It doesn’t really matter if pharmas are required to report payments to doctors, and it’s naive to think this would make a difference.  There will always be a way for Big Pharma to make big bucks from doctors and other resources instead of offering a simple and appropriate, not over priced prescription.

I think you waste your time even discussing it.  Forget it.

“It doesn’t really matter if pharmas are required to report payments to doctors, and it’s naive to think this would make a difference.  There will always be a way for Big Pharma to make big bucks from doctors and other resources instead of offering a simple and appropriate, not over priced prescription.

I think you waste your time even discussing it.  Forget it.”

Betsy -

I totally agree with the sentiment, but I can’t agree there’s any upside whatsoever, to ignoring the monstrous physician misbehavior and legal drug cartel whoring, which is the current status quo in America.

The prostitution of health care is an ugly thing to behold.

The first step in curing a disease is recognizing you have it in the first place.

And that STARTS with discussion.

Only time will tell if saner minds prevail.

I certainly wouldn’t bet the farm either way.

see the Medical Maniacs website for more, if interested.

Of course you’re right, PatricParamedic.  Totally and completely right.  I just watch things continue to get worse and activists try to change the ugliness, and it never seems to happen.  If anyone read what I wrote, pretend I didn’t write it.  Continue to fight for what’s right.

It’s a more complicated scam than Drs getting small perks and gifts from Pharma directly.  When I was in the hospital suffering from neurological pain the painkillers they were giving me made me uncomfortably nauseous.  Not vomiting sick, but uncomfortable.  My Dr said he’d take care of it.  I said thanks.  I found out later that I was given a dozen injections thru my IV during my stay.  At a price of $600. per injection!  I couldn’t believe it when I saw the bill!  A simple Alka Seltzer would probably have done the trick.  Worse!  The oral form of the med was $60.  I was already being given three other oral meds at the time and could have easily handled this.  When I called the hospital and my insurance provider to complain about this, both parties simply told me that their contract allowed for the Dr to prescribe any drug whatsoever with no questions asked.  There you have it!  Hospital, Dr, and insurance comapny all in collusion to inflate costs at the public’s expense.  Clear fraud!  But no cop to turn to.

Because of complications such as the one you wrote about, Will, we really DO need to be active against all these horrendous abuses.  And they really ARE abuses.  In the case you described, I think there are a few more people you might have called to report the abuses, but I’m not sure exactly who they might be.  Certainly not the AMA.  They don’t give a damn.  I know that from first hand experience.  I wonder if your state Atty Gen’l might be someone.  The State Insurance Commission?

Can anyone answer this?  What we need in cases like this is someone who can actually effect a change in what we were billed, etc.,

WillHarper -

And I suspect it’s just these types of events that cause decent folks (like Ms. Betsy) to just thrown up their hands and say, “I give up.”

And I completely understand. We get 40 emails everyday from folks saying, “Oh, my Lord. Take a look at this.”

You know, after 32-years in emergency medicine myself, I personally “woke up” and said, wait just a minute. What in Hell are we doing to our patients? I realized that - as a field medic - if I wasn’t pushing drugs into people’s veins & hearts, I didn’t feel like a “real” caregiver. I looked around and saw the same insanity among my peers. We’d bought into the party line: “Keep the pedal to the floor - All drugs all the time.”

Fortunately, in the year 2011, literally thousands of caregivers are indeed “waking up.” And just in time.

Our whole concept of ‘disease care’ is a tail wagging the dog. And a big chunk of that tail is the ability to convince healthy citizens that they really aren’t healthy at all. As any church, the Church of Modern Medicine craves converts. The innate drive of any hierarchy is growth, wealth, power - and no cartel on the planet does it better.

End result? Well, as a medical advisor to the Girl Scouts USA, I learned recently that a monstrous 30% of our little girls are on drugs by age of 9. In 1995 it was 10%

Any bets on how soon before we hit 50%? 90%?

Fortunately, there are some real heroes out there, trying to stop the madness. Sidney Wolfe, MD, for one. Julian Whitaker, MD. Donald Berwick, MD. Charles Glassman, MD. And hundreds more.

And every citizen in America should be forced to read, “Overtreated” by Shannon Brownlee.

And take a peak at the website, Medical Maniacs, as well as the book, “America’s Dumbest Doctors” to see what happens when we let our guard down.

But please, don’t give up. You’re some of the good guys, and it’s a grassroots effort to stop the damn drug war.

Bless you, bless you, bless you, dear Will Harper.  We need a lot more good guys like you around. Boy do we need it.

betsy