Sunday, July 29, 2018

MEDICINE AND RACKETEERING


We are, after all, all humans. We share a common ancestry. If you know a bit of molecular medicine, you would know that there is a “Mitochondrial Eve.” That, all share the same mitochondrial DNA from the “Last Common (Human) Ancestor,” a woman. And yet there are legions of humans who believe otherwise. Perhaps their greed beckons them, or shades their eyes, or perhaps it blinds them to their common end. But there is no doubt that such a progeny of the bureaucrats has arisen and continues to flourish and grow, like weed, to overtake the once plush garden of that Eve.

On looking at the definition of the word, “Racketeering,” one finds this, “dishonest and fraudulent business dealings.” Hmm…simple enough, right?
It is if you have your eyes wide open.

But alas, all the goodness is interred in the sub-level surfaces of human activity, it seems. We define success as the men and women with the best toys. The race to that top of the mountain seems apace at breakneck speed. People climbing on other’s shoulders not to see further in the adventures of innovation and productivity but in the act of stomping on other’s heads to crush and bury them and their meek protests. And if protests do arise, they quickly demonize and or vilify the broadcaster of such protest. Charlatans have indeed gained a copious landscape and a highly visible lectern to pontificate the “Benefits” of their managerial swag.

Kris Held, MD @kksheld and Alieta Eck, MD @AlietaEck deserve the credit to bring this video across my visual horizon. It details the cozy relationship between the government and the private sector all cobbled together by the money bag exchange. It is all about self serving heuristics of those with the power to do so. The politicians want money to keep their enriched power base and other perks of “legal insider trading,” free jet-service to the Cayman Islands and the French Riviera all in the name of “Public Good.” Indeed, any and most actions doled out by these power-hungry trolls in the private sector and the government are marquee events under the euphemistic banner of “Public Good.” So, watch out for those words.

https://youtu.be/aQhsPLcFwN8


This video, encapsulates the racketeering in one sector of Medicine today; Cost of Medicines. And by the way, we are at the pinnacle of this act since the total cost of healthcare in the United States currently stands at $3.4 Trillion and escalating. That number alone is juicy enough to invite the eyeballs of some very wealthy individuals like Buffett, Bezos and Dimon to the stage. After all, why not partake in the health-palooza while the going is good to raise the topline and bottomline of their respective businesses.

Patients meanwhile are being told that their medical care is not “preauthorized” because of such and such reasons…mostly pointing fingers to doctors who it appears never seem to make the correct decisions for their patients. And if should one of those services be rendered then an automatic denial of 12%+ is served up by the insurance company, for the doctor to fight over for the next few months to get “reimbursed." The doctors meanwhile are forced to hire legions of paper pushers in their low revenue offices just to get paid. And that, dear fellow if you do a look back, is the reason why in 2014 thru 2016 the fastest gains in employment, while the whole rest of the world was asunder, was the medical field, was awash with new applicants, (that and bar tenders it seems) lowering the spurious unemployment rate.

Meantime the costs of medicines, if you surely have noticed, was going up. A hoax that seemed to have inadvertently been exposed by the greediest of all the hedge fund and Pharma bro, by the name of Martin Shkrelli.


But he wasn’t alone. He was closely followed by Heather Bresch the CEO of Mylan who did the same with the Epipen; an emergent supply of epinephrine for children and adults in the throes of an Hyperallergic reaction. 


Recently thais was followed by another pretty face called Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos. All these and many more in the business of racketeering, it seems. You guessed it, these people have no virtues, save, extract lives and money, just like a over-taxing, over-regulating, mightier than thou governments.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/elizabeth-holmes-is-trying-to-start-a-new-company

This post would not be complete without mentioning one of my favorite bloggers, a cardiologist Dr. Westby Fisher @Doctorwes who has exposed the many virtue-signaling harms committed by the ABIM and ABMS against the physicians. And these organizations have amassed many millions of dollars in all the fine places for their “Annual and semi-annual Retreats,” all at the altar of “Public Good.” These organizations have never been able to show benefit of their quasi-knowledge tests undertaken under the strict scrutiny of “physical and virtual guards,” in confined spaces. Meanwhile by extracting large sums of money from the physicians they have their lobbyists, lobby the government to mandate their scheme to gain a universal order of such money extraction in perpetuity. So, please extend your kudos to him and Charles Kroll CPA @CharlesPKroll. As the war against these self-appointed middlemen wages on, the outcome is eagerly awaited by most of the physicians whose main concern remains; delivering good patient care.

http://www.changeboardrecert.com/anti-moc.html
https://www.policymed.com/2017/06/anti-moc-laws-picking-up-steam-across-the-united-states.html
https://practicingphysician.org/moc/
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/881274

These organizations ABIM, ABMS are fighting back with their “representativeness heuristics” to cobble together estimates of dubious harm and probability outcomes couched in their falsified estimates. It is important to remember that the incidental, anecdotal, irrelevant perceptions and other such haphazard cognitions can and do effect judgment and behavior of those at the higher echelons of power with “No Skin In The Game” (SITG). To the power-hungry crowd only money bags matter. So stay alert at the next signal that repeats the words, ”FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD.”

But as Shakespeare once said, “Mischief, thou art swift.”

Where did we go wrong?
When did we refuse to follow the path of “Above All do No Harm?”
How did we come to this?

We forget the patients, whose misadventured piteous overthrows in finding a sanctuary against illness do with their death, bury the GPOs and PBMs and other hidden bureaucrats between the money-sheets racketeering schemes to keep from visible light. Thus they remain alive and with their viper poisonous tongues and sharp fangs, clot the blood of all civility, confuse the mind’s messages and normal human discourse.

It seems that when the many who rushed to acquire MBA degrees from prestigious universities and got hired at institutions rolling with cheap and free printed paper money, these new hires were expected to come up with their “algorithms” to determine the best mechanism of monetary extraction from the tax payer funded largesse. An endeavor that was quickly replicated across the private industry. There were others as well, especially those educated in the “Streetonomics” of how to get rich schemes, duly exploited the loop-holes in the framework of morality and deceit was writ large. The damage these few have unleashed on the framework of this Great Nation is telling in where we are in our daily dialog. Anger and distrust breeds with equal fervor in our society today.

We have turned into a country of Lobbyists and other large “money baggers.” The bigger the pot, the more “say.” The more the say, the more regulations. The more the Regulations, the more stifling of the “Free Market.” The more stifling of the Free Market, the more the horns of the Socialism dilemma grow. The more of that and we are no different that Venezuela, Cuba and the rest of the totalitarian regimes across the globe. Give that a moment to sink in.

All beings emanating from the Mitochondrial Eve must face the same Common End!! 

So...

For now, ”Live Long and Prosper.” -Spock

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