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New Report: Preventable Medical Mistakes Account for One-Sixth of All Annual Deaths in the United States

By Dr. Mercola
October 9, 2013
192,036 views

(please note: The underlined words are 'clickable' links when accessed via the link at the bottom of this page)

I’ve long stated that the conventional health care system is in desperate need of radical change, and the findings published in a new report clearly backs up this assertion.

You’re probably already aware that the US has the most expensive health care in the world. In fact, the US spends more on health care than the next 10 biggest spenders combined: Japan, Germany, France, China, the U.K., Italy, Canada, Brazil, Spain and Australia.

If the US health care system was a country, it would be the 6th largest economy on the entire planet. Despite that, the US ranks last in health and mortality when compared with 17 other developed nations.

Sure, we may have one of the best systems for treating acute surgical emergencies, but the American medical system is an unmitigated failure at treating chronic illness.

I've previously posted my opinion of the so-called "Affordable Care Act". There is always free cheese in a mouse trap, and if you've paid any attention to how our federal government names their legislation - the name is typically the opposite of the results. Just look to the "Patriot Act" or "Free Trade" agreements for confirmation, the bigger the lie the more easily it is believed.

Conventional medicine, which is focused on diagnostic tests, drugs, and surgical interventions for most ills, clearly kills more people than it saves. The lethality of the system is in part due to side effects, whether “expected” or not. But preventable errors also account for an absolutely staggering number of deaths.

According to the most recent research1 into the cost of medical mistakes in terms of lives lost, 210,000 Americans are killed by preventable hospital errors each year.

When deaths related to diagnostic errors, errors of omission, and failure to follow guidelines are included, the number skyrockets to an estimated 440,000 preventable hospital deaths each year!

This is more than 4.5 times higher than 1999 estimates published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM),2 and makes medical errors the third-leading cause of death in the US, right after heart disease and cancer. As reported by the featured article in Scientific American:3

“The new estimates were developed by John T. James, a toxicologist at NASA's space center in Houston who runs an advocacy organization called Patient Safety America...

A spokesman for the American Hospital Association said the group has more confidence in the IOM's estimate of 98,000 deaths. ProPublica asked three prominent patient safety researchers to review James' study, however, and all said his methods and findings were credible.”

Avoiding Hospitals Can Be 'Good Medicine'

In all, preventable medical mistakes may account for one-sixth of all deaths that occur in the US annually. To put these numbers into even further perspective, medical mistakes in American hospitals kill four jumbo jets’ worth of people each week.4

One of the reasons why I am so passionate about sharing preventive health strategies with you -- tips like eating right, exercising and reducing stress -- is because they can help you to stay out of the hospital. As a general rule, the hospital is a place you want to avoid at all costs, except in cases of accidental trauma or surgical emergencies.

According to statistics published in a 2011 Health Grades report,5 the incidence rate of medical harm occurring in the United States is estimated to be over 40,000 harmful and/or lethal errors DAILY! As John T. James writes in the featured report:

..."Perhaps it is time for a national patient bill of rights for hospitalized patients. All evidence points to the need for much more patient involvement in identifying harmful events and participating in rigorous follow-up investigations to identify root causes."

Overtesting and Overtreatment Are Part of the Problem

Scientific American also quotes Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and author of the book, Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won’t Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Healthcare. I interviewed Dr. Makary on the topic of medical errors earlier this year.

According to Dr. Makary, James’ estimate “shows that eliminating medical errors must become a national priority.” He also calls for increasing public awareness of “unintended consequences” associated with medical tests and procedures, and urges doctors to discuss such risks with their patients.

Part of the problem is linked to overtesting and overtreatment. And instead of dissuading patients from unnecessary interventions, the system rewards waste and incentivizes disease over health.

According to a report by the Institute of Medicine, an estimated 30 percent of all medical procedures, tests and medications may in fact be unnecessary6 – at a cost of at least $750 billion a year (plus the cost of emotional suffering and related complications and even death, which are impossible to put numbers on).

For the past two years, the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation, one of the largest physician organizations in the US, has released reports on the most overused tests and treatments that provide limited or no benefit to the patient, or worse, causes more harm than good. Last year’s report warned doctors against using 45 tests, procedures and treatments. This year, another 90 tests and treatments were added to the list.

To learn more, I encourage you to browse through the Choosing Wisely web site,7 as they provide informative reports on a wide variety of medical specialties, tests, and procedures that may not be in your best interest.

It’s also important to be aware that many novel medical treatments gain popularity over older standards of care due to clever marketing, more so than solid science... Recent findings by the Mayo Clinic prove this point. To determine the overall effectiveness of our medical care, researchers tracked the frequency of medical reversals over the past decade. The results were published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings in August.8

The researchers found that reversals are common across all classes of medical practice, and a significant proportion of medical treatments offer no benefit at all. In fact, they found 146 reversals of previously established practices, treatments and procedures over the past 10 years.

The most telling data in the Mayo Clinic’s report show just how many common medical treatments are not helping patients at all—or are actually harming them. Of the studies that tested an existing standard of care, 40 percent reversed the practice, compared to only 38 percent reaffirming it. The remaining 22 percent were inconclusive. This means that anywhere between 40 and 78 percent of the medical testing, treatments, and procedures you receive are of NO benefit to you—or are actually harmful—as determined by clinical studies.

Safeguarding Your Care While Hospitalized

Once you’re hospitalized, you’re immediately at risk for medical errors, so one of the best safeguards is to have someone there with you. Dr. Andrew Saul has written an entire book on the issue of safeguarding your health while hospitalized. Frequently, you’re going to be relatively debilitated, especially post-op when you’re under the influence of anesthesia, and you won’t have the opportunity to see the types of processes that are going on. This is particularly important for pediatric patients, and the elderly.

It’s important to have a personal advocate present to ask questions and take notes. For every medication given in the hospital, ask questions such as: “What is this medication? What is it for? What’s the dose?” Most people, doctors and nurses included, are more apt to go through that extra step of due diligence to make sure they’re getting it right if they know they’ll be questioned about it.

If someone you know is scheduled for surgery, you can print out the WHO surgical safety checklist and implementation manual,9 which is part of the campaign “Safe Surgery Saves Lives.” The checklist can be downloaded free of charge here. If a loved one is in the hospital, print it out and bring it with you, as this can help you protect your family member or friend from preventable errors in care.

Help for Victims of Preventable Medical Errors

If you or a loved one find yourself a victim of a preventable medical mistake, Dr. Makary suggests connecting with patient communities such as:

* Citizens for Patient Safety10
* ProPublica Patient Harm11

Besides that, he suggests:

“Ask to talk to the doctor about that mistake. If you’re not satisfied, write a letter or call the patient relations department. Every hospital is mandated to have this service. They are set up to answer your concerns. If you’re not satisfied with that, write a letter to the hospital’s lawyer, the general council. And you will see attention to the issue, because you’ve gone through the right channels. We don’t want to encourage millions of lawsuits out there. But when people voice what happened, what went wrong, and the nature of the preventable mistake, hospitals can learn from their mistakes.”

An Unacceptable Reality—a Healthcare System That Is a Leading Cause of Death

Medical errors are a large reason why the current, fatally flawed medical paradigm is in such desperate need of transformation. A majority of healthcare workers observe mistakes made by their peers yet rarely do anything to challenge them. A substantial portion of American doctors also suffer from burnout on the job, according to a 2012 study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.12

Of the nearly 7,300 doctors surveyed, nearly half had at least one symptom of burnout; 38 percent had high emotional exhaustion scores; and 30 percent had high depersonalization scores (viewing patients more like objects than human beings) – twice the rate of the general population of working adults. Clearly, this is yet another piece of the puzzle as to why US medical care is so dangerous.

So what is the solution?

From my perspective there isn't any easy one, other than to simply minimize your interactions with the conventional system, as it has very little to offer anyway when it comes to prevention or treatment of chronic disease. More often than not, conventional strategies in no way shape or form address the underlying cause of your disease.

One of the reasons I am so passionate about sharing the information on this site about healthy eating, exercise, and stress management is because it can help keep you OUT of the hospital. You can use this site to find well-proven strategies that will address most chronic health problems. Please remember you can always use the search engine at the top of every page on the site to review previous articles we have written.

If you have an acute injury, of course you need to seek immediate competent care. However, the very first step for any chronic health challenge would be to follow my Nutrition Plan as that will likely improve, if not completely eliminate, more than 80 percent of your health challenges.

In the unusual case where you are not getting better, it will be wise to seek a health coach or medical professional that can guide you through complicating factors that may be impairing your progress. Typically, the time honored local social networking strategy works well. Ask people in your local community who the best practitioners are for your problem. You can typically find many good referrals from people in independently-owned health food stores. But be sure to get a clear consensus and ask as many people as you can, as choosing a doctor is a very important step, and you want to make sure you get it right.

Basic Tenets of Optimal Health

All in all, leading a common-sense, healthy lifestyle is your best bet to achieve a healthy body and mind. And while conventional medical science may flip-flop back and forth in its recommendations, there are certain basic tenets of optimal health (and healthy weight) that do not change. Following these healthy lifestyle guidelines can go a very long way toward keeping you well and prevent chronic disease of all kinds:

1. Proper Food Choices: For a comprehensive guide on which foods to eat and which to avoid, see my nutrition plan. Generally speaking, you should be looking to focus your diet on whole, ideally organic, unprocessed foods. For the best nutrition and health benefits, you will want to eat a good portion of your food raw.
Avoid sugar, and fructose in particular. All forms of sugar have toxic effects when consumed in excess, and drive multiple disease processes in your body, not the least of which is insulin resistance, a major cause of chronic disease and accelerated aging.

I believe the two primary keys for successful weight management are severely restricting carbohydrates (sugars, fructose, and grains) in your diet, and increasing healthy fat consumption. This will optimize insulin and leptin levels, which is key for maintaining a healthy weight and optimal health.

2. Regular exercise: Even if you're eating the healthiest diet in the world, you still need to exercise to reach the highest levels of health, and you need to be exercising effectively, which means including high-intensity activities into your rotation. High-intensity interval-type training boosts human growth hormone (HGH) production, which is essential for optimal health, strength and vigor. HGH also helps boost weight loss.
So along with core-strengthening exercises, strength training, and stretching, I highly recommend that twice a week you do Peak Fitness exercises, which raise your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, followed by a 90-second recovery period.

3. Stress Reduction: You cannot be optimally healthy if you avoid addressing the emotional component of your health and longevity, as your emotional state plays a role in nearly every physical disease -- from heart disease and depression, to arthritis and cancer.
Meditation, prayer, social support and exercise are all viable options that can help you maintain emotional and mental equilibrium. I also strongly believe in using simple tools such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to address deeper, oftentimes hidden, emotional problems.

4. Drink plenty of clean water.

5. Maintain a healthy gut: About 80 percent of your immune system resides in your gut, and research is stacking up showing that probiotics—beneficial bacteria—affect your health in a myriad of ways; it can even influence your ability to lose weight. A healthy diet is the ideal way to maintain a healthy gut, and regularly consuming traditionally fermented foods is the easiest, most cost effective way to ensure optimal gut flora.

6. Optimize your vitamin D levels: Research has shown that increasing your vitamin D levels can reduce your risk of death from ALL causes. For practical guidelines on how to use natural sun exposure to optimize your vitamin D benefits, please see my previous article on how to determine if enough UVB is able to penetrate the atmosphere to allow for vitamin D production in your skin.

7. Avoid as many chemicals, toxins, and pollutants as possible: This includes tossing out your toxic household cleaners, soaps, personal hygiene products, air fresheners, bug sprays, lawn pesticides, and insecticides, just to name a few, and replacing them with non-toxic alternatives.

8. Get plenty of high-quality sleep: Regularly catching only a few hours of sleep can hinder metabolism and hormone production in a way that is similar to the effects of aging and the early stages of diabetes. Chronic sleep loss may speed the onset or increase the severity of age-related conditions such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and memory loss.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/10/09/preventable-medical-errors.aspx

Coexist with Monsanto or destroy it? Follow the organic money

By Jon Rappoport
October 13, 2013

Let’s stop screwing around and go to the heart of the matter. Whether the public campaign against Monsanto takes the form of GMO-labeling or putting millions of people in the street protesting against an evil corporation…

Depends on who has the money and what they’re willing to use it for.

I’m talking about the billion-dollar natural health industry.

If companies like Whole Foods, Stonyfield, Dr. Bronner’s, Lundberg, and the big-time nutritional-supplement outfits want to bankroll a popular and very visible uprising against Monsanto, they have the dollars to do it. And they have the PR people to ignite it.

If they decide they don’t really want to co-exist with Monsanto and GMOs, they could start funding something a lot hotter and more effective than GMO-labeling ballot measures.

But that’s not in their playbook. They don’t have the stomach and courage for it. They don’t want to get their hands dirty.

So they go for GMO labeling, the ballot measures, coexistence with Monsanto, the lite version of a campaign.

It’s a lot easier. It doesn’t risk everything that goes with taking on Monsanto directly.

“Hey, we’re all really nice people. Don’t get nasty. Monsanto is terribly misguided, so let the consumer know what he’s buying and let him make up his mind…”

Suppose, in the 1960s, we had this: “The Vietnam War isn’t really evil, we don’t want to promote a few million outraged Americans going out on the streets, so let’s just have a ballot measure…I buy Vietnam or I don’t buy Vietnam…and then people can decide whether to support the war…”

Last May, two million people in 436 cities across the world protested against Monsanto. So far this weekend, it’s 250,000 people in 50 countries. That’s a drop in the bucket.

Those demonstrations could expand by millions, with some major PR dollars behind them. Organic dollars.

Here’s a quick piece of personal history that gives you a parallel to what’s happening now with Monsanto.

Back in 1994, I took an active part in what was called the Health Freedom movement. The campaign was bankrolled by a few nutritional-supplement companies.

The objective, from their point of view, was passing a federal law that would protect them from the bad guy. The bad guy was the FDA. The FDA was going after supplements, threatening to close off consumers’ access to the full range of products.

My position was: okay, pass a law, but that isn’t going to stop the FDA. We have to attack it with the truth, from every possible angle, as a rogue federal agency committing major crimes. We have to put the Agency on the defensive, back on its heels. We have to make it scramble. We have to make this a very public war.

The nutritional companies and their toadies said no. They were the equivalent of the GMO-labeling funders of today. They wanted a nice neat solution, after which they would withdraw their dollars and go home.

And so a bill was passed into law (DSHEA), and the FDA has continued, in various ways, to go after nutritional-supplement companies, saddling them with red tape…accusing them of marketing unreliable products…harassing them.

Meanwhile, the FDA approves medical drugs for public consumption, drugs that, by conservative estimates, kill 106,000 people in the US every year. The supplements kill no one.

Sure, pass GMO-labeling measures, but that’s not the real answer. The thing is, the people who are funding these measures are basically putting all their money into the ballot campaigns—all the money they intend to contribute.

For them, it IS an either-or situation. Pass ballot measures, or launch an all-out attack on Monsanto. They’ve made their choice.

They SAY they believe they can sell GMO labeling to the public. They SAY that’s all they can sell, because the public is too ignorant to go for anything else.
http://tinyurl.com/l6rg9j2

That’s a very convenient position. It automatically excludes a real rebellion against the evil corporation, Monsanto.

“Well, you see, educating people to understand why GMOs are dangerous to health and how Monsanto is destroying the sanctity of the food supply…that’s too much. We can’t achieve that.”

I don’t buy it.

Everything looks bleak until you take action. In other words, we’re looking at a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The CEOs of these natural-health companies would turn pale at the prospect of going after Monsanto directly. It’s fear.

They opt for the ballot measures. They assure us that this is the only option. They stage their own version of reality and defend it with “rational” assertions.

It’s a con.

Take on Monsanto…directly? Take out ads exposing Monsanto? Promote a million people in Washington DC Mall on a Saturday afternoon? Reveal the names of the Congressmen who are defending Monsanto? File new lawsuits against Monsanto? Put small farmers on television who are being harassed and driven out of business by Monsanto? Show the American people the faces of the men and women who spend their lives growing food for us, and listen to what they have to say? Bring the outrage to a boil?

Expose (gasp) Obama as the number-one supporter of Monsanto in the nation? Name the people he’s appointed to protect Monsanto?
http://tinyurl.com/brgfua2

TELL THE TRUTH?

Oh my God! Run for the hills!

No no no no!

Let’s have a ballot measure. For labeling. Let’s calm down. Let’s be nice. Let’s coexist. Let’s play together in the sandbox, even if the sandbox is polluted with GMOs. Easy does it. Relax.

Take a deep breath. The cosmic glob Goo-Goo is with us, and all will be well. He instructs us thus:

“Less energy. Less action. Less outrage. Less imagination. Less truth.”

Thank you, Goo-Goo. Thank you.

Your serene bullshit will sustain us in the days to come.

Jon Rappoport

http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2013/10/13/coexist-with-monsanto-or-destroy-it-follow-the-organic-money/

PDO small oil play that has made a small move, some Insider buying of late, its a thin trader, but on Mornings like this who knows.

I enjoyed that, and will probably re-read it. I always believed in compromise when you were dealing with people, or groups of people.

I know I only dealt with 24 guys on a night crew, and with every new crop of associates I would always have one or two which would want to do things their way, except they didn't get anything done at all.
That meant I had to get the rest of the crew to pitch in and get those tasks done. It wasn't fair, but while a few were doing there best to make life difficult for everyone else, and in the end everyone still got paid the same. A few did less work while others did more.

Out elected politicians are the same way, I think most of them strongly believe in what they are fighting for, but are willing to compromise to get something done. Now we are being led by extremes, on both sides of the aisle, and compromise is for someone else to do, because they will not.

Again I enjoyed your common sense post, maybe you can send some notes to our politicians and they could end this, and I can get back to just worrying about the next stock I can identify for upside gains.

[Ot]Incredible day for Boston sports; Brady tosses TD to beat Saints 30-27 with five seconds to go. Ortiz grandslam ties Detroit 5-5 and Saltlamachia single wins it 6-5.

Futures: Dow -99, S&P -11.25, Naz -14.25.

Gold and Silver up very slightly.

Nope. Too many acrimonious fisticuffs, food fights among these inbreeders prompted Ihub to lock it down.

Is the Zeev's Talk Politics board still around?

Thomas Sowell: Who shut down the government?

Oct. 12, 2013 @ 07:55 PM



Even when it comes to something as basic, and apparently as simple and straightforward, as the question of who shut down the federal government, there are diametrically opposite answers, depending on whether you talk to Democrats or to Republicans.

There is really nothing complicated about the facts. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted all the money required to keep all government activities going — except for Obamacare.

This is not a matter of opinion. You can check the Congressional Record.

As for the House of Representatives’ right to grant or withhold money, that is not a matter of opinion either. You can check the Constitution of the United States. All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, which means that congressmen there have a right to decide whether or not they want to spend money on a particular government activity.

Whether Obamacare is good, bad or indifferent is a matter of opinion. But it is a matter of fact that members of the House of Representatives have a right to make spending decisions based on their opinion.

Obamacare is indeed “the law of the land,” as its supporters keep saying, and the Supreme Court has upheld its constitutionality.

But the whole point of having a division of powers within the federal government is that each branch can decide independently what it wants to do or not do, regardless of what the other branches do, when exercising the powers specifically granted to that branch by the Constitution.

The hundreds of thousands of government workers who have been laid off are not idle because the House of Representatives did not vote enough money to pay their salaries or the other expenses of their agencies — unless they are in an agency that would administer Obamacare.

Since we cannot read minds, we cannot say who — if anybody — “wants to shut down the government.” But we do know who had the option to keep the government running and chose not to. The money voted by the House of Representatives covered everything that the government does, except for Obamacare.

The Senate chose not to vote to authorize that money to be spent, because it did not include money for Obamacare. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that he wants a “clean” bill from the House of Representatives, and some in the media keep repeating the word “clean” like a mantra. But what is unclean about not giving Harry Reid everything he wants?

If Sen. Reid and President Obama refuse to accept the money required to run the government, because it leaves out the money they want to run Obamacare, that is their right. But that is also their responsibility.

You cannot blame other people for not giving you everything you want. And it is a fraud to blame them when you refuse to use the money they did vote, even when it is ample to pay for everything else in the government.

When Barack Obama keeps claiming that it is some new outrage for those who control the money to try to change government policy by granting or withholding money, that is simply a bald-faced lie.

You can check the history of other examples of “legislation by appropriation” as it used to be called.

Whether legislation by appropriation is a good idea or a bad idea is a matter of opinion. But whether it is both legal and not unprecedented is a matter of fact.

Perhaps the biggest of the big lies is that the government will not be able to pay what it owes on the national debt, creating a danger of default. Tax money keeps coming into the Treasury during the shutdown, and it vastly exceeds the interest that has to be paid on the national debt.

Even if the debt ceiling is not lifted, that only means that government is not allowed to run up new debt. But that does not mean that it is unable to pay the interest on existing debt.

None of this is rocket science. But unless the Republicans get their side of the story out — and articulation has never been their strong suit — the lies will win. More important, the whole country will lose.

Thomas Sowell, a native of North Carolina, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com. Representations of fact and opinions are solely those of the author.

http://www.hpe.com/opinion/x559273386/Thomas-Sowell-Who-shut-down-the-government

zab, I read your comments about extremists in the Republican Party and, frankly, find little to disagree with.

I think you are only seeing a part of the picture, however. Much as I think Obamacare was architected to fail, I also think the incredible polar divisions of our elected officials also have a purpose. Not only are the politicians hell bent on destroying those "on the other side of the aisle" (regardless of which side of the aisle they are on), they have inculcated this polarization into the citizens of this fine nation.

That's why you see such vitriolic "discussion" happening on political chat boards and in general walks of life. These people aren't stupid. They know if we all are occupied fighting each other "right" versus "left", then our attention will be diverted from them slowly changing this nation from what was envisioned by our founding fathers and immortalized in our Constitution and Bill of Rights into something far different.

I believe we ALL are being played whether we call ourselves liberal or conservative.

I refuse to play. I can disagree and still be civil. I can discuss and sometimes reach a reasonable compromise. Our "leaders" seem incapable of that. For a reason. I don't trust any of them, whether they call themselves liberal or conservative. It hasn't always been like this.

For me, I am glad I brought no progeny to this earth to live a suppressed existence.

I can live with that, and in this forum and anything else in life I have no problem with anyone who disagrees with me. I also never claim to be right all of the time either.

I believe each morning you decide to wake up, and when you do, you get up, you get something to eat, and you go about getting something done. You might not get it all done that day, and that's when you call it work.

But you keep trying to do a little more each day, eventually you will accomplish whatever you are trying to do. My daughter reminds me that I have to live forever, I really love my daughter, she is just like me. She is always smiling, and no matter what she has ever dealt with she reminded me that her Dad told her she could do it, it just might take a little longer.

Some in this forum are always negative, they don't like this or they submit comments from people who represent their views of people calling for the end of something. That's really bothers me, the only person who can stop you from doing something is yourself.

Its like listening to the Tea Party type people, their idea of America scares the crap out of me, we might be all individuals, but all of us live in this great country called America, so when someone disagrees with a Tea Party person we are just as right as they are, so lets compromise and make it better. But with them there is no compromise, its there way, or they will do their very best to destroy my way of life, and that is always wrong.

I actually wanted the single payer approach, that way each American would deal with his medical problems on his own level.

This is America, we are suppose to be the "can do" country, you know where you take on a problem and solve. That's what annoys me. All I hear from the other side is that health care should a free market decision. But its not, its a Corporate decision that is made by executives who line their pockets with huge salaries and bonuses for denying healthcare to those who need it.

The free market system isn't always free, its run by Corporations whose main concern is not healthcare but the bottom line. What does the bottom line have to do with deciding if this patient needs this procedure or another one. That's should be between the Doctor and the patient.

I know from Wal-Mart's Insurance you had to seek approval from a Wal-Mart representative to find out if you were covered, you then could only see those Doctors that were under the Wal-Mart plan, and I could only go to the one hospital here in Chattanooga. When I was in Florida it was even worse.

In Florida I could not go to the hospital that we near the warehouse, or my home, I had to travel North and then west until I could get to the one that was in the Wal-Mart plan. One time my son decided he was going to do something on his skateboard and ended up hurting his arm. I took him to the emergency room that was closest. Big mistake, Wal-Mart denied the claim, then the hospital went after me. When you sign the form for any hospital to do medical care you take full responsibility for the bill. Those few hours cost me almost 20 % of my yearly pay, and the arm wasn't broke either.

The Health Companies have written Obamacare, and it was really just the old Republican Dole plan to begin with, but this is at least a start to addressing a problem that has been happening for over 70 years. I just wonder how many 10s of Millions of American have died because they were denied healthcare.

As for your diabetes, I am borderline diabetic, but I was lucky, my Doctor did a preventive test, discovered my problem early and told me what I had to do to start addressing this issue. Its been almost 16 months, I think, I have cut out all sugars, well almost all. I eat a little more fruit, and a lot more vegetables, and did many other things with my diet. I had to monitor myself daily for almost six months, but I got lucky, I caught it in time, and now there isn't a day that goes by that I don't change something to help my body dealing with it.

We all get old, all of us will have issues, but finding these things with preventive tests is cheaper than just waiting for serious illness to occur due to neglect. When you lose your medical insurance, and that's easy to do, you change jobs is the worse one, what might of been covered under your old insurance is now lost in your new one. My neighbor just experienced that one, he has health issues and he is only in his fifties, his new job at Amazon will not cover those problems, but he has gone ahead to see what the Affordable Health Care Act can do for him. He hates Obama, but come January he will be getting Health Insurance thanks to the Affordable Health Care Act, and telling Amazon to stick it.

10 Reasons Why Obamacare Is Going to Ruin Your Medical Care… and Your Life

Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.
July 31, 2013 8:32pm

Of course you've heard of "liar loans"—in the heyday of subprime mortgages, unscrupulous lenders handed out mortgages to practically everyone with a pulse. "So you're saying you make $100,000 a year? Great, check this box titled 'McMansion.'"

We all know how this charade ended. Now Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D., an acclaimed expert on the subject of Obamacare, warns that the delay of the employer mandate by one year will force Americans into a single-payer system, raising insurance premiums and encouraging "liar subsidies" that might prove fiscally devastating. Not to mention that under the new health care system, you may well end up dead…

Dan Steinhart
Editor, Casey Research


Obamacare is a hodgepodge of new regulations, requirements, and penalties. I'd like to start by defining three terms, which, while obscure today, should begin to enter our everyday vocabulary as Obamacare continues to take effect:

Health insurance exchanges are the basket of qualified insurance policies that meet the new healthcare law requirements for expanded coverage. These may be set up by the states (many are refusing to do so, due to high cost and fear of bankrupting the state) or the federal government. The Exchanges are supposed to be fully operational by October 1, 2013, but it is questionable whether they will actually be in place by that deadline.

The individual mandate requires that individuals purchase health insurance that meets the new, expanded federal requirements. Individuals who do not comply face a financial penalty. Individuals who fall below minimum income levels will be eligible for taxpayer-funded subsidies to buy health insurance.

The employer mandate requires that businesses with more than 50 full-time employees must provide health insurance for all employees, and that insurance must meet the new standards set forth in the new law. Businesses that do not comply must pay a financial penalty for each employee, which for large companies can run into the millions of dollars annually. This is the piece of Obamacare that has been delayed by one year.

Selective Enforcement
Why delay one component of Obamacare and not the others? More specifically, why delay the employer mandate but not the individual mandate?

To answer that question, we must first understand this fact: Obama wants a single-payer healthcare system in the US.

This is not a secret:

Barack Obama, 2003: "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer healthcare system for America, but as all of you know, we may not get there immediately."

Barack Obama, 2007: "But I don't think we will be able to eliminate employer-based coverage immediately. There is potentially going to be some transition time."

These quotes are not taken out of context. Anyone who has been paying attention knows that transitioning to a single-payer system has been Obama's and his cohorts' ultimate goal all along:

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), 2009: "Next to me was a guy from the insurance company who then argued against the public option. He said it would not let private insurance companies compete. A public option would put the private insurance companies out of business and lead to single-payer. My single-payer friends, he was right. The man was right!"

Here, Rep. Schakowsky is suggesting that the "public option" will lead to their desired goal of a single-payer healthcare system. Single-payer proponents no longer use this term, since the public has clearly and consistently opposed it.

The "public option" has been renamed "Medicaid expansion," which serves the public-relations purpose of confusing the public and avoiding calling taxpayer-funded healthcare "single payer."

Jacob S. Hacker (Yale Professor), 2008: "Someone once said to me this is a Trojan Horse for single payer. It's not a Trojan Horse, right? It's right there! I am telling you. We are going to get there. Over time. Slowly. But we are going to move away from reliance on employer-based health insurance, as we should, but we will do it in a way that we are not going to frighten people into thinking they are going to lose their private insurance. We will give them a choice of public or private insurance when they are in the pool. We are going to let them keep their private insurance as long as their employer continues to provide it."

Hacker nicely sums up the underlying goals of Obamacare: not to increase competition or patient choice, but to drive people out of private insurance as a stepping stone to a government-run, single-payer system.

Stepping Stone to Single-Payer
Knowing Obama and his cohorts' goals, the purpose behind the delay of the employer mandate seems clearer: to hurry the "transition time" away from employer-based health insurance and to a single-payer system.

By forcing individuals to purchase compliant healthcare plans but not forcing employers to provide those plans, Obama is creating a swell of 10-13 million workers that must enroll in health insurance, but cannot obtain it from their employers. These workers thus have no choice but to use the government-controlled health insurance exchanges, or else pay a financial penalty.

This represents a doubling of the number of workers forced to get health insurance on the exchanges.

Importantly, the IRS has ruled that if workers have access to affordable health insurance through their employer, their dependents are not eligible for taxpayer-funded subsidies on the Obamacare health insurance exchanges.

Now that businesses will not be required to offer health insurance until 2015, workers and their dependents will be eligible for taxpayer-funded subsidies to purchase health insurance on the exchanges.

This will cost taxpayers an estimated $60 billion dollars in 2014 alone to cover the increased costs of subsidies—and the loss of revenue from employer penalties.

This $60 billion figure is before we take into account the "liar subsidies" that will invariably occur now that the administration has quietly removed eligibility verification for taxpayer-funded subsidies.

Community organizers are already being hired around the country to sign people up for the health exchanges. There are no penalties for failing to verify eligibility, and no penalties for signing up people who cannot afford to pay the monthly insurance premiums.

It is set up for disaster, much like the "liar loans" that helped topple the mortgage industry when people were not required to verify their income to qualify for a mortgage.

Remember, by enacting the dual mandates, Obamacare ostensibly was designed to ensure that its costs were borne by businesses, not taxpayers. But when the president decided to enforce only certain portions of the healthcare law and delay others, he shifted the cost of health insurance onto the backs of taxpayers.

This is all on top of the burdensome costs Obamacare has already created. Various studies have projected that private insurance premiums will rise between 20 to 60% in 2014, and some as much as 100%.

How long will the private-insurance market survive with such exploding costs? People will not be able to afford such massive premium increases. That seems to be the point: drive up costs and drive everyone into the arms of government-controlled medical care.

Jeff Smith from Seattle summed it up nicely in a Wall Street Journal letter on June 12:

"I was going to leave my job… to start a business until I shopped around for a healthcare plan: At Group Health, a health-maintenance organization in Seattle, I was given a quote of $842 per month for me and my family. But that would increase to $2,320 starting in January 2014 when Obamacare kicks in—a 276% increase. Why? Because I would be forced to carry coverage I don't want and don't need, such as maternity care. Welcome to the world of socialized medicine, courtesy of the Un-Affordable Care Act."

How Obamacare Affects You and Your Medical Care
The delay in the employer mandate is but one of dozens of negative impacts Obamacare will have on your medical services. As an independent physician, I've been discussing these issues with my patients for the past few years, helping them to prepare for what's ahead.

Here are the ten most important points that I tell my patients:

1. Your private insurance premiums will cost more and more each year.

2. You will lose the choices and flexibility in health insurance policies that we have had available up until now.

3. As reimbursements continue to drop, fewer and fewer doctors will take Medicare (for those 65 and older) or Medicaid (people younger than 65).

4. Fewer doctors accepting Medicare and Medicaid causes an increase in wait times for appointments and a decrease in the numbers and types of specialists available on these plans. Consumers would be wise to line up their doctors now.

5. Studies from various organizations and states have consistently shown that Medicaid recipients have longer waits for medical care, fewer options for specialists, poorer medical outcomes, and die sooner after surgeries than people with no health insurance at all. Yet an increasing number of Americans will be forced into this second-class medical care.

6. As more people enter the taxpayer-funded plans (Medicare and Medicaid) instead of paying for private insurance, the costs to provide this increased medical care and medications will escalate, leading to higher taxes.

7. With no eligibility verifications in place, millions of people who are in the US illegally will be able to access taxpayer-funded medical services, making longer lines, longer wait times, and less money available for medical care for American citizens… unless taxes are increased even more.

8. Higher expenditures to provide medical services lead to rationing of medical care and treatment options to reduce costs. This is the mandated function of the Independent Payment Advisory Board: to cut costs by deciding which types of medical services to allow… or disallow.

If you are denied treatment, you have no appeal of IPAB decisions; you are simply out of luck, and possibly out of life. This is a radical departure from the appeals process required for all private health insurance plans. Further, the IPAB is accountable only to President Obama, and cannot be overridden by Congress or the courts. IPAB is designed to have the final word on your health.

9. Under current regulations, if medical care is denied by Medicare, then a patient is not allowed to pay cash to a Medicare-contracted physician or hospital or other health professional. Patients who need medical care that is denied under Medicare or Medicaid will find themselves having to either: 1) look for an independent physician or hospital (quite rare these days); or 2) go outside the USA for treatment.

10. Expect a loss of medical privacy. Beginning in 2014, if you participate in government health insurance, your health records will be sent to a centralized federal database, with or without your consent.

The bottom line is that Americans are losing more and more of their medical freedom. By 2015, so many workers will be trapped in the government-run health insurance exchanges that there will be no going back to the private plans we have today. At this rate, single-payer proponents will drive private insurance companies out of business, which has been their intention all along.

Americans need to become far more proactive about taking charge of their health. The healthier you are, the less vulnerable you are to our degrading healthcare system. It's also wise to consider proactively planning for medical treatment options outside the US.

http://www.caseyresearch.com/articles/10-reasons-why-obamacare-is-going-to-ruin-your-medical-care-and-your-life

As I saiid, I hope your happiness may endure.

Oh, by the way, my wife and I are in our early 60's. I have diabetes. I am an only child and lost my Dad to small cell carcinoma and my Mom to ulcerative colitis. Please know that you and those you know do not corner the market on anecdotal medical stories.

I think Obamacare is a travesty. A travesty designed to fail so the government can ride to the rescue with a single-payer system. A system for which they could not get the votes to pass in Congress but the system they wanted all along.

I am an Objectivist so I obviously think this will turn out badly for us all.

But I am steadfast in hoping your happiness can endure.

Out.

Its not that I am happy, and in a coherent discussion with some in this forum, The Affordable Health Care Act will have lots of problems in the years ahead. But then medical care when you are sick is never an easy discussion.

When you have a loved one, or a good friend who is sick you just would like to know that he or she has the opportunity to seek medical help besides just going to an emergency room for some quick treatment.

Medical Care is Expensive, and many of us have watched those same friends and loved ones have to choose between bankruptcy or getting medical care. Most Doctors I have seen did not have all of the answers, and sometimes they would tell me that my chances were 50/50, so even getting proper medical care is no guarantee either.

But to deny any American at any hospital because you di not heave health Insurance is just wrong in the 21st century. If we can send a man into outer space, we can certainly find a way to get American Health Insurance. Again this just gets you in the door for medical treatment, it does not mean we have cured all of the diseases we all can get. All of us will get sick at some time in our lives, to ignore this issue while Millions of Americans are denied health care is wrong, period.

I have three friends who are still a little young for Medicare but they are looking forward to the AffordableHealth Care Act to start in January, they are all Conservative but they have no Medical Insurance at this time. They all have pre-existing conditions, that's what happens when you become 63 years old. They are also scared about losing their homes and everything they have built up over a lifetime, but they have seen it happen a few times. Your wife gets cancer, and you lose your insurance, or you use up your LIMITED coverage, Mary's brothers wife did that one, but he was lucky, she died, but not before he had to sell the house to pay some of the medical bills. She has been dead for five years, and he still has bills to pay off.

The NYT link has an excellent graph as to how it was supposed to work

Note that before being accepted, there are apparently about 20 agency data bases must be accessed and evaluated -- note the last one
========
Application
Consumers provide basic information to set up accounts, which allows them to compare costs and benefits of health plans. They can apply for a plan as well as for financial assistance, which can be in the form of tax credits or government assistance programs.Application
PROBLEM
Consumers had difficulty creating online accounts and were unable to compare plans

Verification
The application is sent through a data services hub, which checks the identity of the consumer through information from various federal agencies.

Social Security Administration to verify Social Security Number, citizenship and other information.

Department of Homeland Security to make sure the applicant is a citizen or legal resident.

Internal Revenue Service and a government contractor to verify applicants’ incomes if they are seeking financial assistance.

Veterans Health Administration, Defense Department, Office of Personnel Management, Medicare, Peace Corps and the applicant’s state Medicaid agency to check that they are not already enrolled in other health insurance programs.

Well, zab, judging from your posts, Obamacare has made you a very happy fellow.

Good for you.

I hope your happiness may endure.

We really do not get the NYTimes down here, you can find it on line, but until you mentioned it was the first time I even heard that bit of information. I also know that down here many citizens are getting angry about not havingur own state participating in this program.

This is one of the redish states you can find, but when you are DENIED health Insurance, and are sick with diabetes, heart disease, or cancer you just want to see a Doctor. At the moment the Health Insurance Company DENIES you coverage because of your pre-existing condition.

Until I hear that you have a better way of treating people with these type of health conditions, I will look forward to the Affordable Health Care Act. But then I was denied coverage for three years and almost died under the Republican answer to everything, which is nothing.

I also know down here in Chattanooga that Memorial Hospital just did a 350 Million addition, and that Erlanger Hospital is Hiring, and Park Ridge is about to undergo another growth expansion.

My son in law works for the:

http://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/area/or/oregon-health-and-science-university-6920570

I was lucky enough to see this place when I was visiting my daughter in June of this year. They are always hiring, and when I asked about the Affordable Health Care Act everyone in Portland was looking forward to its roll out. But then that is what happens when you work at something to make it better, it gets better.

In Tennessee our Governor is still working on the new lottery system that allows the citizens of Tennessee to win a chance to be one of the first to get a phone number that they can call to inquire about Medical Insurance. But you have to be one the lucky lottery winners to get this phone number. That is so much better for healthcare when you are suffering from something like diabetes, heart diseases, or cancer, a phone number to call someone to ask a question.

I think when Obamacare loses the NYT. it may be a sign of difficulty

>>>Uninsured Americans who are now eligible to Purchase Medical Insurance thanks to the Affordable Health Care Act<<<


and, does the fact that the main reason they are uninsured is because they cannot pay for coverage
=========
NYT
[...]
The growing national outcry has deeply embarrassed the White House, which has refused to say how many people have enrolled through the federal exchange.

Even some supporters of the Affordable Care Act worry that the flaws in the system, if not quickly fixed, could threaten the fiscal health of the insurance initiative, which depends on throngs of customers to spread the risk and keep prices low.

“These are not glitches,” said an insurance executive who has participated in many conference calls on the federal exchange. Like many people interviewed for this article, the executive spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying he did not wish to alienate the federal officials with whom he works. “The extent of the problems is pretty enormous. At the end of our calls, people say, ‘It’s awful, just awful.' ”


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/us/politics/from-the-start-signs-of-trouble-at-health-portal.html?hp&_r=0

The article includes comments which number over 1k

http://0-money.cnn.com.library.ccbcmd.edu/2013/09/30/investing/health-care-stocks-obamacare/index.html


Seems like all of those healthcare stocks are doing quite well as the Affordable Health Care Act rolls out, guess your article forgot about all of those health care companies that are doing so well in the stock market. Earnings and Sales growing thanks to Obamacare.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2013/September/13/hospitals-insurance-marketplaces-exchanges-marketing.aspx


Thanks to the Affordable Health Care Act, Obamacare, one of the most prestigious institutes, Kaiser is seeing non stop growth, but then I imagine your article didn't want to include them either.

Why is it that your articles are always from people who not really in the Health Care Industry ?

http://allhealthcare.monster.com/careers/articles/2722-15-top-hospitals-that-are-hiring


Guess your article that you posted forgot to include all of these hospitals that are hiring.

http://www.statesman.com/news/business/austin-unemployment-rate-drops-in-february/nW7P5/


Even in Red state Texas hospitals are picking up the pace in hiring.

http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/healthcare-hiring-continues-increase

Your headlines from biased reporting is like Fox crapola, but when you go to the actual places that are hiring in the medical industry you discover that hiring is increasing.

Please answer as to why you keep reporting thins that are just wrong.