Tag Archives: Affordable Care Act

Leading in Nutrients – The Affordable Care Act, Part II

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What are the natural or innate characteristics of leaders?   The significant characteristic of leadership is the ability to paint a picture of truth that others can understand. When the picture is false it becomes a lie.   The lie is where great leaders have failed us over the years. Much propaganda delivered in health and nutrition now makes it difficult for anyone to find the truth.   This includes you and your doctor.

The ability to paint a picture in leadership that others can understand is a great gift. It is not a developed gift but a gift or quality that is innate in the leader. Research was used to determine the qualities of a leader. Only one quality of leadership could be found through all ages of test participants. The participants were asked to drink a glass of water with lemon juice added – no sugar. They were then asked to describe how great the lemon water was to drink.   This was started with participants at the age of five. The children were then asked to go play. As they played, the researchers noticed that the children who were able to describe the lemon water as tasty without grimace, became the leaders in play. This test was repeated with groups through middle age with the same result.   Participants who were able to describe the lemon water as great to drink became “natural” leaders.

This gift of painting a picture that others can easily understand is what makes a leader great. There have been many examples of leadership when both the lie and the truth were used effectively. However, when the gift was used as a lie, eventually failure of the led was the result. Compare/contrast the words of leadership during WWII between Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler.

Has this happened to us in health? The immediate example is the Affordable Care Act. A regular citizen, like yourself, has discovered some serious issues of lack of the truth. Richard Weinstein, MBA, Investment Advisor, found that Jonathan Gruber, the architect-advisor to the ACA, used less than truth to help the ACA pass legislation. Rich was frustrated for a year because he could not get the attention of the press. It was only after his findings became part of a legal challenge to the ACA that he found traction. Huffington Post Article: “This Philly-Based Investment Advisor Has Become Obamacare’s Digital Menace.” 11/11/2014

Rich was driven by the words that got the bill passed, “If you like your policy, you can keep your policy.” Last year, his health insurance policy was cancelled. The closest comparable policy was twice as much. He spent his nights researching the words of the architects of the ACA by reviewing videos that were available on the web. This past week, the Obama Administration was embarrassed by the videos and took immediate action. Obama declared that he wanted “Net Neutrality.” To me this sounds like double-speak as an effort to better control the internet. Glen Beck, on his morning radio show, called this declaration a “Trojan Horse” or subterfuge. A fear tactic was used this week with the words, “if you like Netflix, you can keep Netflix with net neutrality.”

Confusing and confounding findings are now included on a regular basis as a method to advance political advantages. Subterfuge is used in economics, in atmospheric science, and in evidence based medicine. The commonality is the complexity of finding truth. Findings by our elite scholars are being used to manipulate the people for the sole purpose of empire building.   Empire building is simply the maintenance and growth of any organization without concern for the stress on society as a whole.

We, as citizens with concern for the health of government and people, have to now take action. The internet is there for you to determine your own truth. However, be careful, the double-speak artists are paid well to paint beautiful pictures. We do need to follow the leadership of a plain citizen, Richard Weinstein. Have you had a health situation that could be healed with nutrients? It is up to you to talk about this with your friends and family and to help our ethical leaders understand what is happening to our society. – Pandemic Survivor

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Health versus the Economy

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Sunday MusingHave you ever wondered what a nation would look like that put the economy of the nation as more important than the well being of the individual? Or, wondered if the wealth of the ‘ruling class’ is more important than the health and well-being of everyone else?  What about a nation where one out of every five people gets their income from the illness of the population? This was the transition, “markets before mandates in health”, that America begins to make during the 1930’s at the height of the Great Depression. Now the healthcare segment of the economy is close to twenty percent of GDP.

It is difficult to imagine a community where one out of every five people gets their income from health. Think about a farming community of one hundred people. Now imagine that twenty of those people are medical workers, medical insurance workers, makers of drugs, and support people for this effort. This is what America has come to. In order to keep the medical workers busy, it means that there has to be a significant amount of illness. If the illness is maintain or increased, then the medical workers lively hoods are safe. But this very ill population has difficulty thriving in other sectors of the economy because there is no feeling of well-being. There is low energy and the illness means that the crops do not get harvested for food to feed the people.

These two things, health versus economy, held in juxtaposition of each other can only have two results. Like two waves coming together, they will either add together to get very large. This is the belief of our current leaders in government. Or, the energy will be neutralized as trough adds to ridge and flatness results. I believe this is closer to our present reality. The economy and health both fail.

Consider how the Department of Health and Human Services is operated. Here are the general principles on which decisions are made:

  1. National standards, neighborhood solutions.
  2. Collaboration, not polarization.
  3. Solutions transcend political boundaries.
  4. Markets before mandates.
  5. Protect privacy.
  6. Science for facts, process for priorities.
  7. Reward results, not programs.
  8. Change a heart, change a nation.
  9. Value life.

Please note that the first three are about politics and the fourth about the economy. There is polarization, political boundaries have been drawn with the passing of the Affordable Care Act, and national standards have prevented neighborhood solutions. And yes, markets have been sustained and increased as the greatest transfer of wealth ever from the Treasury to the pockets of medical insurers has been the result. But, have these actions actually created wealth in either the economy or health. Note that to value life or the general purpose of this large agency is last.

What if we picked a state that has done well economically and looked at its principles of operation in health care? Let’s pick Texas because it has created the largest number of jobs since 2008. Here is its number one principle for operating the Texas Health and Human Services Commission:

  • We place the concerns, interests, and well-being of our consumers and constituents at the center of our attention.

What is valued first in Texas is last at the national level. That is to value life and well-being. Texas economy is booming. Could there be a lesson here for national decision making. I am not going to take the time to look up the chronic disease rate in Texas, but being a southern state with higher UVB, I suspect it is less than the national average. I suspect it could be much better if Texas did not have to meet the requirements of the Federal laws. It is no wonder of the hint of Texas wanting to secede.

To paraphrase the words of M. Scott Peck in his book “People of the Lie”, an institution that does not have empathy for the ones it serves is evil. – Pandemic Survivor