokes he has typed.
Anyone interested in understanding just how far reaching this approach may become in the future should examine the 23 pages of projects being conducted by the MIT Media Center. My favorites from this fascinating list include automatic stress recognition in real-life settings where call center employees were monitored for one week of their regular work; an emotional-social intelligence toolkit to help autism patients learn about nonverbal communication in a natural, social context by wearing affective technologies; and mobile health interventions for drug addiction and PTSD where wearable, wireless biosensors detect specific physiological states and then perform automatic interventions in the form of text/images plus sound files and social networking elements.
It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of all this new technology and to start crafting sentences about how the quantified self movement will “transform” and “revolutionize” health care and spawn wildly successful new technology companies.
Jackie Fenn’s “hype cycle” concept has identified the common pattern of enthusiasm for a new technology that leads to the Peak of Inflated Expectations, disappointment that results in the Trough of Disillusionment and gradual success over time that concludes in the Slope of Enlightenment and the Plateau of Productivity. Fenn’s book, Mastering the Hype Cycle: How to Choose the Right Innovation at the Right Time can help all of us realize that not all new technologies becomes killer applications.
Jay Parkinson, MD has also written a blog that made me pause before rushing out to invest in quantified self companies or predict the widespread adoption of this approach by all patients. Parkinson divides patients into three groups. The first group is the young, active person who defines health as “not having to think about it until they get sick or hurt themselves.” The second group is the newly diagnosed patient with a chronic illness that will affect the rest of their lives. After a six month period of time coming to terms with their illness, Parkinson believes this group moves closer and closer to group one who do not have to think about their disease. The third group are the chronically ill who have to think about their disability every day. Parkinson concludes that “it’s almost impossible to build a viable social media business that focuses on health. It’s the wrong tool for the problem at hand.”
The quantified self movement should be closely monitored by all interested in the future of the American health care delivery system. The potential to improve the life of patients with chronic diseases is clearly apparent; whether most people will use the increasingly sophisticated tools being developed is open to debate.
Court Weighs Heavy on Health Costs
From the Raleigh WRAL sometimes news.
WASHINGTON — Death, taxes and now health insurance? Having a medical plan or else paying a fine is about to become another certainty of American life, unless the Supreme Court says no.
People are split over the wisdom of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, but they are nearly united against its requirement that everybody have insurance. The mandate is intensely unpopular even though more than 8 in 10 people in the United States already are covered by workplace plans or government programs such as Medicare. When the insurance obligation kicks in, not even two years from now, most people won’t need to worry or buy anything new.
Nonetheless, Americans don’t like being told how to spend their money, not even if it would help solve the problem of the nation’s more than 50 million uninsured.
Can the government really tell us what to buy?
Federal judges have come down on both sides of the question, leaving it to the Supreme Court to sort out. The justices are allotting an unusually long period, six hours over three days, in sessions that started Monday, to hear arguments challenging the law’s constitutionality.
Their ruling, expected in June, is shaping up as a historic moment in the century-long quest by reformers to provide affordable health care for all.
Many critics and supporters alike see the insurance requirement as the linchpin of Obama’s health care law: Take away the mandate and the wheels fall off.
Politically it was a wobbly construction from the start. It seems half of Washington has flip-flopped over mandating insurance.
One critic dismissed the idea this way: “If things were that easy, I could mandate everybody to buy a house and that would solve the problem of homelessness.” That was Obama as a presidential candidate, who was against health insurance mandates before he was for them.
Once elected, Obama decided a mandate could work as part of a plan that helps keep premiums down and assists those who can’t afford them.
To hear Republicans rail against this attack on personal freedom, you’d never know the idea came from them.
Its model was a Massachusetts law signed