A Synthesis of My Thoughts on Human Health and Alternative Medicine

I have been a whimsical child, and I have been an ardent Skeptic.  I have read about every diet from Ornish to Paleo to the Blood Type Diet.  I know Chiropractors and Naturopaths, and I make my living researching with Neurosurgeons.  The only statement I feel comfortable saying to them all as it pertains to my position on health is this:

I believe in natural health, not in natural medicine.  At any instant in evolutionary time, an organism is partially optimized to thrive in a certain milieu.  Changes to that milieu can be very detrimental to the organism.  Thus, the burden of proof falls on he who proposes that a change to the milieu is not detrimental, e.g. smoking cigarettes, eating cheesecake, drinking aspartame and sitting in a cushioned chair all day.   This is not to be confused with the Naturalistic Fallacy.  Not everything natural is healthy, and cures for diseases or trauma can only be expected to occur in nature under extremely unlikely circumstances.  Likewise, one should be wary of any practitioner who pretends to know with certainly the diets of those who died 100,000 years hence.  

This should not be construed as medical advice.  As always, consult a physician before reading anything.

Dr. Thomas Stossel on Medical Conflict of Interest Mania

Dr. Thomas Stossel (yes, John's brother) recently spoke with Reason on a topic that is near and dear to my heart, medical conflict of interest.  He may be the first person I have ever heard speak rationally about the subject, and I highly recommend that you check it out.  Among medical professionals, the official party line is always that conflict of interest is a huge problem caused by an unruly class of doctors who are only out to make money getting in bed with evil, profit-making corporations who would just as soon poison their patients as show any sort of compassion.  His level-headed presentation gives me back a little bit of hope for the industry.

OFA Attacks Koch Brothers for Giving Out Booze, Ok with Penalizing Failure to Purchase Commercial Product

Organizing for Action (OFA) send out the email below yesterday, detailing the dastardly deeds of the left's favorite whipping boys, The Koch Brothers (Dun-dun-dunnnnn).  When you get past the class warfare, the envy, and the assumption that youth are an ignorant class of rubes who will follow anyone giving away free beer straight to their death, the hypocrisy becomes a little bit more clear.  OFA thinks that throwing a party and giving away free alcohol to consenting adults in an effort to celebrate lack of support for an intrusive government edict is some "sick crap."  Yet, by their support of the bill, they favor penalizing these same poor rubes for being too ignorant to purchase a fed-approved commercial product.

The email was written as follows:

This should humiliate anyone who's ever been associated with the Koch brothers. 

One of their anti-Obamacare groups is going to college campuses, giving away free booze to try to bribe young folks out of getting health insurance. 

Let them spend their millions on sick crap like that. Whether they like it or not, they're losing this debate, all because of the work you're doing. We're the group that's capable of putting these groups in their place. 

Here's why I'm writing -- we're facing a huge fundraising deadline on Monday, and I need to know if you'll chip in to help.

According to our records associated with this exact email address, you haven't chipped in yet this year:

    -- Supporter Status: Active 
    -- 2014 Membership: Pending 
    -- Suggested action: Donate $5 or more today.

If I had one thing to say to the Koch brothers, it'd be: "SCOREBOARD!"

Despite the millions of dollars they've spent, more than 5 million Americans have already signed up for private plans through the health insurance marketplace. 

We're beating them through one-on-one conversations, helping people get the facts about getting covered, and dismantling the lies these groups are spreading about health care reform. 

No matter what change we're fighting for, it seems like the Koch brothers have always been on the other side.

Our track record is pretty damn good. We've shown we can beat them, because we're building something bigger, stronger, and smarter than just a pile of money. 

We'll never be able to go toe-to-toe with their checkbook -- and we don't need to, because we have a much more powerful tool in the hundreds of thousands of Americans standing up to make their voices heard.

That's what makes us different, and it's what makes these fundraising deadlines so important.

Your donation matters -- chip in $5 or more today:

https://donate.barackobama.com/Fight-Back-Right-Now

Thanks,

Messina

Jim Messina
Chair
Organizing for Action

The Netflix Mandate

I finally took the plunge and signed up for Netflix.  I don't know why I was being so cheap before; I'm not really going to miss the $8/month.  And, I feel that I get a great deal of entertainment for the money.  Even more, I don't have to think about it; every month the money is charged to my credit card.  If it was more than $8/month, that bother me, but as it is I feel pretty good about it.

But, it got me to thinking, "What if the fee was automatically deducted from my paycheck on a pre-tax basis?"  Not only would that simplify things for me, but it would obviously increase the value proposition of Netflix, so much so that they would doubtless be able to increase their prices without loosing customers.  In fact, they would probably see a considerable expansion in their subscriptions, because let's face it, avoiding every possible penny of taxes is great fun.  Everyone else in the entertainment sector - and frankly, outside of it as well - would cry "foul".  This is rightfully so as Netflix would be profiting greatly from a fortuitous tax loophole.

This should make you wonder why we pay for health "insurance" this way.  Do we benefit from greater access to cheaper care because we are able to pay for it with pre-tax money, or does this practice simply inflate the prices, remove the true consumer from the decision making process and artificially drive the expansion of this voter-preferred sector of the economy?