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Saturday, December 20, 2008

Baucus sells out Americans to Insurance companies!


I recently wrote to our Senator Max Baucus who was recently re Elected. I wanted to find out what type of health care reform he stands for...because they all will tell you they are for reform and have Americans best interest in mind! I wanted to Know if he is for the People...Or the corporations? Guess what....It appears that Max is for big business at the expense of the people....his health proposal was probably engineered by the insurance industry..(that's why they back it) Max is no Friend of mine or yours....I wish I could take my vote back.

Here is what he says in the last BS. report he emailed to me...my comments in bold...

Finding Solutions
We must find in-depth, innovative solutions to our health care crisis. Reform can’t –and won’t- come overnight, but by working together I’m confident we can make great strides in health care reform.
Under my plan:
• Insurance companies will compete for business- which will bring down costs- but they will also be required to meet minimum standards for coverage, including preventive care. (don't they already compete...or is that an illusion...the same illusion of competition youll see if this bill is passed....denials, rate hikes, red tape...its a damn business...they need to make a profit...off of your illness)• No one would be denied coverage or face higher costs because of their past medical history or for going to the doctor more often.
• A technology based medical records system would streamline the health care application process.(they just want to track your info better so they can deny you, this is kinda bizzaar...im curious about this records system)
• More people who can’t afford health insurance to be immediately covered through Medicaid, Medicare and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. (until you get a job then employers control your health insurance, this plan really sucks...and to think I had hope in Baucus)In Montana, we know how to solve problems, how to build our communities, how to take care of each other. If a neighbor is sick, we bring soup, medicine and comfort. Now, our health care system is ailing. And the time has come to find the cure.
Together we can make this happen.


Baucus is a puppet for the insurance companies....No back bone!







Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Blago/Spitzer similar stories...standing up to banking exposing banking fraud!!





Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich Suspends State Business with Bank of America and Is Then Promptly Arrested by the FBI on Corruption Charges

Blagojevich Framed as Obama's First Crisis
by Mark Jurkowitz, Associate Director, Project for Excellence in Journalism
December 16, 2008


Blagojevich is innocent
by rogue robot
Tue Dec 09, 2008 at 07:38:26 AM PST
This is whitewater all over. This is a partisan republican investigation that started 3 years ago into the tollways around Chicago. Why is the charge now claiming Blago is actually trying to sell a senate seat? Because this investigation has tried to dredge up.........

The Spitzer story -- Something doesn't add up Because frankly, that suggests a return to the bad old days where one of the major activities of the FBI was gathering dirt on every politician in Washington (not to mention civil rights leaders and others who had somehow run afoul of J. Edgar Hoover), which was then used to intimidate them politically. And that's much more disturbing to me than Elliot Spitzer's tawdry, and apparently very expensive, personal life.


Is There A Bigger Story Behind Spitzer's Downfall?By Susie Madrak Tuesday Dec 16, 2008 9:00am Via Skimble, a most interesting theory:

I have yet to see this reported anywhere, but an anonymous commenter named trademonster on an investment forum said this (notice the dates):

01-09-06 06:49 AM
I've heard that SEC is going to shut down Madoff financial and all of their hedge funds for SEC violations. Can anyone confirm this?


Governor Rod Blagojevich: Corrupt Politician or Working Class Hero?
Or maybe both. He’s been all over the news today — another politician turns out to be corrupt. Rod Blagojevich and Elliot Spitzer have both stood up to the robber barons on behalf of regular people. Too bad they’ll both be remembered for their scandals more than anything else.


Shades of SpitzerEliot Spitzer, the Governor of New York, got a little too close to the truth in naming who was to blame for the economic crisis and was taken down for something that all his peers do. Rod Blagojevich, the Governor of Illinois, stood with the workers in the class war being conducted against them by the Bank Of America. Soon after, the FBI arrested him. I don't know whether he's guilty or not - all Chicago politicians are guilty of something - but you have to wonder if the authorities keep a dossier on every politician for use if any of them somehow fall on the wrong side of the class war. If Blagojevich hadn't stood up to the Bank Of America, would he never have been arrested? Was his quick arrest - and Spitzer's - a warning to other politicians?






Why do comedians and Musicians get it.....Why dont we??





Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Flax seed cancer Help....


(NaturalNews) This article is about how you can prevent and cure cancer with a bottle of flax oil and a carton of cottage cheese. As incredible as this may seem, it is a truth that has been well proven and documented. It is also a truth that has been vigorously suppressed because the cancer industry is big business at its worst.

You or someone you love may have been diagnosed with cancer, and you are very much afraid. You have been taught by the disease establishment that you have a life threatening condition, and you had better sign on for the "standard of care" treatments before it is too late. Your doctors have thrown all sorts of frightening statistics at you about what will happen if you don't have immediate surgery followed by radiation, chemotherapy, and ......the rest






How We Got the Worst Health Care System Mountains of Money Can Buy








How We Got the Worst Health Care System Mountains of Money Can BuyBy Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello and Brendan Smith, TruthOut.org
Posted on December 16, 2008, Printed on December 16, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/113112/

As Americans respond to President-elect Barack Obama's call for town hall meetings on reform of the American health care system, an understanding of how that system came to be the way it is can be crucial for figuring out how to fix it. The American health care system is unique because, for most of us, it is tied to our jobs rather than to our government. For many Americans, the system seems natural, but few know that it originated not as a well-thought-out plan to provide for Americans' health, but as a way to circumvent a quirk in wartime wage regulations that had nothing to do with health.

As far back as the 1920s, a few big employers had offered health insurance plans to some of their workers. But only a few: By 1935, only about 2 million people were covered by private health insurance, and on the eve of World War II, there were only 48 job-based health plans in the entire country.

The rise of unions in the 1930s and 1940s led to the first great expansion of health care for Americans. But ironically, it did not produce a national plan providing health care to all, like those in virtually all other developed countries. Instead, the special conditions of World War II produced the system of job-based health benefits we know today.

In 1942, the United States set up a National War Labor Board. It had the power to set a cap on all wage increases. But it let employers circumvent the cap by offering "fringe benefits" -- notably, health insurance. The fringe benefits created a huge tax subsidy; they were treated as tax-deductible expenses for corporations, but not as taxable income for workers.

The result was revolutionary. Companies and unions quickly negotiated new health insurance plans. Some were run by Blue Cross, Blue Shield and private insurance companies. Others were "Taft-Hartley funds," run jointly by management and unions. By 1950, half of all companies with fewer than 250 workers and two-thirds of all companies with more than 250 workers offered health insurance of one kind or another. By 1965, nearly three-quarters of the population was covered by some kind of private health insurance.

This private, job-based insurance covered millions of workers who had never had health care insurance before. But this victory also set patterns that are responsible for many of the problems the health care system faces today.

Because this private system was tied to employment, millions of people outside the workforce were without coverage. Those most likely to be covered were salaried or unionized white men in Northern industrial states. Two-thirds of those with incomes under $2,000 a year were not covered, nor were nearly half of nonwhites and those over 65 years old.

Employer-based plans tied workers to their jobs -- something that benefited employers but not workers or the economy as a whole. The quality of the coverage was spotty -- some plans were excellent, others completely inadequate. Doctors accepted this revolution because it didn't challenge their power; but, as a result, the system provided no public control over medical costs.

This revolution had a subtle political effect as well. By giving much of the workforce health benefits, it reduced the incentive for them to pursue a system of universal care. And it gave unions a stake in the private, employer-based health care system. One opponent of publicly financed health care said the greatest bulwark against the socialization of medicine was furthering the progress already made by voluntary health insurance plans.

Since then, many layers have been laid on top of employer-based health care. Medicare and Medicaid provided government-funded health insurance for the elderly and impoverished. The "managed care revolution" led to the takeover of 90 percent of employer-based health care by HMOs, most of them driven by profit rather than health concerns. But most people continue to get their health care through their employer.

Many of the problems of American health care grow out of this history. The system is so complex that even experts -- let alone ordinary people trying to find care for themselves and their loved ones -- are unable to fully understand it. The system spends one-third of its cost on paperwork, waste and profit over and above the cost of actually providing health care. Yet, nearly one-third of Americans are without health insurance over the course of a year. In all other developed countries, more than 85 percent of citizens have health coverage under public programs. The American health care system is full of inequalities: People who work for one company may have high-quality insurance, while those who work for a similar company have none.

All of these problems are due at least in part to an employer-based system, the original intent of which was not to provide quality health care to all, but to circumvent wartime wage regulations. As we begin to debate how to reform health care, we should keep in mind that the American health care system was not created to express American values or to meet Americans' health care needs. And knowing that, we should not be afraid to change the system if we can come up with a better one.

This piece is excerpted from "Doctor Wall Street: How the American Health Care System Got So Sick," from a popular pamphlet on the history of the American health care system available for free download at http://laborstrategies.blogs.com/DoctorWallStreet.pdf


Tim Costello, Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith are the co-founders of Global Labor Strategies, a resource center providing research and analysis on globalization, trade and labor issues.

© 2008 TruthOut.org All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/113112/






Monday, December 15, 2008

A few good MEN


"Now, some may ask how, at this moment of economic challenge, we can afford to invest in reforming our health care system. Well, I ask a different question – I ask how we can afford not to." [Barack Obama, today.]


On the occasion of Barack Obama's rollout of his health policy team, and given that, according to a couple of pieces of paper I have around here somewhere, I'm a doctor, this seems a good time to spout off -- yet again -- on the state of health care in the US. What it really boils down to is this: we need to reduce cost and raise quality. As long as the discussion is only about paperwork, ie, single payer vs current insurers, electronic vs paper records; and as long as the only real efforts to control costs are in reducing payments to providers, we'll be getting nowhere. As usual.

I've written about why I favor single-payer, and have acknowledged that among physicians I'm in a distinct minority. I've said pretty much all I know about that aspect of it. Moreover: as controversial as it is, it's really only nibbling around the edges. Solutions --REAL solutions -- will come from fundamentally changing the nature of care itself, and how we provide it. And if you think addressing insurance is complicated and daunting, you ain't seen nothin'


yet!......................................read the rest here

The HMO Death Watch 2 - How Shall We Regard Medicare Advantage?
December 12th, 2008 by DrRich

DrRich has never really understood the government’s rationale for funding Medicare Advantage.



Being a Milton Friedman capitalist, DrRich is all in favor of having plenty of robust, profit-seeking entities knocking about within the American economy, even within the healthcare sector of the economy. In principle, he is even in favor of giving for-profit health insurance companies a chance to prove that they can deliver quality healthcare with greater efficiency and better outcomes than certain non-profit entities, such as, say, the government. If the insurance companies can give us good healthcare at lower cost,
...............................read more here








Sunday, December 14, 2008

What about Breast Cancer??


Thermography

Norway Study


Radiation combined with Radiation


Breast cancer is the leading cause of death among American women between the ages of 44 and 55. Dr. Gofinan, in his book, Preventing Breast Cancer, cites this startling statistic along with an in-depth look at mammographic screening, an early-detection practice that agencies like the American Cancer Society recommend to women of all age groups. According to most health experts, catching a tumor in its early stages increases a woman's chances of survival by at least 17 percent.
The most common method for early detection is mammography. A mammogram is an X-ray picture of your breast that can reveal tumor growths otherwise undetectable in a physical exam. Like all x-rays, mammograms use doses of ionizing radiation to create this image. Radiologists then analyze the image for any abnormal growths. Despite continuous improvements and innovations, mammography has garnered a sizable opposition in the medical community because of an error rate that is still high and the amount of harmful radiation used in the procedure.
Effectiveness of Mammography
Is mammography an effective tool for detecting tumors? Some critics say no. In a Swedish study of 60,000 women, 70 percent of the mammographically detected tumors weren't tumors at all. These "false positives" aren't just financial and emotional strains, they may also lead to many unnecessary and invasive biopsies. In fact, 70 to 80 percent of all positive mammograms do not, upon biopsy, show any presence of cancer.
At the same time, mammograms also have a high rate of missed tumors, or "false negatives." Dr. Samuel S. Epstein, in his book, The Politics Of Cancer, claims that in women ages 40 to 49, one in four instances of cancer is missed at each mammography. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) puts the false negative rate even higher at 40 percent among women ages 40-49. National Institutes of Health spokespeople also admit that mammograms miss 10 percent of malignant tumors in women over 50. Researchers have found that breast tissue is denser among younger women, making it difficult to detect tumors. For this reason, false negatives are twice as likely to occur in premenopausal mammograms.
Radiation Risks
Many critics of mammography cite the hazardous health effects of radiation. In 1976, the controversy over radiation and mammography reached......

read the rest here

Danger and Unreliability of Mammography Breast Examination is a Safe, Effective, and Practical Alternative
by Samuel S. Epstein , Rosalie Bertell, Ph.D., GNSH and Barbara Seaman
Published in International Journal of Health Services, Volume 31, Number 3, Pages 605-615, 2001
2001, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.

Mammography screening is a profit-driven technology posing risks compounded by unreliability. In striking contrast, annual clinical breast examination (CBE) by a trained health professional, together with monthly breast self-examination (BSE), is safe, at least as effective, and low in cost. International programs for training nurses how to perform CBE and teach BSE are critical and overdue.
Contrary to popular belief and assurances by the U.S. media and the cancer establishment--the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and American Cancer Society (ACS)--mammography is not a technique for early diagnosis. In fact, a breast cancer has usually been present for about eight years before it can finally be detected. Furthermore, screening should be recognized as damage control, rather than misleadingly as «secondary prevention.

DANGERS OF SCREENING MAMMOGRAPHY
Mammography poses a wide range of risks of which women worldwide still remain uninformed.


Docs Tell Younger Women: Avoid Mammograms
Source Washington
Posted Apr 3, 07 8:16 AM CDT in US, Science & Health
(Newser) – Forty-something women should consider skipping their annual mammograms, the American College of Physicians is suggesting after a new review of research. Docs point to danger from radiation and unnecessary biopsies, surgery and chemotherapy, thanks in part to a high rate of false positives. "We don't think the evidence supports a blanket recommendation," one of the authors told the Washington Post.

The guidelines contradict the advice of the American Cancer Society, which encourages women over 40 to get yearly mammograms. But the ACP's study, which reviewed the past four decades of scientific literature on mammograms, found that screenings might not reduce that population's breast cancer rate at all.
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