Thank you Karl for all that you do.

And I hope the socialists will eventually realize that most of us here are not happy with either party. The republican party does seem like they do want the status quo. The dems want a gov controlled health care system. I want neither. I am sure there may be a few exceptions, but until I see a politician come on tv and say they have had enough I am not convinced. I am still waiting for a politician to do that. I suppose I shouldn't hold my breath.

The AMA remark: Are there any professional schools that do not limit enrollment? Anywhere?

Quote:

There has been zero interest or thought from Congress on a plan that will actually increase competition and hold down costs. That's because both sides of the aisle are working from the scripts handed to them by their campaign contributors from both the AMA and "Big Pharma", neither of which want real competition and both of which are hell-bent and determined to screw you to Mars with various cross-subsidization schemes, scams and outright rip-offs.

Couldnt of said it better myself.

Karl...it is not just healthcare. I am beating my head against the wall with my local group that works themselves into a frenzy over the latest internet falsity.

Just in the last few days they got themselves all worked up over the "I Pledge" video being shown in our school distict along with the Prewsident's speech and "HB 1388 Passed-funding for Terrorists" which is rife with inaccuracies - not the least of which there is no such thing as HB 1388.

I am afraid that my group is going to devolve into an angry mob - just as the media states...and I cannot figure out why they won't think for themselves!!!

Thank you for calling out this divisive, we got ours, now get yours party of no to you yes to us, leave u in the street and step over your body Party.

"These companies sell a drug in the US for $20/pill and $2/pill across the border"

That's the definition of dumping.

Why aren't US pharma firms being hounded abroad by antidumping suits?

Not questioning the assertion. Just asking.

One answer: no standing if there isn't an indigenous producer to file. Beyond that?

http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Gerson-Way....

Quote:

Product Description
There is a split right down the middle of modern medicine. One half, boosted by dazzling high technology, shows brilliant results in handling acute diseases and emergencies. The other half, dealing with chronic degenerative conditions, is lagging behind, unable to offer more than symptomatic treatment for the most widespread distressing conditions ranging from cancer, heart disease and hypertension to diabetes, arthritis and morbid obesity. It is assumed that these and other "diseases of modern civilization" are both inevitable and incurable. Healing the Gerson Way: Defeating Cancer and Other Chronic Diseases contradicts all such assumptions. As a complete guide to the theory and practice of the Gerson Therapy, developed over 80 years ago by Dr. Max Gerson, MD (1881-1959), it shows that the increasingly denatured, nutritionally empty, toxic modern diet is the main cause of today's worsening health crisis. This book offers the solution in the form of a brilliant, precision-built nutritional program that eliminates the underlying causes of disease, leading to lasting cures. This program is best known for its success in curing many types of cancer, but it also has an excellent track record with a large number of other degenerative conditions.

A rather strict regimen but they have some amazing case histories.

Karl, I do wish to point out that just because they call themselves "Republicans" does not make them such. Both parties have lost control of their brand names because they did not do anything to stop groups like this from using them, or they were legally quite powerless to do so under various state laws. For all intents and purposes, this could be "progressives" or anybody else calling themselves "Republicans" or just one loon sitting in front of a computer. Internet communication works both ways: it allows some very silly people to propagate their latest lunacy. I think a check to see if they are Republican Party affiliated or sanctioned might be in order.

If the pharma companies actually sold the pills in foreign markets freely, then I would support re-importation. But they aren't. The prices are fixed by foreign governments. Americans subsidize the new pills, procedures and equipment for the rest of the world.

from the link:

Outrage: Healthcare Propaganda on Congressional Switchboard
Posted by NFRA Staff • September 10, 2009 • Printer-friendly

Update/Correction:

I was wrong.

Further digging into this issue brought some facts into light that I missed yesterday. The phone number in question - an 800 number - is a sponsored and paid for service by a group called Families USA, a self-described "non-partisan" health care lobby. The number is not part of the Congressional switchboard.

I want to thank Karl Denninger from The Market Ticker for also bringing this to my attention. We need good people to call us on things when there is a problem. You may see his comments on this here.

Be assured, this was not a "dirty trick". I was really, really hacked off to call a number purported to be direct to our Congress and be sold a bill of goods. I would have been hacked off no matter what the message was selling.

Lesson learned: spend more time fact checking.

--Jennifer

Karl.

You have given the AMA way too much credit. The government controls the medical school numbers not the AMA. I am on the admission committee of a top 40 school and know this quite well. Interestingly, they are pushing to have the classes increased slightly but aren't willling to provide funding.

The AMA is a joke. Riddled with a financial corruption scandal, they have lost a great deal of membership in the last ecade. Only 17% of practicing docs are members.

The reality is that "rationing" will occur in 3 ways. RAC audits to penalize hospitals for admitting patients. Cutting back in a big way on reimbursements to Cardiologists and Oncologists whose care improves QOL and longevity but is expensive. Giving "lip service" to Primary care docs who have been shafted for years, but not allwing them to balance bill patients.

Americans subsidize the new pills, procedures and equipment for the rest of the world.
(Don't forget our military presence allows many other countries to spend more on their health care and other domestic programs.)
Politicians are only interested in one business...The re-election business.
Republicans have long had the reputation of country club crowd. (Rockafeller Republicans) But the only party that would even allow you to utter the words 'individual liberties and economic freedom' is the Republican Party.
Unfortunately, the Democratic Party is now all about collectivism.
My motto: Fall in love with no leader. Pledge allegience to no party.

KD wrote..

I'm rather annoyed this morning.

PS: Why are all posts marked as off topic?

"(Don't forget our military presence allows many other countries to spend more on their health care and other domestic programs.)"

Yes, that's why I'm a big supporter of closing our bases in Europe, Japan and Korea. Familiarity breeds contempt and I, for one, am tired of it.

It is our military power that allows us such latitude in borrowing money and gives us International political influence. Hence, the bases abroad.

Seems to have been an honest mistake rather than a "Republican Dirty Trick" for which they give you full credit for pointing out and they have made the correction on their website.

Glad to hear you call out the AMA, which is a government-conferred monopoly, an entity that gets quite a lot of its revenues through government subsidy, and a powerful "labor union" operating within a government-subsidized monopoly. Throw in insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies that don't operate in a free market, and you're screwed on top of screwed.

Personally, I think the only real solution is to force all three gangs to operated in an entirely free market. No subsidy or monopoly of any kind.

Regarding the "true sale" doctrine for drugs have you considered the incentives and widespread availability of tools for counterfeit drug production? There may be alternatives to the current system of a controlled (and abused for price differentiation) distribution chains but some form of ensuring quality and preventing tampering need to be available.

MN GOP governor Tim Pawlenty favors drug re-importation. I used to think that was populist crap, but I see the logic now. He is one to watch for 2012, in large part because he's the only one doing the legwork now for a plausible run. The GOP has to nominate someone, after all. Last I checked, Pawlenty was 30:1 (against) to win. I'd take those odds. Now if only he'd stop backing corn-based ethanol, which is a total scam.

Maybe we should bombard the senate "Gang of Six" with KD's medical plan.

What is it about the health-care issue that drives people of all political stripess insane? What makes them totally unable to look at basic facts?

As Karl is fond of saying "it's the math".

Everyone knows the cost of health care in this country is ridiculous, but why do so few actually look at the ones recieving the money and ask why they charge so much? If a poor person goes to deliver a baby the taxpayers get the bill. Everyone wants to blame the poor person or the government. Why do so few ask why a normal delivery costs $18K?

Insurance is a gambling game, pure and simple, and the house always wins.

@Gmf56:

I'm guessing it's because thanks to government the current crop of certified and licensed doctors and hospitals have a monopoly. A casual google search reveals sources/articles like these (below), in support of home birth with a midwife. I'm not sure you're right when you say a normal delivery (in a hospital) costs $18k. That shocks and appalls me. If I were quoted that much, I would certainly contemplate a home birth (actually, I think I would anyway), very possibly without a midwife.

Interestingly, these articles (which I have not sought to verify) also paint a picture of just these kind of monopolistic practices having played out, with the aid of legislation, over the past decades. Kinda hard not to blame government rules for this, just because there were some bad actors partnering with them from the private sector.


http://www.gentlebirth.org/format/myths.....

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1998....

http://books.google.com/books?id=0RU-eRR....

P.S. In reading further, I note with interest that in some countries e.g. Australia and the UK people have been banned by force of law from having their babies at home. Perhaps, in the individual cases, this was sensible, perhaps not. But however sensible, this is not the province of government.

Quote:

Regarding the "true sale" doctrine for drugs have you considered the incentives and widespread availability of tools for counterfeit drug production? There may be alternatives to the current system of a controlled (and abused for price differentiation) distribution chains but some form of ensuring quality and preventing tampering need to be available.

Research the melamine scandal in China. A Chinese company actually patented and mass produced a device that was designed to add melamine to milk to fool the inspectors looking for protein content.

How about all of the food, processed or otherwise, that is imported from all over the world, including China and India?

It's funny how corporate America doesn't want us to import cheap drugs when they're manufactured here, but they're all for importing un-inspected food treated with pesticides, anti-biotics, and growth hormones... when they're the ones doing the importing to save 0.01% on their cost.

I may be off a bit about the $18K for normal delivery, as I haven't had one in a while. I am sure of the following amounts:

1975 - 3 days in hospital, vaginal delivery, one epidural, baby 4 weeks early & treated for jaundice. $650, which I paid cash because I had no insurance.

1988 - 18hrs in hospital, vaginal delivery, one epidural, full-term baby.
$13,000. (insurance paid all)

As insurance expanded what it covered, prices went up. 1981 infant vacines -/+ $65 for all - out of pocket. 1988 $350 (insurance covered it)

I remember when eyeglasses were about 8-10 wages. Now it is more like 3 - 4 days pay. (-500 correction, photogray, thin lens for both)

My g-grandmother had breast cancer in the late 1950s. No insurance - her 2 daughters paid all the bills in cash. One husband was a postman the other a janitor. Could a postman & a janitor come up with the $ for a masectomy today without crushing them?

Probably what cracks me up the most is the folks hollering that they don't want some paper-pusher deciding what care they recieve. Who do they think decides that now? A paper-pusher who's job it is deny as much as possible to maximize profits.

On the MS Gulf coast there is a Dr. know as "the $40 doctor". He charges a flat $40 for a visit, has one employe, accepts no insurance & no appointments. He is always being hassled by medical associations, DEA and any other group the PTB can find to stop such independant behavior.

I don't buy that the AMA really restricts how many MDs there are. There is a medical school being built 5 miles from my house and they will take 90 students in the fall. It takes a long time to find faculty for new schools and expansions. I know new schools have taken 3 years of national searches just to fill out their faculty. Once you get into the meat of medical school and resident rotations most preceptors have their hands full with just 4-5 students. The shortage of good educators in the medical field sort of limits the number you can churn out.