Everything Dr. Martin A. Makary says in an article by Neil W. McCabe is probably accurate. Dr. Makarys comments are related to his book:
I have not read the book; so I do not know if Makary covers several healthcare problems that I have railed against for years. My suggestions for solving those problems (reforming the healthcare system) did not call for tax increases, death panels, or socialized medicine. I always thought reform should begin by improving patient-care; coupled with real government oversight and severe penalties for medical malpractice including serious jail time for offending medical industry professionals and hospital administrators.
My reforms zeroed in on faulty diagnoses, administering the wrong medication, unnecessary surgery, stopping HIV/AIDS tainted blood from donors in Africa from reaching patients in American hospitals and so on. Dr. Makary agrees on unnecessary surgery in some areas.
First, a little bit about doctors when they were barbers:
Moving on to doctoring minus the shave and haircut
Dr. Makary touches on an important topic:
Does that 30 percent include deaths caused by infections unrelated to the reason the patient is in the hospital? If so, the scary part is that unnecessary deaths caused by infections are grouped with medical mistakes. Those deaths are more unnecessary than moneymaking procedures.
Multiple-occupancy rooms in existing hospitals has long been one of my complaints. My contention has been that single-occupancy rooms would go a long way towards reducing infections acquired in hospitals not to mention improving overall patient-care. More people die every year from infections they pick up in hospitals than die of HIV/AIDS. I believe the number is up around 20,000 a year. A few years ago the number was just above 18,000.
NOTE: Hospital wards evolved into multiple-occupancy rooms; logically, the next evolutionary step is single-occupancy rooms. No doubt the bean counters will oppose with the same arguments they used in support of wards.
I suggested that existing hospitals be given five or so years to convert to single-occupancy rooms. My single-occupancy suggestion contains a built-in stimulant for the economy; one that actually helps everyone rather than just the Wall Street crowd.
Every hospital failing to comply after the grace period has elapsed would lose ALL government reimbursements federal and state. Such a move toward reform on behalf of patients instead of reform designed to enrich insurance companies and hospital owners would spark a wave of new, healthier hospitals once the cost of new construction is compared to the cost of conversion. In turn, healthier hospitals must make for healthier patients upon discharge; thereby, cutting the return rate.
Since hospitals are profit-motive enterprises the owners could be given tax breaks to pay for the the transition. I would not give them a penny of taxpayer money whether they build new hospitals or convert existing ones.
Makary goes on to say:
After you are in the chair you tell the barber what kind of a haircut you want. I could be wrong, but I do not think Makarys informed decisions means after the patient is on the table, nor does being informed beforehand bar the use of scare tactics in the first place.
And Im pretty sure no doctor wakes up an informed patient to ask for permission to do more than originally agreed upon. Example: Surgeons tell patients that removing or repairing this or that is a piece of cake. They usually back up piece of cake with statistics sometimes called odds among the punting class. Then after surgeons get inside they hack away.
When something goes wrong doctors in the dock are protected by I made a medical decision to save my patients life. It is for that reason the American people should be suspicious of tort reform.
Doubly suspicious of politicians who call for tort reform without explaining in detail what it is they are reforming. Id rather congressional leaders from both political parties crack down on medical industry butchery, coverups, and larceny, than call for tort reform that gives the incompetents and the butchers even more protection than they already have. That is tort reform I can live with.
Just to be clear. Riding herd on doctors and hospitals is one of the few good things lawyers do. Nothing reforms as effectively as lawsuits forcing charnel houses to straighten up and fly right.
In the same vein I can understand Republicans wanting to reduce the incomes of trial lawyers, one of the Democrat partys core constituencies, but why would Democrats go along with tort reform? Could it be they fear lawsuits stemming from death panels?
Ultimately, haircuts and surgery are the customers decision not the doctors. A patient may agree to the initial surgery, but is never offered a choice after that. It is the things doctors do to patients after they agree to a treatment or procedure that needs reforming.
Bottom line: Patients should tell the barber/doctor what NOT to do after hes inside, and get it in writing. What the hell, a smart homeowner first approves of a detailed list signed by a contractor before agreeing to the repairs. The contractor does not get paid for doing anything not in the contract. Your body needs a helluva lot more protection than does the building you live in?
Preventative medicine
Preventative medicine is one of the biggest ripoffs in the medical industry. Everybody gets a piece of the action. Just look at the drugs advertised on TV and ask yourself how much money is spent telling healthy people they need to take a drug to stay healthy. Its no different than telling people they must eat spinach.
Interestingly, the first eat for good health campaign was a form of preventative medicine: An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Now, doctors are prescribing drugs that supposedly keeps them away!
As far as I know there are no statistics on the harm done, and the deaths caused, by preventative medicine. Over-prescribing preventative drugs is a much larger problem than is recommending unnecessary surgery:
One question. Where is the doctors group looking into preventative drugs enriching pharmaceutical companies and Wall Street?
Parenthetically, if you know nothing else about the relationship between Wall Street and the medical industry know this: The big money is in treatment not cure. Preventative medicine neither treats nor cures, yet it is rapidly becoming the most lucrative branch of the pharmaceutical industry, an industry aided and abetted by doctors.
Absentee owners
My cost-cutting reforms also said that every medical industry entity traded on Wall Street the casino not the thoroughfare be prohibited from receiving healthcare dollars directly or indirectly. Dont bother calculating the odds on that reform being picked up by Congress? Its a non-starter. No law curtailing even the most destructive form of absentee ownership will ever be passed in this country.
Put it this way: If companies building gas chambers and furnaces for the same purposes they were built in Nazi Germany were traded on Wall Street no law would stop them if it adversely affected absentee ownership. Note that federal bureaucracies in cahoots with federal and state courts have all but abolished real property Rights. At the same time property Rights are being wiped out the courts have strengthened the Rights of absentee owners.
Finally, socialized medicine was a non-starter until it included tax increases coupled with REDUCED patient-care because this entire healthcare thing is a battle between productive Americans and the parasite class. The parasites want more for themselves and the only way they can get it is to use the government to get it for them.
Nancy Pelosis 4,000,000 jobs proves my case.
There was never a pretense that said adding four million more workers to the system would improve the overall quality of patient-care. In all of the talk leading up the Affordable Care Act not one word was ever said about improving patient care; mainly because Socialists could not find a lie they could use. Unfortunately, death panels improve patient-care according to Hussein & Company.
Instead of reform the Democrats gave us socialized medicine and called it reform.
Heres the link to the article I excerpted:
I have not read the book; so I do not know if Makary covers several healthcare problems that I have railed against for years. My suggestions for solving those problems (reforming the healthcare system) did not call for tax increases, death panels, or socialized medicine. I always thought reform should begin by improving patient-care; coupled with real government oversight and severe penalties for medical malpractice including serious jail time for offending medical industry professionals and hospital administrators.
My reforms zeroed in on faulty diagnoses, administering the wrong medication, unnecessary surgery, stopping HIV/AIDS tainted blood from donors in Africa from reaching patients in American hospitals and so on. Dr. Makary agrees on unnecessary surgery in some areas.
First, a little bit about doctors when they were barbers:
FOUNDED SCHOOL OF SURGERY
In the middle of the 13th century, the barber companies of Paris, known as the Brotherhoods of St. Cosmos and St. Domain, founded the first school ever known for the systematic instruction of barbers in the practice of surgery. This school was later enlarged and became the model for schools of surgery during the Middle Ages. Many of the foremost surgeons of the times were students of the School of St. Cosmos and St. Domain. The establishment of this school was one of the greatest contributions ever made toward the progress of humanity. The oldest barber organization in the world, still known in London as the "Worshipful Company of Barbers," was established in 1308. Richard le Barbour, as the Master of the Barbers, was given supervision over the whole of his trade in London. Once a month he had to go the rounds and rebuke any barbers whom he found acting disgracefully or entering on other trades less reputable. The master of a city company not only had this power, but he successfully prevented unauthorized persons from practicing the barber profession. The Barbers Guild of the 14th Century was undoubtedly more powerful than any of the modern unions. The king and council sanctioned the Guilds and so they could enforce their regulations. It was not uncommon for violators of Guild regulations to suffer prison terms for their misdemeanors.
BARBERS AS SURGEONS
Up to the year 1416, the barbers were not interfered with in the practice of surgery and dentistry. But it was soon evident that they were attempting too much. It was impossible to expect ordinary human beings to competently practice surgery, dentistry and the various tonsorial operations. People began to complain that the barber-surgeons were making them sick instead of well. Many barber-surgeons resorted to quackery in order to cover up their ignorance of medicine and anatomy. These abuses came to the attention of the mayor and council of London. In 1416 an ordinance was passed forbidding barbers from taking under their care any sick person in danger of death or maiming, unless within three days after being called in, they presented the patient to one of the masters of the Barber-Surgeon's Guild. Until 1461 the barbers were the only persons practicing surgery. The practice of surgery was still in its primitive stage, but new discoveries were being made regularly and the barbers found it impossible to keep up with the new discoveries and at the same time maintain their skill in dentistry and barbering. The surgeons began to forge to the front and became increasingly jealous of the privileges accorded the barbers. But for a long time they could do nothing to prevent the barbers from acting as surgeons. In 1450, the Guild of Surgeons was incorporated with the Barbers Company by act of parliament. Barbers were restricted to bloodletting, toothdrawing, cauterization and the tonsorial operations. However the board of governors, regulating the operations of the surgeons and barber-surgeons, consisted of two surgeons and two barbers. Every time a surgeon was given a diploma entitling him to practice his profession, the diploma had to be signed by two barbers as well as two surgeons. The surgeons resented this, but the barbers were very much favored by the monarchs and preserved their privileges until the middle of the 18th century. Henry VIII, Charles II and Queen Anne presented the barber-surgeons with valuable gifts and raised many of them to high offices. Under a clause in the Act of Henry VIII, the Barber-Surgeons were entitled to receive every year the bodies of four criminals who had been executed. The dissections were performed four times a year in the Barber-Surgeons Hall which still stands in London.
ORIGIN OF BARBER POLE
The modern barber pole originated in the days when bloodletting was one of the principal duties of the barber. The two spiral ribbons painted around the pole represent the two long bandages, one twisted around the arm before bleeding and the other used to bind is afterward. Originally, when not in use, the pole with a bandage wound around it, so that both might be together when needed, was hung at the door as a sign. But later, for convenience, instead of hanging out the original pole, another one was painted in imitation of it and given a permanent place on the outside of the shop. This was the beginning of the modern barber pole.
HISTORY OF BARBERING
The Art of Barbering Through the Ages
Moving on to doctoring minus the shave and haircut
Dr. Makary touches on an important topic:
What happened was that the book came out within weeks of the Institute of Medicines report that suggested that prior estimates of the number of people killed from medical mistakes far understated the problem, he said. It also estimated that 30 percent of all the things done in health care may be unnecessary.
Does that 30 percent include deaths caused by infections unrelated to the reason the patient is in the hospital? If so, the scary part is that unnecessary deaths caused by infections are grouped with medical mistakes. Those deaths are more unnecessary than moneymaking procedures.
Multiple-occupancy rooms in existing hospitals has long been one of my complaints. My contention has been that single-occupancy rooms would go a long way towards reducing infections acquired in hospitals not to mention improving overall patient-care. More people die every year from infections they pick up in hospitals than die of HIV/AIDS. I believe the number is up around 20,000 a year. A few years ago the number was just above 18,000.
NOTE: Hospital wards evolved into multiple-occupancy rooms; logically, the next evolutionary step is single-occupancy rooms. No doubt the bean counters will oppose with the same arguments they used in support of wards.
I suggested that existing hospitals be given five or so years to convert to single-occupancy rooms. My single-occupancy suggestion contains a built-in stimulant for the economy; one that actually helps everyone rather than just the Wall Street crowd.
Every hospital failing to comply after the grace period has elapsed would lose ALL government reimbursements federal and state. Such a move toward reform on behalf of patients instead of reform designed to enrich insurance companies and hospital owners would spark a wave of new, healthier hospitals once the cost of new construction is compared to the cost of conversion. In turn, healthier hospitals must make for healthier patients upon discharge; thereby, cutting the return rate.
Since hospitals are profit-motive enterprises the owners could be given tax breaks to pay for the the transition. I would not give them a penny of taxpayer money whether they build new hospitals or convert existing ones.
Makary goes on to say:
The solution to the problem is transparency, the surgeon said. By taking advantage of electronic record keeping and making non-patient specific data publically available, people could make informed decisionsas they do for other purchases, Makary said.
After you are in the chair you tell the barber what kind of a haircut you want. I could be wrong, but I do not think Makarys informed decisions means after the patient is on the table, nor does being informed beforehand bar the use of scare tactics in the first place.
And Im pretty sure no doctor wakes up an informed patient to ask for permission to do more than originally agreed upon. Example: Surgeons tell patients that removing or repairing this or that is a piece of cake. They usually back up piece of cake with statistics sometimes called odds among the punting class. Then after surgeons get inside they hack away.
When something goes wrong doctors in the dock are protected by I made a medical decision to save my patients life. It is for that reason the American people should be suspicious of tort reform.
Doubly suspicious of politicians who call for tort reform without explaining in detail what it is they are reforming. Id rather congressional leaders from both political parties crack down on medical industry butchery, coverups, and larceny, than call for tort reform that gives the incompetents and the butchers even more protection than they already have. That is tort reform I can live with.
Just to be clear. Riding herd on doctors and hospitals is one of the few good things lawyers do. Nothing reforms as effectively as lawsuits forcing charnel houses to straighten up and fly right.
In the same vein I can understand Republicans wanting to reduce the incomes of trial lawyers, one of the Democrat partys core constituencies, but why would Democrats go along with tort reform? Could it be they fear lawsuits stemming from death panels?
Ultimately, haircuts and surgery are the customers decision not the doctors. A patient may agree to the initial surgery, but is never offered a choice after that. It is the things doctors do to patients after they agree to a treatment or procedure that needs reforming.
Bottom line: Patients should tell the barber/doctor what NOT to do after hes inside, and get it in writing. What the hell, a smart homeowner first approves of a detailed list signed by a contractor before agreeing to the repairs. The contractor does not get paid for doing anything not in the contract. Your body needs a helluva lot more protection than does the building you live in?
Preventative medicine
Preventative medicine is one of the biggest ripoffs in the medical industry. Everybody gets a piece of the action. Just look at the drugs advertised on TV and ask yourself how much money is spent telling healthy people they need to take a drug to stay healthy. Its no different than telling people they must eat spinach.
Interestingly, the first eat for good health campaign was a form of preventative medicine: An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Now, doctors are prescribing drugs that supposedly keeps them away!
As far as I know there are no statistics on the harm done, and the deaths caused, by preventative medicine. Over-prescribing preventative drugs is a much larger problem than is recommending unnecessary surgery:
Weve now got one of the largest doctors groups in the United States, the American Board of Internal Medicine, publishing a list of things they believe are overdone in their own specialty, he said. They are telling patients, look at this list, and if you are going to have something done on this list, think twice, it may not be necessary; talk to your doctor about it first.
To say that a third of what we do is not even necessary is quite a statement in an industry that values science, validity and precision, he said. What other industry misses the mark that often? said the Baltimore-raised doctor.
We have to step back and look at the global level at the whole system and say: Look, 15 percent of stents are unnecessary, 25 percent of pace makers are unnecessary, we got neurosurgeons saying implantable devices are unnecessary 20 to 30 percent of the time, he said. Pap smears are overdone, hysterectomies, too, he said.
One question. Where is the doctors group looking into preventative drugs enriching pharmaceutical companies and Wall Street?
Parenthetically, if you know nothing else about the relationship between Wall Street and the medical industry know this: The big money is in treatment not cure. Preventative medicine neither treats nor cures, yet it is rapidly becoming the most lucrative branch of the pharmaceutical industry, an industry aided and abetted by doctors.
Absentee owners
My cost-cutting reforms also said that every medical industry entity traded on Wall Street the casino not the thoroughfare be prohibited from receiving healthcare dollars directly or indirectly. Dont bother calculating the odds on that reform being picked up by Congress? Its a non-starter. No law curtailing even the most destructive form of absentee ownership will ever be passed in this country.
Put it this way: If companies building gas chambers and furnaces for the same purposes they were built in Nazi Germany were traded on Wall Street no law would stop them if it adversely affected absentee ownership. Note that federal bureaucracies in cahoots with federal and state courts have all but abolished real property Rights. At the same time property Rights are being wiped out the courts have strengthened the Rights of absentee owners.
Finally, socialized medicine was a non-starter until it included tax increases coupled with REDUCED patient-care because this entire healthcare thing is a battle between productive Americans and the parasite class. The parasites want more for themselves and the only way they can get it is to use the government to get it for them.
Nancy Pelosis 4,000,000 jobs proves my case.
There was never a pretense that said adding four million more workers to the system would improve the overall quality of patient-care. In all of the talk leading up the Affordable Care Act not one word was ever said about improving patient care; mainly because Socialists could not find a lie they could use. Unfortunately, death panels improve patient-care according to Hussein & Company.
Instead of reform the Democrats gave us socialized medicine and called it reform.
Heres the link to the article I excerpted:
Book: Too many Americans victims of medical errors
By: Neil W. McCabe
10/18/2012 06:01 AM
Americans are victims of medical errors - Conservative News