Success Warrior: Alan B. Rowley II - Beachbody.com, P90X, Voluntaryism, Voluntarism

Talking to a Canadian About Health Care, Eh?

Last night I had the opportunity to talk with a Canadian about their health care system.  It was a great discussion and unfortunately it was cut short.  We were having dinner together and someone broke up the conversation with a toast, followed by another toast, and we never came back to the subject.

I'm going to point out that despite the negatives of the Canadian system, this guy very much liked the system because it broke his heart to read about American families that go bankrupt because a child gets sick.  He likes the fact that it wouldn't happen in Canada.

First, I should point out that this guy is the CEO of a mining company with several gold mines.  He was quite clear that he had an advantage that way because his family wasn't confined to the system.  If anyone in his family needs treatment or surgery from a specialist, they drive into America to get that service.

Since he brought it up, I asked him if he thought the waiting times were getting worse.  He said that they were.  One thing that he attributed to this was the fact that there was a medical brain drain in Canada.  Doctors are moving to America where they can pull better pay.  Obviously, as the number of doctors decreases, the waiting times are going to increase.

On top of the emigration, I wouldn't be surprised if they have an outfit similar to our AMA that restricts the number of people allowed to become doctors.  The AMA does it here to keep doctor pay artificially high. 

Not part of the conversation but something that's worth pointing out in the great American health care debate is the fact that the battle isn't about affordable health care.  No one is pretending at all that we are going to try and make health care more affordable.  The entire debate seems to be centered around getting health insurance for everyone*.

Back to the children.  He thought it was good that if you're kid gets sick at 2am, you just take them to the hospital or clinic and you don't worry about it financially because it's free.

"Is it free?" I asked.

Well, no, he said, adding that he thinks Canadians pay 10-15% more in taxes than Americans, which covers all government services including the "free" health care.  I'm okay with this (you know, as far as the current system goes) so I didn't balk at the higher taxes.  I wonder if the rest of America will feel the same way.  Our health care system is extremely expensive and that money is going to have to come from somewhere if we are going to keep paying artificially high prices for doctors, hospitals, drugs, and insurance.

It was an interesting conversation.  He liked the system because of a genuine concern for people but enjoyed the fact that he wasn't restricted to it.  It made him feel good to know that everyone was getting *some* care.

I did have a couple of questions left so I'll ask them here in case I have any Canadian readers or readers familiar with the Canadian system:

The system is obviously getting worse.  What can be done to fix it?

If it can't be fixed, what will happen when it breaks down or the waiting times become unacceptable to the general populace?

These are important questions as we get ready to jump into a Universal system ourselves.  Maybe we can learn from them and keep our system afloat for a little longer (although I suspect that we are starting from the wrong place using private insurance companies but since they are the #2 lobby in America, you can be sure they aren't going anywhere by governmental edict).

* Everyone.  The first concept for Universal health care in America was that all 40 million uninsured people would get insurance.  In a subsequent bill, it was everyone except 2-3 million.  In the last draft of the bill being discussed, it was everyone except 20 million people.  It will be interesting to see what the final definition of "everyone" becomes.

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Investing in a Lie

I've done a couple of posts in the last couple of weeks (in one way or another) about the ineffectiveness of statin drugs.  I just read another article quoting a couple more studies showing that statins don't reduce the chance of suffering from some sort of heart problem down the road.  There may be some benefit for people under 65 years of age that have already had a heart attack.  For the rest of the millions on statins, at best they are taking a placebo and at worst, they are taking a drug that will increasetheir chance of heart problems because statins interfere with the body's uptake of CoQ10 (which does actually help protect against heart disease).  Statins are the number 1 selling drug in the world and, in fact, a few years ago there was a movement started to try and put everyone in the country on a wonder drug that included all the top selling drugs in small doses.  This wonder drug would include statins.  Luckily, that movement has gone silent.

Anyway, the evidence coming out on statins got me thinking about what the view from the other side was like.

First, I think that statins were probably created for good reason.  I don't think that the pharmacy companies created this false drug knowing it was false.  For a long time, there was a belief that high cholesterol caused heart problems.  Now, of course, science is moving toward high cholesterol and heart problems being symptoms of something else (sugar and a sedentary life are high on the list of possibilities).  They created statins to combat what was seen as the problem but now what do they face?

1.  Last time I checked Lipitor was the #1 selling drug in the world.  If you're Pfizer, do you go out and shoot your cash cow in the head just because it doesn't work? 

2.  If and when the tie between statins causing heart problems gets strong enough, we're going to see attorney ads on TV like we did for Vioxx and Phen-Fen.  "Are you or have you been taking statin drugs like Lipitor?  Have you had heart problems?  Call now and get in on the class action suit." 

In trying to reverse the thinking, not all of the blame can be laid on Big Pharma.  Would the following conversation be hard to imagine?

Doctor: Well Mr. Smith, it looks like your cholesterol is up, VLDL is up, and blood pressure is a bit high.  You're heading for a heart attack.  What you'll need to do is lift weights 30 minutes a day, 3 times a week, and cut grains and sugar out of your diet so we can control the insulin response in your body.

Smith: Grain and sugar.  Is that like, pizza and beer?

Doctor:  Well, yeah.  You need to eat real food and lots of vegetables if we're going to bring your cholesterol down.

Smith:  Isn't there a pill or something that you can prescribe?

Doctor:  The FDA recalled statins because they actually increased your chance of a heart attack but you could certainly supplement with Ubiquinol.

Smith:  Can I take Ubiquinol and still eat pizza and beer?

No doubt, Pfizer and the others will be publishing reports on how statins don't increase heart problems but the bottom line is that if it turns out that statins are dangerous, the truth will eventually get out to the corporate media and become common knowledge.  Big Pharma is probably hoping to hang in there long enough to find a different drug to take statins exalted place at the top.  High cholesterol is an integral part of the western lifestyle and they are going to be looking for a way to make money on that.

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A Common Misunderstanding about National Health Care

I was ready to move on from the health care debate because quite frankly, nothing I say is going to change anything.  Obama has promised that it's going to pass no matter what.  It's too important to his pocket bookfor the health of the nation to not pass it just because people don't want it.  He has also managed to hook a lot of people with the "you can't be denied" and the whole pre-existing conditions things.  Big sellers and I'm sure that we're going to hear a lot more about these.  I know that people are parroting them to me and this brings me to the point that needs to pointed out. 

Having a health insurance plan doesn't mean that your medical bills are going to be paid. 

I know.  I have insurance.  In fact, I'm in that magic land of being double covered (even though I tried to cancel one of my plans but I was denied - if you know why I was denied the ability to *not* have insurance, you probably don't need to read the rest of this post).

Having insurance, I can tell you that not everything is covered.  In fact, each year, less and less is covered while premiums go up.  Insurance companies are expanding their denial of claims departments because it's cheaper to pay people to say "no" than it is to cover medical expenses for people. 

This is the point that I want people to understand going into this.

Now, you may argue that *some* coverage is better than no coverage. 

The only thing I can say to that is: at what cost?

Using a gun to force people that can afford it to pay for health insurance is going to drive the price of insurance up. 

One of the market controls on price is that fact that you can opt out.  If a H3 costs more money than I'm willing to pay, I don't buy one.  If GM fails to make their sales quota, they'll drop the price.  If everyone in the country had to buy an H3 (whether they wanted or needed one) and the government was going to take the money from people by force and pay the sticker price for anyone that couldn't afford an H3, the price would not go down, it would go up.  No one can opt out.  GM doesn't have to find the balance point between supply and demand. 

In the last article I read on the health care bill, Congress was going to put a cap on how much insurance companies could raise their premiums.  Something like 1.5% a year. 

You have to do this, right?  When you make it compulsory to have an insurance program, the price can be set as high as the insurance companies want and you can't say no.  To combat the fact that market forces have been taken out of the pricing structure and have been replaced by Congressional whim (swayed by billions of dollars in lobbying money), you have to set some kind of artificial price. 

Still, the insurance companies are private, for-profit, companies.  Since they can't deny anyone based on health, they have to control costs in some other fashion.  One of those tactics will be an increase in the denial of payment.  These companies can operate at a loss for only so long.  The only company that can afford to take a loss forever (or at least until the Empire crumbles) is the one that can print its own money.  Insurance companies can't print their own money so this leaves a few choices if their profits go down.

The first is what I've already covered.  They reduce what they will accept as valid claims.  The deny payment.  They reduce the amount of money going out.

Should the people raise enough outrage (or should it be an election year), Congress might step in and pass legislation on what the insurance companies have to cover.  If they do this, insurance companies will have Congress include a raise in premiums well about 1.5% to cover the new rules in what they have to pay out.

If Congress doesn't approve the increase in premiums, insurance companies will just close up shop and create some new type of business outside the bounds of the health care bill.  Congress wouldn't let that happen, especially during an election year, so the premiums would be increased.

This brings us back to the question that I have been asking for several years now, every time Congress passes some massive spending bill or increases troops in some poor illegally occupied country.

Where does the money come from?

The country is bankrupt.  The government doesn't have enough money to fund its current outrageous expenses.  Social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the maintenance of a world Empire are beyond Congresses ability to pay.  The government is borrowing and printing money at an unsustainable rate.

That un-sustainability is probably what is triggering this frenzied string of bail outs and stimulus plans.  The American Empire is showing signs of collapse and those at the top are trying to get everything they can before it all comes crashing down.  This topic may have to get its own post in the future.

So, for those 50 million people with no coverage, whatever bill gets shoved down our throats in the end may be better than nothing, at least initially.  I accept that if you're fighting for scraps from the government, more power to you.  Call your Rep and beg them to get you "coverage".

For everyone else that wants to discuss Obamacare with me, don't confuse having an insurance policy with having coverage.  Don't think that just because you have a plan that your medical bills are going to be paid by the insurance fairy.  Go into this with your eyes open.

10 Sword Points for the first person that comments on why my company (which is self insured) won't let me drop my insurance plan with them.

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Remember, I'm going to be funding my return to college by being an affiliate of BeachBody.com products so please visit the site and make a purchase, no matter how small.  Insanity has been released so go check it out.

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Obama is doing better than even I expected

Long time readers will remember a post that I wrote a couple of years ago where I stated that since my candidate was suffering from a media induced blackout, I hoped that Obama would win.  Not because I bought his "hope and change" bullshit for even a second.  A quick look at his voting record, campaign contributions, and support of W's programs was evidence that he had been bought off like all the rest. 

No, my hope was that people would believe in all his marketing mantras and that he would get into office and then show people that he was the same as the rest.  Washington D.C. business as usual.  Votes sold to the highest bidder.

And he has done a much better job than I could have imagined.  I thought he would string the American People along for a couple of years.  200 days into the job and he's out of the closet already.  His approval rating is plummeting and his push to give Big Insurance trillions of dollars at the expense of the American People (expense in both wealth and health) is going to really be his undoing.

He has promised that this deal is going to go through, no matter what opposition there is to it.  It appears that's true even if the opposition is from the American People. 

Not only has he gone above and beyond in showing how corrupt our government is, he has shown that our "democracy" is a complete con game.  We don't have a democracy.  Our representatives don't represent us.  They haven't for a long time.  I've been saying this for quite some time but now, because of Mr. Hope and Change, people are starting to realize that their votes for Republicans and Democrats are wasted. 

You don't get change by voting in the same ole, same ole.

Another great thing about Obama as president is that spin is losing its power.  People are turning to the Internets more now in search of the truth.  Democrats have tried to say that all the opposition at these health care town halls were organized by the Republicans.  People aren't buying it.  Too many people oppose this plan and not all of them are Republicans.  In fact, I haven't seen many articles about Republicans this go 'round.  On some of the issues, they have watched the public outrage and then jumped on board and then tried to pretend like they had been leading all the time.  This time, it's fairly quiet.

The fact that Obama used so many of sweet spots to get elected is actually working against him now.  People are watching more closely.  He made so many promises that the people wanted and now they are watching those key points to see if he'll deliver.

Had McCain been chosen to be president, people probably would have mumbled and grumbled about all these things (he would have been doing the exact same thing) but people would have expected that.  In Obama, we have this huge build up of HOPE for a change, for a government responsive to the will of the people, for transparency, for a government that cares about the people.  The build up was so huge that there is now a matching let down (let down is too soft of a word).  The dichotomy between what was promised and what is being delivered makes the whole situation more outrageous.

Instead of ending wars, he's looking to start more.  Instead of helping people, he's helping Wall Street.  Instead of transparency, there's more secrecy because if we knew what the government was doing with the bail out money, there would be instant riots.  What kinds of cars are being bought with the Cash for Clunkers money?  Don't ask the government, they aren't saying.  You know why?  People are buying Cadillacs and H3s that get 19 mpg.  So much for green.  We only know this because sales people have come forward to let us know.  This paragraph could go on and on with all the broken promises and I'm sure that somewhere on the net, there's a list of all of them (which at this point has to be just about everything Obama ever said - are there any promises left to break?).

Obama is doing his part and doing it beyond my expectations.

Now, we need the American People to do their part.  There's too much talk of the Pavlovian response to all this about voting Republicans back into office because the Democrats are screwing everything up.  How many times do we have to switch back and forth between the two sides of our single party system before people realize that they are exactly the same? 

When will people quit letting CNN, MSNBC, and FOX tell them who is a "viable" candidate?  When will people stop trying to vote for the one that is supposedly going to win (like there's a freakin' prize for guessing right!) and start actually voting for the one that they want?

How much pain is it going to take before people unplug from the system?

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Catch 44 of Statins

Statins are the number one drug sold in the world.  Statins are used to lower cholesterol. 

The first Catch 22 is something that I've already covered.  Cholesterol is the bodies healing response to inflammation in the body.  It's a good thing.  It's the inflammation that's the bad thing.

The best analogy that I have been able to think of to demonstrate what Big Pharma and doctors are trying to do is this: 

Say you went into the doctor's office with a sore throat, aches, pains, a fever, and lethargy.  The doctor returns and says, "Whew boy, your white count is off the charts!  I'm going to give you a prescription that will bring your white count back down into the normal range."

That's not what happens though.  Instead, they give you antibiotics to deal with the disease that is triggering the body's white count reaction.  48 hours later, you feel better.  10 days later and you're pretty much good to go (but you should start a round of probiotics to build your immune system back up).

The cool thing is that high cholesterol is usually caused by lifestyle so you don't even have to go to a doctor to fix it.  And you don't need to take statins for the rest of your life.

The second part of the Catch 22 is that CoQ10 has been proven to help prevent heart problems.  This is a good thing. 

The bad thing is that statins inhibit the body's ability to use CoQ10.  Research has shown that statins don't help people over the age of 65 (if I remember correctly) prevent heart attacks.  The drug that is supposed to help stop heart problems is actually part of the problem.  No surprise there.  Big Pharma runs such a huge con game that I'm no longer surprised when the truth comes out.

It will probably take years and years for the truth to get out to the masses.  There is so much misinformation to undo and the "live how you want -take a pill for the side effects" attitude of so many people to change.  You can drink Coke and eat Cheezy Puffs while watching Dancing with the Stars if you follow it up with a Lipitor. 

Or you could drink water and eat an apple and go dancing yourself and skip the Lipitor.

Tomorrow, I'll be doing a follow up post on my Vibram Five Fingers.  I've worn them for the last 3 days and need to report on how they feel now.

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Remember, I'm going to be funding my return to college by being an affiliate of BeachBody.com products so please visit the site and make a purchase, no matter how small.  Insanity has been released so go check it out.

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Bonus Post - For Mark: Health Care in Canada

Today's post is going to be a follow-up on Vitamin D (I know, I know, I said that I wouldn't belabor it but a reader's email reminded me of a funny story).  That story will be coming tonight sometime, as usual.

This is just a bonus post for Mark and is kind of lengthy video (about 22 minutes or so).  For the most part, I have backed out of doing political posts but I've been covering the health care issue because this blog is mostly about health.  Seems to be a good fit.

In the comments of a recent post, Mark trotted out the Republican mantra "waiting time" for socialist medicine.  This is not to imply in the least that Mark is a Republican.  He's way too smart to vote for a Republican or a Democrat. 

"Keep doing what you've always done and you're going to get what you've always gotten."

Keep voting Republicans and Democrats into office and we're going to keep getting screwed (and so is the rest of the world as they use our military to destroy entire countries).

Anyway, this video made by a guy in Canada quotes the actual waiting times so it should put the issue to rest for Mark.

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Remember, I'm going to be funding my return to college by being an affiliate of BeachBody.com products so please visit the site and make a purchase, no matter how small.  Insanity has been released so go check it out.

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A Drug Free America?

Did you see the report that shows that in larger cities (and probably every where that tap water is "treated" and reused) the water contains all the prescription drugs that 'Merkins take?

All the anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, antibiotics, cholesterol reducing, blood pressure reducing, penis hardening drugs that people take are being spread out to everyone that drinks water from a tap or uses it for cooking.

People in Philadelphia are drinking a pharmaceutical cocktail with 56 different kinds of drugs in it. 

That just can't be good for the body but it does explain why the  morning wood has been more severe and yet I haven't been anxious about it and it doesn't raise my blood pressure.

Gambling on Health Care

Oregon is going to have a lottery to decide which few thousand of the state's 600,000 uninsured will get some insurance this year.

I really don't think I need to add anything else to the statement this plan already makes.

Article

Random Thoughts from the Headlines

W gave a big fat veto to healthcare for 4 million kids, supposedly because there might be some abuse of the system.  If that's the case, we need to shut down every government program in place.  It's not the case though.  There's just too much money at stake in healthcare.  This is changing though because every year, there are fewer and fewer people with health insurance.  When insurance companies can't make money, they will start lobbying for a change.  Probably something we don't like but it will be a change.  How about making health insurance mandatory like car insurance? 

Pennsylvania is adding a couple new slot parlors and Massachusetts is adding three new casinos.  The government makes a lot of money off of casinos so these things are going up all over the country.  I read that the government gets about half the take so people protesting in PA are pretty much out of luck.  We are headed for some pretty rough times financially as a country and lotteries and casinos are just going to make things worse.  Desperate people are going to risk money they can't afford hoping to be the big winner and solve all their financial problems.  There is likely going to be a lot of get rich quick infomercials in the next couple of years and the people making the commercials are going to get rich quick.

Should Obese People Pay More For Health Insurance?

Last year, I wrote a paper for college where my position was that under the current system, people who knowingly engage in high risk activities should pay more for insurance (which they already do for life insurance and car insurance) and that this should be expanded to cover health insurance.

I ran across an article yesterday that said this was in practice now and that the "high risk activities" has been reduced to pretty much just one thing: obesity.  Companies are checking the BMI of their employees and those that are obese pay more for health insurance.  Some companies charge one rate but give discounts to people who are more fit.  This is the same thing but worded so as to not be charging more for obese people, just less for not-obese people.

This type of discrimination has been authorized by the government as long as the difference in fees isn't more that 20%.

I can see some problems with this.