Under Our Skin (2008)

Just saw a documentary that expanded my understanding of what we are up against with regard to resistance within the US health care/provider community to properly manage patients and treat disease.

 Be sure to watch: Under Our Skin (2008). It’s currently available to be watched for free at Netflix or at Amazon.com.

 In the case of cancer, a huge treatment industry exists in the form of treatment facilities and manufacturers of treatment equipment and pharmaceuticals – all financially motivated to maintain the status quo and resist even considering anything other than highly expensive protocols currently deemed to be normative and conventional. Insurance companies would no doubt prefer to instead pay claims for much less expensive “alternative” treatment protocols, but they lack the power and influence to make that happen.

 But in the case of the rapidly emerging Lyme disease epidemic, a huge industry of treatment facilities and medical equipment and pharmaceutical companies does not exist – there is no treatment establishment to fight for the status quo. So the insurance companies wield the power and are able to resist acknowledging the existence of Lyme disease in a chronic form and avoid paying long term treatment claims.

 In both cases the “establishment” is doing exactly what shareholders in a capitalistic society expect it to do – maximize shareholder value. But in both cases the cost is high – caring but unconventional doctors are being persecuted, innovation is being stifled, and the public is being very poorly served.

 I would like to think that, over time, a more rational response to these diseases will evolve. Were these markets free and unfettered by so much government regulation they might evolve quickly. But encumbered as they are, it’s likely to take decades, if at all.

The Cost Conundrum: What a Texas town can teach us about healthcare

Click here to read The Cost Conundrum

Thanks for thinking about us

Thanks for thinking about my wife and I. 

We are self-employed and certainly not poor. But for years we were among the 30M who couldn’t get health insurance that would cover pre-existing conditions due to the lack of reasonable options for small business owners. My wife wound up in a state insurance pool at a cost of about $13,000 per year and for three trips to the hospital over a two year period we ended up paying and additional ~$35,000 out-of-pocket. 

Something clearly needs to be done and it’s terminally naïve to think that the insurance industry is going to police itself. 

It’s equally naïve to assume that House Reps and Senators are going to do anything other than support the contributors who help them stay in office – for instance, health professionals and the insurance industry have already contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Pete Sessions’ campaign committee for 2009-2010 and his next election isn’t until next November (http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00005681&cycle=2010). 

Unfortunately, no industry is supporting change, the majority who have health care don’t give a whit about the minority who don’t, naïve voters are easily manipulated by the self-serving hype financed by the health industry, and my wife and I don’t have the dollars to compete with the big money influencing the issue. 

We’re OK now – my wife took a job about four months ago with our county government so she and I are now among the haves.  

But I’m afraid it’s impossible for us to forget the 30M Americans who are still without adequate access to healthcare. 

Thanks for thinking about us.

Healthcare misinformation

I lived in Connecticut for awhile and, for several years, the Hartford Courant, the longest continuously published newspaper in the US, was my primary source of news. This was during the Watergate mess and I really thought I knew what was going on. Then, during a business trip to Washington DC, I picked up a copy of the Washington Post and in short order realized how easily and completely I had been duped into the Courant’s editorial agenda. I actually didn’t have a clue what was really going on. I read and re-read that paper and then called my wife and read it to her again over the phone. 

I was so thoroughly misled that I vowed to never let that happen again. I subscribed to multiple newspapers for years after that just so I could hopefully neutralize the bias of my local news sources. 

Since then, I have come to finally understand what activists like Noam Chomsky are ranting about. Listen to him for a little bit and you think he’s crazy. Dig into his speeches a bit and his views become quite credible. We, all of us, are regularly and continuously misled by the media, by politicians, and by business. It’s not a conspiracy with a small group of guys pulling the strings, but a system of misinformation that we all unwitting subscribe to and even play an active role in disseminating. 

This health care thing is a perfect example. The misinformation was overwhelming and the “average voter” didn’t have a chance of accessing the truth or of doing anything except going along with the agenda foist upon them by the media, politicians, and affected industries. 

I used to wonder how anyone in pre-glasnost Russia could watch TV without being consciously aware and constantly disgusted at how dishonest and manipulative it was. Now it’s clear that we too turn off our minds when we read our papers and watch our TVs and it’s been going on for a long time.

Remember the 3-out-of-4 doctor testimonials in the TV advertising of the 50’s? They seem kind of naïve of us now but I don’t remember thinking that the commercials were lies or feeling disgusted at the time. It’s not only still going on but it’s on a much bigger scale and a lot more sophisticated now.

Bothered by all of the tripe?

Are you bothered by all of the tripe added to the health care bill by the Democrats? You don’t think a Republicans Congress is immune from such nonsense do you? Just look at the billions of dollars of unrelated pork and outright bribes tacked on to the stimulus bill by both parties. 

In politics, a good deed always goes punished – both parties play that game. Well meaning folks have been trying to get through bills to offer some relief from health care industry misdeeds and collusion since 1900. There’s no way a pure bill to take care of those without healthcare is going to get through Congress without ridiculous compromises and piles of pork. 

Such slop is one of the prices we pay for living in a country where the founding fathers were wise enough to keep the average voter somewhat distanced from the governance process. If America truly was a “will-of-the-people” democracy, the majority who already have health care would never, ever make allowances for minority who don’t. 

Sometimes, just sometimes, a government has to step in and bargain, bribe, and cajole to get the right thing done. The result is never pretty but only a benevolent dictator could produce a purer result than this – and I’m sure not up for that.