Wendell Potter - "Path to Prosperity?" For Many Senior Citizens, VP Pick Ryan's Plan Would Be Path to the Poorhouse

If Americans who are embracing Rep. Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" -- and that now includes Mitt Romney -- spent a few minutes reviewing a few recent research reports, they just might conclude that the Wisconsin Republican's plan to reduce the deficit might better be renamed the "Path to the Poorhouse" because of what it would mean to the Medicare program and many senior citizens.

Ryan's proposal, which will get new scrutiny now that Romney has made him his running mate, would end the current Medicare program for everyone born after 1956. It would replace Medicare with a system in which beneficiaries would receive a set amount of money from the government every year to buy coverage from private insurers. That money would go straight into insurance companies' bank accounts, which would make them far richer and even more in control of our health care system than they already are.

While the amount of money beneficiaries would receive would depend on their health status, the average 65-year-old would get $8,000 under the Ryan plan in 2022, the year it would take effect. That's the amount the current Medicare program is expected to spend on the average 65-year-old that year. After 2022, the annual increase in the "premium support" payments would be based on the consumer price index (CPI). And therein lies one of the biggest problems for anyone hoping to live long enough to enroll in Medicare and stay alive for a few years.

Last month the government reported that the consumer price index had increased 1.7 percent between June 2011 and June 2012, meaning we've been paying on average 1.7 percent more this year than last year for goods and services. The cost of medical care, however, shot up 4.3 percent -- more than two and a half times the CPI. And that was not an aberration. The cost of medical care has been rising faster than the cost of just about everything else in this country for years. That's one of the reasons why private health insurance premiums have been increasing so rapidly. That and the fact that insurance corporations have to report a big enough profit every quarter to satisfy their shareholders and Wall Street analysts.

Read more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendell-potter/path-to-prosperity-for-ma_b_1767573.html

Mike Adams - Aajonus Vonderplanitz PhD, key informant in prosecution of Sharon Palmer and James Stewart, found to have faked academic credentials

I am very saddened to bring you this report today. Following the publication of our investigative story about Sharon Palmer (Healthy Family Farms), James Stewart (Rawesome Foods), Aajonus Vonderplanitz (vocal critic of Sharon Palmer) and Larry Otting (title owner of the land on which the farm operates), we received what can only be called a flood of tips (and documents) from our readers. The irrefutable conclusion from these documents, shown below, is that Aajonus Vonderplanitz, PhD, has been using phony academic credentials. His "doctorate in nutrition" was acquired from a diploma mill.

This saddens me for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Aajonus was, at one point, instrumental in advocating raw dairy consumption in California, and now that the truth about his academic credentials has come to light, it will be used by raw milk critics to further attack the industry. Aajonus was also a nutritional consultant who taught people to "think outside the box" when it came to food choice. Although his "Primal Diet" of consuming raw, rotten meat seems bizarre to many people, he at least taught people to question the official lies of the USDA and the CDC on issues like food safety. I don't agree with most of Aajonus' conclusions on diet and nutrition, but I do agree with his questioning of the status quo.

Read More:

http://www.naturalnews.com/036076_Aajonus_Vonderplanitz_doctorate_nutrition.html

Trudy Lieberman - The New Medical-Credit Record - Patients Are Getting Medically and Financially Shafted

Reporter Lindy Washburn, at The Record in Bergen County, New Jersey, has revealed the latest shenanigans of unscrupulous members of the medical profession out to make a buck. Washburn, who is something of an expert on the business practices of health care providers, investigated the unsavory activities of New Jersey doctors, dentists, and chiropractors who pressure patients to sign up for credit cards, recommend more expensive treatments than necessary, and sometimes do not complete the treatments once the money lands in their pockets. Combine an old-fashioned consumer story with health care enterprise reporting, and you have a tale of greedy medical practitioners preying on consumers.

Washburn highlighted pernicious practices that take advantage of patients when they are vulnerable, in need of immediate treatment. She reported on the predicament of Allison DeBlois, "who signed a credit card application while in agony at her practitioner's office." DeBlois offered words of warning: "Even though you're in pain, you just ought to walk out the door and take some more Ibuprofen."

Read More:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-New-Medical-Credit-Rec-by-Trudy-Lieberman-120604-906.html

Drew Armstrong - Drugmakers Vowed To Campaign For Health Law, Memos Show

Drugmakers led by Pfizer (PFE) Inc. agreed to run a “very significant public campaign” bankrolling political support for the 2010 health-care law, including TV ads, while the Obama administration promised to block provisions opposed by drugmakers, documents released by Republicans show.

The internal memos and e-mails for the first time unveil the industry's plan to finance positive TV ads and supportive groups, along with providing $80 billion in discounts and taxes that were included in the law. The administration has previously denied the existence of a deal involving political support.

The documents were released today by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. They identify price controls under Medicare and drug importation as the key industry concerns, and show that former Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Kindler and his top aides were involved in drawing it up and getting support from other company executives.

“As part of our agreement, PhRMA needs to undertake a very significant public campaign in order to support policies of mutual interest to the industry and the Administration,” according to a July 14, 2009, memo from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. “We have included a significant amount for advertising to express appreciation for lawmakers’ positions on health care reform issues.”

Read More:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-31/drugmakers-vowed-to-campaign-for-health-law-memos-show.html

Michael A. Smith, MD - Is Processed Fructose Stealing Your Smarts?

A new study from UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) shows that what you eat can influence how you think.

Specifically, the researchers were worried about all of the fructose in the American diet. They reported that eating a diet heavy in processed fructose over the long term alters your brain’s ability to learn and remember information.

Let’s start by looking at fructose itself. What is it, and is it ever okay to eat it?

Fructose is a Natural Fruit Sugar

Fructose in its natural form is called fruit sugar. It’s a simple sugar found in many plants and is one of the three dietary monosaccharides, along with glucose and galactose. These simple sugars are absorbed directly into the bloodstream during digestion and can be used for immediate cellular energy.

From plant sources, fructose is found naturally in honey, tree and vine fruits, flowers, berries and most root vegetables. In plants, fructose may be present naturally as the monosaccharide or as a component of sucrose.

Here’s the point we’re trying to make: Fructose in its natural form is not the problem. In nature, sugars can be found in foods that are also rich in antioxidants and fiber. And those accompanying nutrients can help minimize the impact of natural sugar. 

Read More:

http://blog.lef.org/2012/05/processed-fructose-brain-power.html

Is the Federation of State Medical Boards Behind the Brutal Attacks on Integrative Medicine Practitioners?

The FSMB is an elite, highly influential, secretive private organization. We also believe that it is thoroughly corrupt.

Each of the fifty states, as well as the District of Columbia and the US territories, has laws that define the practice of medicine; each one delegates the authority to enforce those laws to a state medical board. State medical boards also adopt policies and create guidelines related to the practice of medicine. They have the power to revoke physician licenses for violating the state’s laws of the practice of medicine—subject to the boards’ interpretation of the law, which can be highly arbitrary.

The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) is a private 501(c)(6) trade association ^[3] that purports to represent the seventy state medical and osteopathic boards of the US and its territories, and cosponsors the United States Medical Licensing Examination ^[4]. It is tremendously powerful: whatever it suggests in terms of medical care policies are often adopted by the state medical boards. A private trade association with no public funding, transparency, or accountability arguably has the power to interpret state medical law and grant or revoke medical licenses! Ever wonder why it’s so hard to find a doctor who will prescribe bioidentical hormones or administer chelation therapy? We believe it’s because the FSMB has made it such a career risk for the doctor to use his own independent judgment.

Read More:

http://www.anh-usa.org/fsmb-behind-the-brutal-attacks-on-integrative-practitioners/

Martha Rosenberg - Why Were These Drugs Approved?

Like Vioxx, Merck's expensive "super aspirin" that caused thousands of cardiovascular events before being recalled, Merck's Fosamax, the first bisphosphonate bone drug, flew out of the FDA with only a six-month review.

And like Vioxx, the true dangers of the drug class (that includes Fosamax, Boniva and Reclast) only surfaced after being "tested" on the guinea pig know as John Q Public.

Now, people are asking why the bone drugs were ever approved.

Like Vioxx, there were early indications of Fosamax's risks but they did not prevent wide marketing.   Merck received 1,213 adverse-effect reports soon after the drug's approval, which included 32 hospitalized patients with adverse esophageal effects, 17 with "severe" effects, and two who were "temporarily disabled," reported the New England Journal of Medicine. One woman who took Fosamax and only remained upright for 30 minutes not 60 minutes as directions say, had to be admitted to the Mayo Clinic with "severe ulcerative esophagitis affecting the entire length of the esophagus" and had to be fed intravenously.

And there were other safety signals. Bisphosphonate patients were found to be at greater risk for osteonecrosis of the jaw--death of the jawbone--after in-office dental procedures.   They were found to be at greater risk for irregular heart beat, intractable pain and at double the risk of esophageal cancer, according to medical reports.

Then, in 2010, after millions of women were taking the widely advertised bisphosphonates, studies revealed they sometimes caused the very fractures they were supposed to prevent!

Read More:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-Were-These-Drugs-Appro-by-Martha-Rosenberg-120511-91.html

Yves Smith - Stealth Plan to Shift Costs of Certain Widely-Used Drugs to Consumers

The US healthcare system is wildly overpriced and delivers mediocre outcomes. And while the many of the problems are well known, such as bad incentives for doctors, patients trained to equate over-testing and over-treatment with high quality care, high administration costs, and unrestricted drug pricing (despite lavish public funding of drug research), Obamacare has sided with industry incumbents, namely Big Pharma and health care insurers, at the expense of everyone else.

We predicted that one outcome would be overpriced insurance that didn’t cover much (note for middle class and affluent consumers, it would probably be better to have only catastrophic coverage and self insure for the rest; the worst is pricey insurance that leaves you carrying meaningful costs, particularly for major medical procedures). We seem to be moving in that direction already.

Reader bob alerted me to a news item that also seems to have gone below the radar of most finance and economics bloggers: that of an FDA proposal to have more drugs available on an over-the-counter basis, including ones for diabetes (insulin), high cholesterol, allergies, and migraines.

Read More:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/stealth-plan-to-shift-costs-of-certain-widely-used-drugs-to-consumers.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Jim Hightower - The great American medicine show, a spectacle of deceit, manipulation, and flimflammery

Butterflies waft across a beautiful field of spring flowers. A delightful young family bicycles joyously down a country lane. A couple on a park bench leans sensually into each other. A 40-something woman's face radiates with both perfect beauty and internal happiness. "All's right with the world," is the message... as long as you've taken your dosages of Lunesta, Celebrex, Cialis, and Botox.

Welcome to medicated America, where the fix for every problem--from incontinence to erectile dysfunction, stiff joints to mood swings, weight gain to wrinkles-- is just a prescription away. Thus the beautiful images, stirring music, attractive actors, and soothing words in the omnipresent, multibillion-dollar kaleidoscope of drug advertising by Pfizer, Merck, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, and other giants of Big Pharma--all pitching their particular brand-name nostrum directly at us hoi polloi (the industry spends a fourth of its income on ads and other promotions, nearly double its expenditures on research and development). The corporate come-ons typically conclude with a phrase that has achieved cliche status in America's vernacular: "Ask your doctor if 'Suprema Wundercure' is right for you."

The better question, though, is one that cartoonist Dan Piraro expressed in one of his "Bizarro" panels: "Ask your doctor if playing into the hands of the pharmaceutical industry is right for you."

One would assume that in a rich, medically advanced, health-conscious nation like ours, dicey decisions about whether to allow a particular pharmaceutical product into our bodies would be among the most rational we make--as determined by (1) the best science available, (2) the strict moral duty of medical purveyors to "First, do no harm," (3) good government regulation, and (4) the profession's fear of public reproach and legal punishment. One would, however, be wrong on all counts:

Read More:

http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/2973

Drew Armstrong - Drugmakers’ Deal With Obama Said to Be Probed by House

Pfizer Inc. (PFE) and Merck & Co. (MRK) are being pulled into an expanding congressional investigation about the agreement drugmakers reached with the Obama administration to support the Democrats’ overhaul of the U.S. health-care system, according to three people familiar with the talks.

The probe began last year, with Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee seeking documents from an industry trade group, said the people, who aren’t authorized to speak publicly. When that group didn’t cooperate, the panel decided to target Pfizer, the world’s biggest drugmaker, along with Merck, Amgen Inc. (AMGN), Abbott Laboratories (ABT) and AstraZeneca Plc (AZN), said one of the people.

The Republicans last month began negotiating directly with the companies in e-mails, calls and meetings demanding documents and information outlining what the industry agreed to with President Barack Obama in 2009 and 2010, when the law was being worked on in Congress. Michael Burgess, a Representative from Texas, said he’s been frustrated by a lack of cooperation.

Read More:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-04/obama-deal-with-drugmakers-said-to-be-probed-by-house.html