Sorry to hear all you’ve been going thru Rohn. Medicare Advantage is notorious for denying coverage and medications. If you can get a different Medicare plan things would open up a lot. I decided to get rid of my doctor and now I see a nurse practitioner for my primary care. She is young, knowledgeable, and more interested in treating the whole patient rather than prescribing a drug every time there is an irregular blood test. And she listens and spends time with me, and takes the time to find a specialist who accepts my insurance. In fact I stopped taking all of the drugs my doctor had me on for years, and guess what...my numbers still stayed in the normal range. Exercise fixes the cholesterol and triglyceride problem, sunshine elevates the vitamin c, vegetables do wonders for my calcium levels. All of the things I do normally without ingesting the poison. I would highly recommend seeing a NP. You will find a noticeable difference. And yes...acupuncturists work magic. I hope you continue to improve.
Summer 1999. I went to visit my mom during the last few weeks of her life. Liver cancer. Most treatment options were unavailable because the tumor was too large. After her death I opened a box of her papers and found copies of three letters, spaced about four months apart, that her doctor had sent to the insurance company in the previous year. The doctor was urging the company to approve the expensive MRI scans necessary to detect tumor size, hopefully in early stages. The doctor's first plea was rejected, which led to the second request, which was also rejected, which led to the third request, also rejected. By then the tumor had grown beyond 'treatability.' She died in her early 60's. Profits for Cigna and Humana were great that year. A massive study by Raj Chetty et al., published in JAMA 2016, found that "[m]easures of health insurance coverage and spending (the fraction of uninsured and risk-adjusted Medicare spending per enrollee) were not significantly associated with life expectancy for individuals in the bottom income quartile." This means that having or not having health insurance makes utterly no difference for the bottom fourth of the American public. It makes a negligible difference for the bottom half. Think about this, please, the next time someone says we need to patiently improve the ACA so that more poor people are covered. The same study found that the average national lifespan gap between the richest one percent and the poorest one percent is 15 years for men, 10 years for women. For comparison, according to the National Center for Health Statistics [Elizabeth Arias et al.], eliminating ALL cancer deaths in the US would increase life expectancy at birth by 3.2 years. The authors of the Chetty study use this fact to conclude that the income and wealth inequality effects on longevity are tantamount to discovering a cure for cancer that is available only to the rich. The deal is broke, brother Rohn, but not for the profiteers. It works great for them, and they are smart enough and ruthless enough to plow those profits into political influence that ensures the perpetuation of the raw deal. The system itself is propagating the inhumanity it runs on--a ghastly feedback loop. I am grateful to wake up beneath clouds and sky, next to books of poetry and philosophy, next to warmth and love. But I am also grateful that this gratefulness does not depend on the prospects for justice and dignity in capitalism, for if it did I would only side with Kafka, who said: there is hope--but not for us.
excellent rejoinder / i like kafka but after he got that apple stuck in his carapace so he couldn't close his wings he seemed to become a little dour / what a powerful story about your mother / now that i think of it my mom's story was also tragic / they drugged the poor lady so she wouldn't escape and try to go back 'home' where toby the dog, all her brothers and sisters and her dear mom were waiting for her / she got drugged every day / one time they gave here too much seroquel and she 'lost her mind' / she was abandoned and forgotten with no role to play and nothing to do all day / except take drugs
thank you rohn for taking the time to understand yourself..that is what this world needs more of from all of us...it's tough to describe magic because words are cages...
Sorry to hear all you’ve been going thru Rohn. Medicare Advantage is notorious for denying coverage and medications. If you can get a different Medicare plan things would open up a lot. I decided to get rid of my doctor and now I see a nurse practitioner for my primary care. She is young, knowledgeable, and more interested in treating the whole patient rather than prescribing a drug every time there is an irregular blood test. And she listens and spends time with me, and takes the time to find a specialist who accepts my insurance. In fact I stopped taking all of the drugs my doctor had me on for years, and guess what...my numbers still stayed in the normal range. Exercise fixes the cholesterol and triglyceride problem, sunshine elevates the vitamin c, vegetables do wonders for my calcium levels. All of the things I do normally without ingesting the poison. I would highly recommend seeing a NP. You will find a noticeable difference. And yes...acupuncturists work magic. I hope you continue to improve.
thanks joan / i am going to change my health insurance in october as soon as i can / i like the NP idea / excellent advice
So sorry you have had this hard time, and glad you are improving. Sounds like a very rough ride.
Summer 1999. I went to visit my mom during the last few weeks of her life. Liver cancer. Most treatment options were unavailable because the tumor was too large. After her death I opened a box of her papers and found copies of three letters, spaced about four months apart, that her doctor had sent to the insurance company in the previous year. The doctor was urging the company to approve the expensive MRI scans necessary to detect tumor size, hopefully in early stages. The doctor's first plea was rejected, which led to the second request, which was also rejected, which led to the third request, also rejected. By then the tumor had grown beyond 'treatability.' She died in her early 60's. Profits for Cigna and Humana were great that year. A massive study by Raj Chetty et al., published in JAMA 2016, found that "[m]easures of health insurance coverage and spending (the fraction of uninsured and risk-adjusted Medicare spending per enrollee) were not significantly associated with life expectancy for individuals in the bottom income quartile." This means that having or not having health insurance makes utterly no difference for the bottom fourth of the American public. It makes a negligible difference for the bottom half. Think about this, please, the next time someone says we need to patiently improve the ACA so that more poor people are covered. The same study found that the average national lifespan gap between the richest one percent and the poorest one percent is 15 years for men, 10 years for women. For comparison, according to the National Center for Health Statistics [Elizabeth Arias et al.], eliminating ALL cancer deaths in the US would increase life expectancy at birth by 3.2 years. The authors of the Chetty study use this fact to conclude that the income and wealth inequality effects on longevity are tantamount to discovering a cure for cancer that is available only to the rich. The deal is broke, brother Rohn, but not for the profiteers. It works great for them, and they are smart enough and ruthless enough to plow those profits into political influence that ensures the perpetuation of the raw deal. The system itself is propagating the inhumanity it runs on--a ghastly feedback loop. I am grateful to wake up beneath clouds and sky, next to books of poetry and philosophy, next to warmth and love. But I am also grateful that this gratefulness does not depend on the prospects for justice and dignity in capitalism, for if it did I would only side with Kafka, who said: there is hope--but not for us.
excellent rejoinder / i like kafka but after he got that apple stuck in his carapace so he couldn't close his wings he seemed to become a little dour / what a powerful story about your mother / now that i think of it my mom's story was also tragic / they drugged the poor lady so she wouldn't escape and try to go back 'home' where toby the dog, all her brothers and sisters and her dear mom were waiting for her / she got drugged every day / one time they gave here too much seroquel and she 'lost her mind' / she was abandoned and forgotten with no role to play and nothing to do all day / except take drugs
thank you rohn for taking the time to understand yourself..that is what this world needs more of from all of us...it's tough to describe magic because words are cages...
we need more humanity and less systems