To all my patients,
This is one of the best books I have ever read that nails the problem of America's broken health care system. It is a short read and will give you a solid understanding of how we got to where we are today and how to fix it!  For anyone who wants to understand why, please read “Common Sense Medicine “ by award winning author Jeff Danby.  The link is provided below. You can order hard copies from the American Academy of Physicians and Surgeons for $3 as well. “The Truth will set you free”
Enjoy,
Dr Tadych

As I frequently tell my patients, when they ask me why the health care system is so screwed up in America - its because of insurance! Get rid of insurance and the system will correct. The outlandish prices will go down quickly and the care and satisfaction will improve! As Jane Orient notes in her article that in the 1940s only 10% of Americans had insurance. I remember when I was 10yrs old, my Mom having to pay cash for an injury I sustained to my leg from an accident I had while sledding, one winter. We had no insurance those days. The Orthopedic surgeon who took care of me lowered his cost and I remembered my Mother thinking how wonderful the health care system was in those days. She gladly paid the price and felt she was given way more in exchange than her money she had to part with. There was no talk that prices were out of control and unreasonable for health care as there is commonly today.  The doctor was more than happy to care for me and became a good friend of mine as he was instrumental in my deciding to go into Orthopedics. I looked up to him with high esteem.  When I graduated from residency he asked me  to come and work with him ! His name was Dr Sean Keen. He has since passed away but was one of the most respected doctors in Milwaukee.  My how times have changed in the last 45 yrs and how simple and reasonable it was then compared to the complex undesirable health care system we have now! But hey the Government is so happy and proud that everyone is insured now! We need to readjust our minds! This article may open your eyes to reevaluate your thinking! Enjoy!

This is an excellent article by Charles Hugh Smith on events that trigger collapse of a system or economy which I highly recommend reading. As I read it, I of course thought about the collapse of the health care system we have today. It has many parallels that I think will give my patients some understanding of why the current system will not last. I think one needs to realize that even though it does not look like it from the outside, real market forces are at work and will bring down the current system, but it does take time. How long will hospitals be able to charge patients $4 dollars or more for one Tylenol pill when you can buy it at Walmart for pennies a pill? Or in the case of MRI scans, charge $5800 when several are doing the same scan and better for less than $500? But, it can take time, in the case of the feudal society- more than hundreds of years before its collapse. In the case of the old feudal society, the author states it was brought on by the printing press, which was able to ultimately educate the serfs and empower them. Remember knowledge is power and one of the greatest forms of bondage is keeping someone in ignorance. “What you don’t know will hurt you”. As people learn about the new movement in doctor direct pricing which is happening to a large extent in primary care, you will see the collapse of these outlandish prices. Unfortunately, those that profit from the current system will do all it can to keep it the same. In our neofuedal system as the author coins it, the few at the top in power cater to the lobbyist  (the 4th branch of government) which give privilege to their organizations who will intern donate back to their political organization and keep the loop going. This is what I referred to in my video on heath care and politics - a doctors perspective.  In the case of health care you may want to ask yourself why the hospital association, insurance industry and pharmacy are near the top for lobbying associations in the USA? In 2013 the Assoc for hospitals spent ~ $20,000,000 on lobbying! That is why you spend $4 per Tylenol pill. As Smith says it well, privilege is wealth, power and benefits that is not earned - it is taken!  If it is not the price that brings down the system it will be the problem of complexity which Smith discusses. Their is no greater example than health care to highlight this point. Computers and complex billing systems instituted by insurance and government are crushing the system. It will collapse when the cost of maintaining the complexity will be greater than the return, and we are getting close. Unfortunately, Obamacare added to this exponentially as I discussed in some of my videos on why health care cost so much. So enjoy and be enlightened !
Dr Tadych

This article in Forbes is one of the major reasons which also contributes to the cost of medicine and it really comes from insurance driven bureaucratic burden with medicare being the worst! One has to also look at the cost of doing paper work. If a doctor effectively is seeing 2/3 less patients due to bureaucratic burden, he has to extract that cost from the 1/3 he sees. While the legal system started the paper work nightmare for physicians, medicare took it to levels unimaginable. Also, the new scheme for cutting costs in health care by Obama care is going to magnify paper work through what is called ACO’s (Accountable Care Organization) to levels that will make the present amount seem like preschool. When I started my training 29 yrs ago, our documentation would be just the pertinent positives sometimes only a few sentences long! Ironically, in the primary care world of doctors, who have kicked out all insurances and medicare, their documentation and hence the paperwork burden has been kicked out as well.

At a recent seminar I attended through the Free Market Medical Assoc. some of the primary care doctors gave examples of their documentation such as: “ patient came in with a sliver in the thumb and it was removed”. That's it! With Medicare or commercial insurance this would mandate a 3 page note of information that is effectively useless and has no benefit to patient care. Many are unaware that in the Obamacare mandate every doctor is to ask questions whether patients have guns or how many are in the home and then must document this in a visit note. The patient came with a sliver! In addition, in order to not have your reimbursement cut by medicare for the visit, a doctor must ask if the patient has had a recent colonoscopy? And document it! Remember, the patient came in for a sliver-absurd! This is the absurdity that comes from the insurance driven 3rd party payer and the best solution is eliminate the “devil” in the room between doctors and patients.  

It is a difficult and hard task to present bad news. As a physician I am faced with this task often, especially when dealing with chronic pain and spine problems or cancer where I have to inform patients that this problem has no cures and little solutions. It is hard as a physician to not be able to “fix” it and have to humbly admit that there are no cures for many of our pathologies. Consequently, in all aspects of life one has to ask themselves how do I handle bad news? There seems to be two common responses: “I don’t want to here it” or “think positively”. It is my belief that the best choice is that we need face it head on (hard as it is and painful) since the other choices are usually dangerous and usually you will be even worse off.

A scenario comes to mind. You are on the beach while on vacation playing volley ball and a man tells you a Tsunami is coming. How do you handle the information? You could say “I don’t want to here it or just think positive my friend - you are too negative”.  Do you keep playing the game, put your head in the sand or do you face it and run for the hills? Life is that way, it is hard and rarely does one profit from ignoring the truth in the long term, but conversely is usually worse off and much harder if you do. The famous quote from Jesus Christ is “The Truth sets you free”. What he did not say is it is usually very painful before you get there! We should not be mislead by the common thinking that the power of positive thinking will make this go away. All the positive thinking you can muster up will not change the fact that if you walk on thin ice you are going down! I do not want you to think that I am in favor of being negative, but rather be a realist and look for solutions - that's the optimist as Winston Churchill said it so well: “ the pessimist sees the problems in every solution, while the optimist sees the solution in every problem”. Don’t stop looking for solutions.

So as you look at this recent interview with Karl Denninger keep that in mind. This is tough news on our economy and particularly health care in our country. So get ready- “a Tsunami is coming”
Dr. Tadych

From the Doctor: “ This is an article from Jane Orient discussing the solutions to America's Health Care and Political problem. Jane Orient is a physician I have personally met and she ranks as one of the top most intelligent MD’s I have known. When she speaks I listen. I heard her give a talk last Spring which was titled “Just Do It”. It was one of the most inspirational talks I have ever heard from a Doctor. It was about a patient of hers who was a quadriplegic and over came the odds to walk again using mind over matter motivation- it was very powerful! She is also one of the more clear minded MD’s on politics and economics. What she says is usually spot on. Her recent release posted below supports my talk on “Health Care and Politics-a Doctors Perspective”. She provides insight to the problem which is dragging America into collapse but always gives the solution which is also spot on. I highly recommend reading it.

I Came across an article on Zero Hedge and would like to share it with you. This article supports my talk on  Health care and politics my comment on the change of our nation from capitalism to “Bankism". Unfortunately, we have made an un-leveled playing field in our country where every one used to have the same opportunity to pursue happiness.  Instead of being merit based and having commensurate reward,  instead, wealth is based on who you know. This is consistent in socialism and or elitist societies. As it has been said so well in George Orwell’s satirical novel- Animal Farm “All animals are equal but some animal are more equal than others"

From the Doctor, To all my patients who would like to see my perspective on health care in America, where we were, where we are, and where we are going- here it is!
Remember as you watch this Georg Wilhelm Friedrick Hegel “We learn from history that we do not learn from history.”  and Lord Acton: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”
Also, remember that cycles swing up as well as down and as stated in John Maxwell's book - Failing Forward that we learn more from our failures then our successes!
Enjoy
Dr. Tadych
 

The can that has been kicked down the road is finally "kicked over the cliff”. For my patients who want to gain understanding into what is happen to the world, this article explains how immense the debt problem is! Total calculated world debt is $970 trillion. The BREXIT in Europe is primarily a debt problem. The short lived joy from receiving credit “the gifts “ are over and the suffering from paying back leading to deflation, i.e.. no one is buying, has begun! This is leading to very unhappy people. Europe is awash in debt. Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, Britain, Ireland, etc are drowning in debt. The math is scary. The situation in America is very similar. Our stock market crash is not because of the Britain's vote, (by the way the reality is the exit did not even happen and won’t for 2 yrs) its because America is financially a mess as well and it only needed some catalyst such as the Brexit to show how bad of shape it is really in. Ask yourself, If America was really in good financial shape (had no debt and all its people were working and productive) would some vote in another country on the other side of the ocean really matter? Grand total debt in America $285 trillion!!! Obamacare added to it majorly by the government funding it with federal dollars since the system has shown it can not pay for itself-more debt! But hey all they care about is claiming how wonderful they are because after all we all have insurance. Rather we are just as sick and sick people or nations have no ability to fight what is imposed upon you from the world when diseases come your way.  Don’t believe the media, they are almost always wrong and full of self seeking motives that rarely want to tell you the truth! Always look for the issue behind the issue! You, can not get proper treatment by being mislead as to the real cause or pathology. In health care this always leads to expensive treatments that do not work and usually make you worse! Can you treat cancer effectively if you do not know what you are treating. Debt always leads to deflation which is essentially a lack of people buying. They (people, corporations, states, ) can not buy because they have no more money as all their money goes to paying off the loans. This looks like a depression and many feel we will be entering one like the 1930s but worse due to the severity of debt. Two entities will suffer the most: those on the top who have given the debt and those on the bottom who are living off the debt money! Get ready America.
Dr. Tadych
See my YouTube video for more on effect on healthcare: HERE
See More articles @ http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/global-formula-tragedy-formula-safety-79025
and http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/revenge-of-the-rubes-why-they-days-of-the-financial-elites-rule-are-numbered/