The New York Times:

The shift is occurring, policy analysts and others say, as employers feel more pressure from the weak economy and the threat of even more expensive coverage under the new health care law.In contrast to past practices of absorbing higher prices, some companies chose this year to keep their costs the same by passing the entire increase in premiums for family coverage onto their workers, according to a new survey released on Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group.

Workers’ share of the cost of a family policy jumped an average of 14 percent, an increase of about $500 a year. The cost of a policy rose just 3 percent, to an average of $13,770.

There have been other times when the economy was “weak” and employers refrained from passing along these increases so one must assume that the primary reason for it is that Obamacare is coming and employers don’t want to be stuck with unsustainable increases in insurance premiums.

This is logical. Obamacare is not. End of story.

We are an organization of concerned physicians committed to the establishment of a health care system that preserves the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship, promotes quality of care, supports affordable access to all Americans, and protects patients’ freedom of choice.

We urge patients and physicians to get involved in order to preserve the good qualities of our healthcare system, address the problems, while preventing its bureaucratic destruction .  Please follow these recommendations for

Reasons Why You Need to Be a Docs4PatientCare Member

Reason 1- Betrayal:

The AMA and many specialty societies (AAP, AAFP) and state medical associations have failed you and your patients by  supporting the Obama health care plan.  The two most important issues facing physicians were not addressed:  fixing  the Medicare SGR formula and meaningful medical liability reform.

Reason 2 – Staggering New Regulations:

Are you familiar with any of the 159 new federal boards, commissions and agencies established to micromanage your clinical care and reduce patients’ freedom of choice?  Do you understand the threat to your practice by the massive compliance and regulatory burdens imposed by this law?   We do and will keep you informed while we work to fight these intrusions into your medical practice.

Examples:
The Federal Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research.
The National Coordinator of Health Information Technology.
The US Preventative Task Force to be directed by the Secretary of HHS.  This politically appointed bureaucrat will create the clinical protocols “ALL” physicians will be mandated to follow or face penalty. (Sections 1311, 3002 and 3007)

Read the New York Times article on ObamaCare Power & Implementation:  http://nyti.ms/bp8iyR

Reason 3 – Medicine, Bureaucrat Style:

Of course, you already know about the ways the government plans to control health care costs (i.e. – reduce physician reimbursement and ultimately ration care):

Pay For Performance.
Accountable Care Organizations, Episodic Care and the Medical Home.
Independent Payment Advisory Board.
Coupling your state medical license to Medicare/Medicaid/Insurance Exchange participation.
Expanding scope of practice to non-physician providers.

Read the Associated Press article on ksby.com – Nurses taking over Doctor duties:  http://bit.ly/bbulAc

Read the Massachusetts Medical Law Report:  http://bit.ly/avYLg8

Reason 4 – Socialized Medicine:

The nomination of Dr. Donald Berwick by President Obama to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) – a radical thinker & avowed socialist who wishes to model the US health care system after the British system with rationing and redistribution of wealth.

Read the RealClearPolitics.com article on Berwick & Socialism:  http://bit.ly/cKTz0E

Reason 5 – We Stand Alone:

There  has been no other grassroots group of physicians that has emerged to challenge the federal government and the AMA. We are fighting to preserve the precious  physician-patient relationship.   D4PC has been formed to serve as the true voice for physicians and become the trusted source for healthcare information.  We are proponents of the strategy: Defund-Repeal-Replace the recently passed law. (see our “Prescription for Responsible Health Insurance Reform” on our web site: www.docs4patientcare.org)

In less than one year, D4PC has:

Grown our membership one hundred fold.
Recruited thousands of members in every state and specialty.
Visited Capitol Hill eight times.
Developed relationships with the entire Congressional Physician Caucus and other key leaders.
Appeared on hundreds of respected national media venues (radio, television and print).
Established a strategy and policy plan with the nation’s leading experts on health care.

Summary Statement

The AMA has abandoned you. Your specialty society and their PAC focus on a narrow interest, just as those in the federal government (and insurance industry) are counting on.  Continuing your membership and financial support of these groups will be of little benefit.  The time is long overdue for a new organization to emerge that will supplant the AMA and become the new leading voice for the nation’s physicians and patients.  Docs 4 Patient Care is working  to become that organization, but we need as many physician members as possible in order to be influential on the issues facing our profession.

You are busy and lack the time and energy to dissect the bill in order to understand how it will negatively impact your profession and practice.  Membership in D4PC will provide you with the same value added services available in other organizations and “we” will assume the burden of staying current on the legislative process.  We will give you the vital information you need to plan for the future and our “soon to be released” DOWNLOAD CENTER will be your resource for sharing information with your patients and other physicians.

Do not procrastinate and please end your denial or worse, apathy. Your patients want you to become engaged and do all you can to preserve their freedom of choice and protect your relationship with them.  Your family expects you to make the effort to save the profession you have worked so hard for.

Copyright © Docs4PatientCare 2009. All Rights Reserved. Powered by RootsHQ

ACTION.

STEP 1

Contact your US Representative and 2 Senators immediately to voice your opposition to this legislation.

Contact information and Talking Points are on our Action Center. Put extra pressure on the “Blue Dogs,” even if not in your state.

STEP 2

Go to our Action Center, click on links and view Action Pack. Download education materials and share with your patients and encourage them to take action, as well. Print the Letter to Patients and hand out.

STEP 3

Join our Facebook page to receive timely information.

STEP 4

Reach out to colleagues, get engaged & join “D4PC.”

We need physician leaders. Consider starting your own D4PC Chapter. Details are on our Action page.

STEP 5

To keep these efforts going, please CONTRIBUTE.

There is so much political spin, and so many numbers games being played, when it comes to medical care, that we have to go back to square one and the simplest common sense, in order to get some rational idea of what government-run medical care means. In particular, we need to examine the claim that the government can “bring down the cost of medical care.”

The most basic fact is that it is cheaper to remain sick than to get medical treatment. What is cheapest of all is to die instead of getting life-saving medications and treatment, which can be very expensive.

Despite these facts, most of us tend to take a somewhat more parochial view of the situation when it is we ourselves who are sick or who face a potentially fatal illness. But what if that decision is taken out of your hands under ObamaCare and is being made for you by a bureaucrat in Washington?

We won’t know what that leads to until the time comes. As Nancy Pelosi said, we will find out what is in the bill after it has passed. But even now, after ObamaCare has been passed, not many people want to read its 2,400 pages. Even if you did, you would still not know what it would be like in practice, after more than 150 boards and commissions issue their specific regulations.

Fortunately— in fact, very fortunately— you don’t have to slog through 2,400 pages of legalistic jargon or turn to a fortune teller to divine the future. A new book, “The Truth About ObamaCare” by Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute lays out the facts in the plainest English.

While she can’t tell you the future, she can tell you enough about government-run medical systems in other countries that it will not take a rocket scientist to figure out what is in store for us if ObamaCare doesn’t get repealed before it takes full effect in 2014. It is not a pretty picture.

We hear a lot about how wonderful it is that the Canadians or the British or the Swedes get free medical treatment because the government runs the system. But we don’t hear much about the quality of that medical care.

Finding “balance”…a term that sends shivers down the spine of an alcoholic- active or sober. Many alcoholics have extreme personalities that often lack moderation. Therefore, when they get sober it can be a challenge to change their lifestyle to one that is conducive with recovery. Early sobriety often can mimic a game of “whack a mole” in which the alcoholism is under control and then another addictive or extreme behavior comes to the surface. When someone gets sober there is a part of them that often misses the chaos, drama and stimulation that their drinking life may have provided. Therefore, they may act out in other ways or begin to behave in excessive ways such as over-working, becoming dependent on a romantic relationship, overeating, etc. These extremes are a sign that a person has not healed and can sometimes become triggers to relapse. However, once individuals receive appropriate care (therapy, medicationmanagement, rehab, mutual-help groups, etc.) the more that they are able to see the necessity of a balanced life. The acronym HALT (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired) is used by sober alcoholics to remind themselves of mood states that can perpetuate vulnerability to cravings and/or relapse.

Those who have longer term recovery generally learn that extremes of any nature-positive or negative are not helpful for recovery. Self-care becomes a way of life and individuals find ways to create equilibrium in their life such as exercise, meditation, healthy relationship boundaries, therapy, meetings, eating regularly and healthy, adequate sleep, etc. The following is a worksheet that can help you or a loved one to examine “balance” distribution in a variety of areas in life and what areas need more or less focus.

For each category record how much energy and effort you are expending. If a category is not relevant you can write “N/A”. The total should add up to 100%.

• Relationships
o Friendships ___________
o Family __________
o Romanic relationship _________
o Communication _________

• Self-care
o Healthy and regular nutrition _________
o Exercise __________
o Sleep hygiene __________
o Misc (smoking cessation, personal hygiene, etc.) ____________

• Recovery
o Mutual-help meetings (A.A., SMART Recovery, etc.) __________
o Developing a sober network of relationships __________
o Relapse prevention __________

• Mental Health
o Therapy __________
o Medication adherence ____________
o Coping skill application ___________

• Vocational/Academics
o Putting effort into job, volunteer, academic commitments ___________
o Adhering to routine/schedule (time management) __________

• Spirituality
o Religious and/or spiritual practice and exploration (meditation/prayer, etc.) __________
o Application of religious/spiritual principles __________

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Ten minutes in a brain scanner could be all it takes to diagnose autism. So says Christine Ecker at the Institute of Psychiatry, UK, who has developed software that identifies the anatomical signatures of the condition.

Ecker’s team carried out MRI scans on the brains of 20 adult males with autism, 20 with attention-deficit disorder and 20 healthy controls. They used a machine-learning tool called a support vector machine (SVM) – which analyses data and identifies patterns – to identify key differences between the groups, such as in the cortical folding and curvature of the brain.

The SVM was then used to build a model to predict whether brain scans fall into the autistic or control group. When the original scans were fed into this model, it diagnosed autism with a 90 per cent success rate.

Current diagnosis tools are based on time-consuming and potentially stressful behavioural tests and interviews. Ecker now plans to test her model on children, for whom she predicts more accurate results “because the differences in anatomy between the healthy and autistic brain are more prominent in childhood”.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) will change the face of American medicine, based in no small part on a big lie about preventive care. A list of so-called “Preventive Services Covered under the Affordable Care Act” can be found here.

Main Entry: ²preventive

Function: adjective

Date: circa 1626

: devoted to or concerned with prevention :precautionary <preventive steps against soil erosion>: as a : designed or serving to prevent the occurrence of disease <preventive medical care>

HIV screening for all adults at higher risk

Syphilis screening for all adults at higher risk [bold in the original]

“Today, too many Americans do not get the high-quality preventive care they need to stay healthy, avoid or delay the onset of disease, lead productive lives, and reduce health care costs,” said HHS Secretary Sebelius.  “From the Recovery Act to the First Lady’s Let’s Move Campaign to the Affordable Care Act, the Administration is laying the foundation to help transform the health care system from a system that focuses on treating the sick to a system that focuses on keeping every American healthy.”

dangerously close to “patient dumping,” a practice made illegal by the Emergency Medical Labor and Treatment Act (EMTALA), and reflected an effort to “cherry pick” wealthy patients over poor[.]

Traditionally, physicians have counseled patients to change habits by sharing facts about health and illness (informational power) and/or using their professional credential (expert power).  However, research shows that these means of persuasion are not effective for promoting the lasting behavior changes needed for successful weight management.

and Democrats less than 100 days before the midterm elections.

With about 70 percent of the vote counted late Tuesday, nearly three-quarters of voters threw their support behind a ballot measure, Proposition C, that would prohibit the government from requiring people to have health insurance or from penalizing them for not having it.

That would conflict with a federal requirement that most people have health insurance or face penalties starting in 2014.

Tuesday’s vote was seen as largely symbolic because federal law generally trumps state law. But it was also seen as a sign of growing voter disillusionment with federal policies and a show of strength by conservatives and the tea party movement.

Legislatures in Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana and Virginia have passed similar statutes, and voters in Arizona and Oklahoma will vote on such measures as state constitutional amendments in November. But Missouri was the first state to challenge aspects of the law in a referendum.

U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson said he is allowing the suit against the U.S. government to proceed, saying no court has ever ruled on whether it’s constitutional to require Americans to purchase a product.

“While this case raises a host of complex constitutional issues, all seem to distill to the single question of whether or not Congress has the power to regulate — and tax — a citizen’s decision not to participate in interstate commerce,” Hudson wrote in a 32-page decision.

“Given the presence of some authority arguably supporting the theory underlying each side’s position, this court cannot conclude at this stage that the complaint fails to state a cause of action,” he wrote