We have a deep and abiding belief that the powers that be have gotten us used to listening to "them" talking about "us", to keep "us" from getting together and talking about "them." Powerful cultural and political influences have driven wedges between us that would not stand through a single cup of coffee; if we just sat down and had that cup of coffee. We are first and foremost neighbors, all across America and the world. We can work our way through damn near any difference if we realize one simple fact, we are in this together. We need each other if we are to transcend destruction. While it may sound odd on it's face, we are convinced the powers that be do not want us to be nice to one another, because nice people really listen to one another. They do not want us helping each other mend fences, because we may come to see that some fences do not need to stand and some should have never been built at all. They do not want us to comfort each other’s children, because we might hear the sound of children crying in places we cannot see and ask ourselves if those are not our neighbors and feel the need to comfort those children as well. They do not want us to dance together, because dancing people touch, they feel each other, they move together to one rhythm. They do not want us to sing together, because we might behold the majesty of our harmony. They do not want us to walk side by side because we might see that the color of our skins or the gender of our bodies does not change the direction of our steps. They fear most of all that we will begin to help each other over the challenges and the dangers along this mighty and mutual march. They fear we all might remember that at the core of this grand experiment is a path, and that path, that ancient and revered path, a path died for, is worth defending, for at the end of that path grows a tree, a tree we must protect above all others, that is the “tree of Liberty”.
We must remember what our forefathers and mothers knew. We must remember that it is we who ultimately guard, water, and care for that most sacred tree upon which all other forms of justice branch. When we remember, and we will remember, then is when we will raise our fists as one, and pound upon that Iron Gate they have arisen to keep us from feasting upon the fruit of that tree. It will be a sound that will awaken the sleeping ghosts of our better dreams and we will ask - "Why? - Why these years of separation when we were one people all along? - Why this slicing and dicing of the body politic? - Why have you taken what was a sacred trust and burned it on the alter of profit and power?" You see these men, grown fat, insatiable, and mad by their immersion in raw power, know that come the true judgment day, the day when "We the People" come to collect the due on promises made in the blood and sweat of our forefathers and foremothers we will find our national treasurers empty, spent not upon the future of our children but instead looted in the name of nothing more noble than baseless greed. That my friends, my neighbors down the block and around the world is why they will never let us become "We the People" without a struggle, and why no matter how difficult the struggle, we must overcome! Power, as always, to The People!

1. Kickback driven medicine: An overwhelming number of physicians get kickbacks and other economic incentives from pharmaceutical companies, not only for being willing to prescribe a drug, or implant a devise, but also for research. Often, physicians also get kickbacks from other Physicians, hospitals, and imaging facilities to which they refer patients. Physicians even get kickbacks for implant devises. Influenced by a greed for these kickbacks, many physicians prescribe medications and procedures they know are NOT the most effective response to a problem, or may even be for a problem you do not have. 4. In one study one third of the Doctors interviewed, “admitted they would order unnecessary MRI scans and 25% referred patients to an imaging center where they had a financial interest.” 20.

2. Promoting unnecessary surgeries: Physicians often fail to tell a patient of less radical alternatives, fail to disclose and even mislead patients about risks, and encourage a patient to elect surgeries that are not good for their health. “While it is difficult to distinguish "necessary" from "unnecessary" surgeries, some estimates  put the latter at 2.5 million a year, resulting in 11,600 deaths a year as well as severe pain and disability for many of the survivors.” 5. Breast implants are just one example. Implants are never permanent. Most will require another surgery within five years, virtually 100% fail within 10 years. 6. Reconstruction after a mastectomy requires multiple surgeries (including one on the healthy breast), and thus provides a whole string of opportunities for surgeons to make big bucks. For women with cancer this is particularly cruel even murderous as evidence indicates that physical trauma the like of multiple surgeries can encourage the spread of cancer. 7. Surgeons virtually never reveal this trauma induced cancer growth risk. Even women’s magazines have described new “perky” breasts, and perhaps even a tummy tuck, as a couple among ten reasons to “be glad you have breast cancer.” 8. While plastic surgeons claim options for such reconstruction are, “essential to women’s self-esteem“, there are less dangerous roads to dealing with self-esteem issues, patients are not well informed of risks, and surgeons literally peddle reconstruction. The only unsolicited call I ever remember receiving from my breast cancer surgeon was to inquire as to why I would turn down reconstruction. (Wonder if she was to get a kickback from the plastic surgeon, who acted as if he got kickbacks for implants.)

3. Bait and switch: You do a little research, meet and agree to a surgery by a certain physician, chosen for various reasons, experience, sex, bedside manor, temperament; then, once under anesthesia, your surgeon pulls a bait and switch. The person actually performing the surgery is much less experienced, or this may even be their first surgery, or first surgery of this type. Sometimes the surgeon you thought was performing is in attendance supervising. Your life threatening surgery is being used as training and you are an unwitting breathing cadaver. 9 Other times the person you thought was performing the surgery has moved on to a high paying client and left you with a resident under no supervision. The surgeon you thought was performing is paid for miraculously doing two surgeries at once in two different locations. 10 The resident is on salary.

Once limited to teaching hospitals this sort of medical fraud is now infiltrating private practices. While you are never told, while misleading language is used, while students are hidden, and even while out right lies are employed to cover this bait and switch, physicians argue that any reasonable person should know that in teaching facilities students are participating in their care, including the performance of major life threatening surgeries. Patients may or may not know a hospital is a teaching hospital; and the average patient does not know their physician will lie; we are not told the relationship is an adversarial one, rather than fiduciary (one where the physician’s primary concern is our health).

4. Unnecessary procedures and exams for the sake of training: Extending anesthesia and resulting in physical trauma, excessive bruising, bleeding, and increased infections of patients, physicians often take the opportunity provided by anesthesia to parade in a line of students to perform exams. Although research indicates that 87% of patients would allow training if asked, making this sort of medical fraud unnecessary, it would take time to explain to the patient and the patient might set terms or limitations, such as on the number of trainees to be performing a procedure. 10. Informed patients while often willing to accept one or two trainees, are less likely, for example, to consent to their pelvic or anus being penetrated multiple times by multiple people. This gang bang approach to teaching is very abusive. While many argue it does not rise to the level of rape as there is no sexual intent, this argument is again invalid. 11 One could argue with such logic that the physical touching and penetration of a prisoner might be torture, but not rape as the intent was not sexual but rather investigative. Statistics indicate that such practices are risking patient health. While Teaching facilities want you to think that you will get superior up to date care at such facilities, this is just not the case. Oregon Health Sciences University is one example. OHSU patient safety ratings  reveal a below average raiying for: 1. prevention of death in procedures where mortality is usually very low, 2. absence of foreign body left in during procedure, 3. avoidance of excessive bruising or bleeding as a consequence of a procedure or surgery. These stats indicate many physicians are prioritizing teaching over patient health and safety. Simply put you are more likely to die from a relatively simple and safe procedure, and will likely suffer greater trauma and pain from procedures performed at OHSU, than non-teaching facilities. The surprise is not that, OHSU is sued on average of 23 times a year, but that this figure is not much higher. One reason may be OHSU has access to the PDX VA. While the V.A. would like vets to think the big teaching facilities are better than the smaller VA facilities; the history of the V.A. also reveals unacceptable abuse and risk of patients for the sake of training. 12. Again, while cancer patients provide a host of opportunity in this regard the trauma from such practices can feed cancer. Furthermore, physicians do not seem to give any special consideration to a subject already in pain from recent surgeries, and show no qualms about subjecting such patients to more trauma from multiple penetrations by inexperienced students/trainees. No more than teaching hospitals they take pity on the crying children, as a line of students enter their rooms to practice arterial blood gasses, as was described to me by an asthmatic patient who spent their childhood in hospitals.

5. Physicians will lie. Telling your Doctor what you do and do not want to happen to you or your body while under anesthesia is no protection. Physicians often do as they please and simply lie before and after the fact no matter what preferences, you might have expressed. After all, they know even better than the date rapist how effective these drugs are at ensuring their violations of your rights, your body, your health, and their oath remain unknown to you. If you complain, a physician may flag your chart, “don’t ask”. This does not mean they will not seize the opportunity anesthesia provides to violate you, just that they will employ a “don’t ask; don’t tell” policy in relationship to your care. 13. Doctors are often arrogant and indifferent to the very concept of informed consent. Physicians patronizingly claim to know what is best for patients, while they fail to listen or respond to expressed needs, violate patients expressed will, and even do things to patients they would not allow be done to themselves. 14. Surely not all the staff is going to go along with this? I have listened to countless stories of this sort of abuse over the last two months, not only from patients, but also from nurses and other physicians I have interviewed. Most indicated that while they did not agree with what was done they did not report violations of consent, or even sexual assault, (such as an anesthesiologist who awakens women from anesthesia by pinching their nipples.) Mind you, I know some of these confessors well, the only reason I can see for their silence is a culture of such silence. 15.

 6. Physicians target the poor: Physicians target the poor, mentally disabled, and seriously ill patients who are heavily dependent upon the medical access they receive, as they are less likely to file lawsuits. Veterans have historically been part of this pool of the abused poor as many large V.A. Medical facilities are linked to Medical Schools and economic incentives for lawyers to represent victims are minimal. In many cases the awards will not cover the costs of litigation. This is about to get much worse. As physicians look for more ways to avoid State legislation regarding teaching, as physicians look for ever more disempowered patients, as the government looks for ways to cut the costs of caring for veterans, ALL V.A. facilities are about to become teaching facilities. A physician can come from anywhere in the country (or world) to be trained on any vet in any state disregarding the state laws and often Federal Laws as well. The V.A. even employees unlicensed practitioners, and has a history of failing to check credentials. 16. Now, one will say, the vet can get medical care elsewhere; but illness breeds poverty, and war breeds illness, and you are often not told, mislead, even blatantly lied to as to who provided what care, who did what including what unnecessary penetrations to your body.

Women are particularly vulnerable. Women are relatively few in number within the V.A. system and thus scarce relative to the demand for training specific to women’s health. Female Vets are subject to a sort of intensified trauma resulting from both more frequent and intense abuses by physicians, and for many patients this in conjunction with a history of military sexual trauma. “The problems with sexual harassment, assault and rape are systemic in the military beginning with recruiters, military academies, carrying on through service and at the Veterans Administrations.” 17. Refusing to respect these women’s requests for female practitioners, pulling the old bait and switch tactic, and using women as vending machines for training multiple students results in not only physical harm, but also serious psychological harm. These practices also increase women’s risk of sexual assault.

 Creating Opportunities for Rape: A woman has a fundamental right to protect herself from sexual assault or rape as she sees fit. The physician undermines this right when the patient is not allowed to exclude, limit, and/or negotiate the terms of male participation from certain types of care and while under anesthesia. Failing to acquire informed consent and refusing full disclosure in a Federal facility is a violation of a patient’s civil rights and should be prosecuted accordingly. While physicians would like you to think, they as a class are above such crimes as sexual assault this is simply not the case. A Times investigation found 55 licensed practitioners in the state of Washington alone who had rap sheets for sex crimes.” 18. Sexual misconduct is a common problem and protection against offenders practicing in the medical field is insufficient to non-existent.

0nce you are put under anesthesia you have no way of knowing what is being done to you by whom. Medical staff seems to think nothing of leaving women alone under sedation with a man, a stranger to these patients; not something a reasonable woman would ever tolerate if told the truth. Physician’s response to reasonable requests by reasonable women is to simply lie. I know this from personal experience. Complaining to the V.A. about violations of my requests for, and promises made of, female only staff during procedures like colonoscopies, oophorectomies, and a mastectomy, complaining about being left in the care of men while under anesthesia, and requests for explanations for symptoms synonymous with sexual assault for which the physician claimed to have no medical explanation, has gotten me nothing more than a “don’t ask; don’t tell” flag in my chart by that same Doctor. It seems many physicians are unwilling to give up even a small fraction of their income, many hospitals unwilling to spend a fraction more, to ensure the safety of women under anesthesia, or even respect women‘s own attempts to protect themselves. It took a movement to get women into the medical profession, and the rest of us were promised the comfort and security of female care only to be betrayed by petty greedy women the likes of those who have betrayed this reporter/patient.

If physicians are willing to lie to patients, to put patients at an unreasonable risk, to seek all sorts of ways to avoid any sort of meaningful informed consent, to even engage in outright medical fraud, how is a patient to have confidence in a diagnosis? How can a patent feel confident that the diagnosis is not motivated more by the need to teach this or that procedure than a thorough analysis of medical history and data? How can a patient know that a prescription or surgical suggestion from their physician is motivated by concern for their well being rather than personal profit? You cannot! In June 2002, for example, a Chicago cardiologist was sentenced to 12-1/2 years in federal prison and was ordered to pay $16.5 million in fines and restitution after pleading guilty to performing 750 medically unnecessary heart catheterizations, along with unnecessary angioplasties and other tests as part of a 10-year fraud scheme. 19 My own significant other suffered an unnecessary heart catheterization.

 What protection does a patient have?

  Medical Licensing Boards are little help. Sanctions are rarely proportionate to the offense. Physicians are often given no more than a few months of limitations on practice or short suspensions. Even in the most repetitive and/or grievous abuses such as sexual assaults while a patient is under anesthesia or performing high risk unnecessary surgeries, physicians are often given little more than limitations on patient demographics and mandatory counseling. At worse they may recieve two to five years suspensions with mandatory counseling followed by reinstatement with temporary supervision. These disciplinary actions are too lenient and too few to make a difference. “A D.C.-based advocacy group found only 33% of doctors who made 10 or more malpractice payments were disciplined by their state medical board; some—with as many as 31 payments—have never been disciplined.”  20.

 Laws are not effective. When laws are changed to help protect patients, the old, “do not ask, does not tell” tactic is employed. This was the case with California consent laws relating to informed consent and using patients under anesthesia as teaching tools for pelvic exams. 21. Illinois followed. 22 At first, many hospitals voluntarily conformed, then after a few big teaching hospitals and their Physician’s thumb their nose at the law, reminded legislatures that the patients are under anesthesia and therefore make lousy witnesses, interest in conforming to the law seemed to fade and continued abuse has to date gone unchallenged. 23

 Lawsuits do not work. Rather than clean up their act to reduce risks of suits, many physicians have retaliated against malpractice lawyers and their family members refusing them care or firing their nursing spouses. Patients who sue one physician are refused care by others. Even some Physicians who have testified as expert witnesses on behalf of plaintiffs have suffered retaliation from employing hospitals and State Medical boards. In Florida, Tampa General Hospital revised its employee "code of conduct" to prohibit staff from testifying on behalf of plaintiffs. (They may testify as witnesses for hospitals and doctors.) “In Jersey City, the medical staff at Christ Hospital voted to remove George Ciechanowski as chief of staff, according to news accounts, because he backed malpractice legislation that many of his colleagues opposed.”, 24. Regardless of awards and even if insurance companies refuse to insure repeat offenders, this does not seem to slow down the abuse. Awards are not proportional to the injury, nor large enough relative to income achieved through such abuses to discourage the practices. In spite of lawsuits, sanctions, and payouts, patient abuse remains profitable. 25

 Research and empirical evidence has done little to change attitudes. Research indicates that listening to and respecting patient wishes in conjunction with honesty and early confession and apology for error reduces litigation. A few hospitals that have revamped policies and practices in response to this research have reduced malpractice payouts by 85% 26 Unfortunately, such evidence fails to persuade physician attitudes, who claim they have, “No time to listen and talk to patients.” 27.

 What is to be done?

 When patients’ health and well-being are no longer the top priority of physicians the system is no longer trust worthy and should be radically reconstructed to once again serve the interests of equal protection and security of ALL patients. Piecemeal socialization or V.A. type medical care within an overarching for profit system only tends to subject the poor who do manage to access medical care to the sort of abuses described above. I heard a wise person suggest that if all the Physicians and other medical staff who worked at the V.A. had to use the V.A. themselves for medical care, things would change. Likewise, only in a one-payer system that treats ALL citizens who seek medical care the same, will some of us not be subjected to such abuse in the interest of others. Only in a one-payer system will physicians and other medical staff find their interests in common with the patient’s interest.

What can we as patients needing care do in the meantime?

 1. Demand a single payer system,

2. while seeking the bulk of your health care on the margins outside of the mainstream of large corporate medicine. There are many ailments that can be effectively treated by Chinese Physicians and naturopathic doctors.

3. Demand family member presence while under anesthesia.

4. Read all consent documents, and do not be afraid to alter those documents or bring your own for the physician to sign.

5. Ask if trainees will be involved in your care at the time you make an appointment. Record the conversation.

6. Be ready to refuse care or be turned away and find care elsewhere.

7. Lobby your state and federal representatives for greater protective legislation. Add a clause to consent forms in facilities such as the V.A. regarding adherence to state regulations they are not otherwise obligated to follow.

8. Be suspicious of Physicians who make multiple referrals, use coercive tactics to convince you to do things, respond to every concern you may express with another scan, MRI, or other test, seem to have more patients than can be properly cared for without many residents and trainees helping out, lie to you even once.

9. Educate yourself and become wise about how you access medical care before you discover you have been abused. Remember, no medical care, or delayed medical care can, in many cases, be better than bad medical care.

10. Be a skeptic. Expect your Doctor to lie to you. Remember their Hippocratic Oath has more to do with P.R. propaganda than having any real meaning to many physicians.

11. When you find a Doctor has abused you; let the rest of us know. Post flyers, post adds, get the word out about that Doctor. Start an Abusive Doctor boycott list web site in your area. As we boycott those physicians and seek care with more ethical practitioners incentives may shift a bit.

MC Kean

1. The following two articles represent a very small fraction of the propaganda concerning lawsuits and medical malpractice.

      A Confederacy of Boobs   , by Michael Fumento Reason , October 1995

      Medical Malpractice Suits Are Dividing the Nation!   ,  by Marcel Votlucka , The Stony Brook Press , December 8, 2005

 2. Study Casts Doubt on Claims That the Medical Malpractice System Is Plagued By Frivolous Lawsuits   , Harvard School of Public Health , May 10, 2006

 3. Too Many Malpractice Suits, Or Not Enough?   ,  By Solange De Santis, ConsumerAffairs.Com , October 18, 2004

Also see,

     Medical Malpractice in TX   :  is one of many articles, facts, and research published by,  Public Citizen ,  regarding lawsuit propaganda.

      The Medical Malpractice Myth   : Forget tort reform. The Democrats have a better diagnosis, by Ezra Klein, Slate , Tuesday, July 11, 2006

 4. Prescription Drug Scams   , by Dean Baker, Thruthout , June 29, 2006

      Drug Trials Hide Conflicts for Doctors    , by KURT EICHENWALD and GINA KOLATA, May 16, 1999

      Insurers Pay Doctors to Switch to Generics   , by Joe Mantone, The Wall Street Journal  Health Blog, Jan 24, 2008.

     Med-tech perks for doctors questioned  , by JANET MOORE , Star Tribune, Feb 28, 2008

    Is Something Rotten in the State of Radiology?  ,  by Leonard Berlin, MD, FACR, Imaging Economics, March 2007

5. Profit-Seekers  , by Payne Hertz, Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Also see,

    Needless Surgery  ,  Reprinted from Consumer Reports on Health (March 1998)
© 1998 Consumers Union*

    To Go Under the Knife--or Not?  ,  by Kate Murphy, Business Week, July 7 2003

Health Department Fines Parkway Hospital $32,000 for Performing Unnecessary Surgeries on Patients from Leben Home  , state of New York Department of Health, 7/16/01

    Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans File $30 Million Lawsuit Alleging "Rent a Patient" Fraud in Southern California  ,  Summary by Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, BMC Cancer. 2005; 5: 94. Published online 2005 August 4. doi: 10.1186/1471-2407-5-94.

    Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy Atrocity  ,  Elizabeth Eugenia James-LaBozetta

Central Ohio Patient's-rights Service (C.O.P.S.) and Citizens for Medical Safety 

6. High Rate of Failure Estimated for Silicone Breast Implants  , by GARDINER HARRIS, New York Times, Published: April 7, 2005

 7. Breast surgery accelerates recurrences in some women.  , Heatlh Facts, Nov 5, 200

    Trauma-associated growth of suspected dormant micrometastasis  

  ,  Nagi S El Saghir,¹ Ihab I Elhajj,¹ Fady B Geara,² and Mukbil H Hourani³ BMC Cancer. 2005; 5: 94. Published online 2005 August 4. doi: 10.1186/1471-2407-5-94.

   STRESS HORMONES MAY PLAY NEW ROLE IN SPEEDING UP CANCER GROWTH ,  Cancer Research, Nov. 1, 2006 republished OHSU Research News

Tumor dormancy: not so sleepy after all,  by  Cliff Murray, Nature Medicine, 1, 117 - 118 (1995)

Does surgery unfavorably perturb the “natural history” of early breast cancer by accelerating the appearance of distant metastases?,European Journal of Cancer, Volume 41, Issue 4, Pages 508-515 M. Baum, R. Demicheli, W. Hrushesky, M. Retsky

Wounding from Biopsy and Breast cancer progression,  Ritsky etal, The Lancet, Vol 357, March 31, 2001

HOW SCIENTIFIC ARE ORTHODOX CANCER TREATMENTS?

, by Walter Last

8. Top 10 Reasons to Be Glad You Have Breast Cancer, by  PJ Hamel
Monday, May 7, 2007

Breast Cancer Sells, by Lucinda Marshall, AlterNet. Posted October 24, 2007.

9. Are Med Students Practicing on You?, By: Suz Redfearn, Mens Heatlh

10.VA uses unsupervised residents and other practices that would not be accepted elsewhereBy JOAN MAZZOLINI, THE PLAIN DEALER Cleveland, Ohio Sunday, January 28, 2001

11. Not Rape, but Still Not Right: Hospitals Should Get Clearer
Consent Before Med Students Probe Anesthetized Women,  Evan Schulz, LEGAL TIMES, Mar. 17, 2003, 54;

Also see,

Using tort law to secure patient dignity,  by
JOHN DUNCAN
Independent
ROBIN FRETWELL WILSON
Washington and Lee University - School of Law
DAN LUGINBILL
Ness, Jett & Tanner, LLC
MATTHEW RICHARDSON
Wyche, Burgess, Freeman & Parham, PA

U of Maryland Legal Studies Paper No. 2004-24

Training Intrusive and Needs Patient Consent, Activists Say,  WASH. POST, May 10,
2003, at A1; Darin L. Passer, Medical Students Respect Their Patients, THE STATE,
July 19, 2003

Having obstetric/gynecological surgery anytime soon at one of the hundreds of teaching hospitals around the country?, by Melissa Waters, Concurring Opinions, July 24, 2007

12. V.A. Malpractice info website.

13. Don't Ask, Don't Tell: A Change in Medical Student Attitudes After Obstetrics/Gynecology Clerkships Toward Seeking Consent for Pelvic Examinations on an Anesthetized Patient,  Peter Ubel 188 AM. J. OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY 575 (2003).

14. http://patrickdodd.com/blog.html/arrogance_abuse_fraud_medical_malpractice__how_some_physicians_beg_for_law_suites Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:39:20 -0800 Patrick Dodd's Musical Sounds of Resistance - Patrick Dodd and Friends - The Soap Box http://patrickdodd.com/blog.html/va_fails_to_diagnose_and_treat_vets_to_save_money_implications_for_health_care_reform V.A. Fails to Diagnose and Treat Vets to Save Money: Implications for Health Care Reform?

By MC Kean

V.A. Fails to Diagnose and Treat Vets to Save Money: Implications for Health Care Reform
No matter what side of health care reform you are on, none of us would like our physician to NOT tell us about a treatable condition, just to save the government money.
V.A. physicians have been ordered not to diagnose or treat “low priority” veterans for many conditions. I am all for single payer health care, but we should be honest. The V.A., like private health care is a socially stratified system. All Veterans do not all get the same care. Veterans who have managed to get a service connected designation (many who should get this classification do not), retired officers and others who have been anointed with the classification of deserving get the medical they need. Some veterans get no care at all. Other veterans, who qualify for care, but are considered, “low priority”, are not getting such good care. V.A. physicians from General practitioners to E.R. are not allowed to treat these “low priority” vets for many conditions. Many of you will say, “They have not earned that medical care.” Others will recognize that health care should not be something you have to earn. Either way, we should all agree that ALL veterans who are lead to believe they are getting their health care from the V.A., who have been assigned primary care physicians, should be diagnosed and informed of treatable conditions by their physician. If the V.A. does not want to treat them, they should not provide act like they are providing them with health care, then they can check out other options, including join their comrades in a struggle to gain full access to health care.
Unequal access is not the only problem with V.A. health care, nor the only problem with private socially stratified health care. Often when veterans do get care, it is substandard, violent, and even abusive. The V.A. has a long history of violating patient informed consent for the sake of education and research. Veterans are given harmful exams and treatment, even surgeries they do not need for the sake of training medical students. Women are particularly vulnerable to abuse as their numbers are small; they are literally ganged up on once sedated so large numbers of students can practice intimate exams and procedures on the non-informed, non-consenting patient. Private health care has a very long history of systematically violating patients' informed consent, battery of sedated patients, and other forms of patent abuse. If a patient has the financial means to file a lawsuit, they are treated one way; if not, they are treated another. There is little incentive to protect patients whose ability to respond to abuse is limited, an abundance of opportunity, and increasing profits to be made from patient abuse. In fact there is little incentive to simply protect patients from easily avoidable infections. With all the signs about hand washing most of us should have a clue that getting staff to wash their hands has been a bit of a problem. It seems it may be the same for equipment. Since 1998, the V.A. has known about and failed to solve the problem dirty colonoscopy gear being used on patients. Their own inspections indicate that over half of their facilities are not properly cleaning or maintaining colonoscopy gear, patients have been infected with STDs, and the V.A. has simply said, well there is “no proof they were infected from the colonoscopy,” and that infection would be unlikely, even as they admit that cleaning such gear is sensitive and any breakdown in the process can risk patient infection.
Finally, informed consent and patient autonomy, I.e. informed consent reform, must be part of health care legislation. In a system where patients are assaulted by lines of students 8-12 long waiting for their turn to practice pelvic, breast, and rectal exams on non-consenting sedated patients waiting surgery or colonoscopies, in a system where the patient has no right to refuse an exam or procedure, where hospital staff calls the police to ask if they want them to perform a rape exam by force, in a system where patients are manipulated into harmful procedures that will not improve their health, we must have more than simple access.
The bottom line is, the next time you are being sold this “Public Option” health care reform, remember the following.
1. This is not left wing reform. Public Option is a windfall to insurance companies. It will increase health care costs and taxes, may not cover more people, is incomprehensible, and is written by corporate lobbyists, and while currently insurance companies serve as death panels, we do not need the government to do the same.
2. While it makes no sense to subject our health and our lives, to greedy physicians, insurance executives, hospitals, imaging companies, drug and device manufactures, it also makes no sense to subject our health care to the whims of government. A government that has proven not to have our interest in mind. A system that funds health care in one administration and then cuts funding in the next.
3. We need to take health care out of the hands of both for-profit organizations and politicians.
How?
1. We start by rejecting the Public Option. Call your representatives and demand that they vote against Public Option and start over from scratch, this time not allowing lobbyists to write the legislation, limit the legislation to fewer than 50 pages, and submit all legislative proposals to the public for referendum vote of confidence or no confidence.
2. Do not listen to the corporate press, who share economic interests with the corporate health industry. Do your own research on ALL proposed legislation, including those not reported on by the press.
3. Think harder. Do not be lazy. Think! If medical care is socially stratified, that is we do not all get the same care and some of us get no care at all, if the cost of medical care is unregulated such that more and more of us get no care at all, and the sicker we get, the more we need care and the less we can afford that care, if good medical care is tied to insurance, and affordable insurance to employment, what does that mean for me and my loved ones? What if a member of my family gets very sick and stays sick for a long time? What if there is an accident? What if I am disabled and can no longer work? What if my insurance company decides to drop my coverage? Will I be put in the position where a family member or I will not get the care we need. If I have to resort to a “Public Option”, will a physician simply not tell me of a condition that should be treated?
What if health care was universal not only in the sense of access, but quality; that is, what if we all, including physicians, politicians, and corporate C.E.O.s got the SAME care, in terms of quality, cost, and access? What difference would that make in a public health care system?
What if we had such a universal system in conjunction with health care as a human right and informed consent legislation?
It is up to us to decide. Ultimately, it is up to us. We will get the kind of medical care we settle for; so do not settle. Call your representatives today and tell them “no compromise” on health care reform. Scrap “Public Option” and start over NOW.

]]> http://patrickdodd.com/blog.html/va_fails_to_diagnose_and_treat_vets_to_save_money_implications_for_health_care_reform Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:55:24 -0800 Patrick Dodd's Musical Sounds of Resistance - Patrick Dodd and Friends - The Soap Box http://patrickdodd.com/blog.html/if_a_tree_falls_ch_1

If a Tree Falls: