Comments on: How the Federal Government Screwed up Health Care Costs http://rangelmd.com/2010/05/how-the-federal-government-screwed-up-health-care-costs/ Because opinions are like sphincters. Everybody has one. Thu, 16 May 2013 23:58:09 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Cynthia Taggart http://rangelmd.com/2010/05/how-the-federal-government-screwed-up-health-care-costs/comment-page-1/#comment-578 Cynthia Taggart Thu, 06 May 2010 15:16:24 +0000 http://rangelmd.com/?p=420#comment-578 Most of the high healthcare costs are derived by exploitation of infectious disease and it is by exploiting disease that pharmaceutical companies profit enormously. Back in the ’40s and ’50s, during the Golden Age of Medicine, infectious disease was not only diagnosed and treated, but it was also treated “presumptively,” when patients presented with infectious disease symptoms of unknown etiology (i.e., the differential diagnosis of MS is sometimes parasitical infection, or other infection, that today’s doctors will not treat unless it is found in a medical report). Therefore, many patients that are not treated presumptively may develop chronically ill symptoms such as painful arthritis or fibromyaglia (which doctors now call a “disease” when in fact it is a “symptom” of a disease). Many systemic diseases present themselves in patients with an identical early presentation. Symptoms of fibromyaglia are present in virtually a hundred or more parasitical and infectious diseases. Doctors in the 50s took pride in healing patients and they knew that stopping the spread of disease – even if it had an unknown etioloy – was needed in order to prevent a rise in “chronically ill” patients (which, as reported by The New York Times, accounts for our nearly 1/3 chronically ill population in the U.S.). Moreover, during the Golden Age of Medicine, caps on how many doctors were permitted to graduate from medical colleges insured there would be competition among doctors. These caps were implemented by the Federal Government because it knew that too many doctors would result in exploitation of patient care for profit, lack of competition, and a skyrocketing of “specialities” (which is what we have today). Specialities in medicine abound and one can find a doctor that specializes in the “wrist” as well as one that specializes in “ears.” We have in this country too many specialists and not enough internists. In fact, it is quite difficult to find a good internist that can put the human organism under a unified light and treat the entire body. Medicine is a business. Doctors feel entitled too, so to think the American doctor is willing to relinguish wealth and profit by “controlling” it through government healthplans is to miss the entire history of why we have such high costs in healthcare in the first place. Doctors will simply commit more fraud. Medical care has also become so depersonalized as to make the patient virtually powerless to effect any solution to his own health problem.

The solution no one is talking about: I say we can reignite competition in medicine by use of the Internet and teleconference technology. I, for example, found a doctor in China that I trust and his care prevented me from use of pharmaceutical medicine (which only treats symptoms of disease) and effected a cure of my fibromyaglia. Not only did he cure me of my fibromyaglia, but I have not felt better in my entire life. I will admit, however, I had to do a lot of work to get myself well. Since the antidote to my condition required that I boil herbs and then wring them through a cloth, I was to say the least exhausted by the process (I had to get up at 3:00 am to make it to work by 9:00 am and had to do this for 20 days). No matter. It was worth it. The point is that if I had relied on pharmaceutical drugs I know that I am receiving only palliative care, not a cure, and would be bound to frequent doctor visits for years to come and then only eventually to succumb to another health problem which these drugs inevitably cause. Why can’t people see this? Why are they silent about this when they do see it? If you have a black toe and your heart is beating too fast, don’t you want to go to a physician that can make a connection between the two symptoms and cure you, or do you want one that sends you to a podiatrist and then heart specialist that treats the two symptoms independently at a cost to your insurance company of a thousand dollars or more?

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