The PPJ Gazette

July 18th, 2017      For Immediate Release!

Contributor & author: Jane M. Orient, M.D., Executive Director of Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)

Preview:

• We’re moving toward the end-game of single payer, which assures the continued diversion of funds to the Swamp. These funds are no longer available for people to choose to spend. And worse, the System will carefully control the funds that actually provide care, say by punishing doctors for deviating from government-dictated “best practices.” It will allow nothing it calls “snake oil” (things like vitamin D, hormone supplements for aging, or other generally benign items that people find worthwhile but that drain profits from government-approved treatments). Nothing “futile” like experimental treatment for Charlie Gard. Nothing experimental outside the control of the FDA (that might compete with lucrative drugs). Nothing that is not “value based” (such as life-sustaining treatment including food and water to patients not valuable enough to treat for pneumonia, heart failure, or a bleeding ulcer).
• Last year, Nevada Medicaid paid managed-care companies as much as $213 million for more than 30,000 people who received no care at all. Maybe that money was taken from housing or law enforcement.

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