Take an active role in transforming healthcare policies through focused advocacy efforts. Start by contacting your elected representatives to push for legislation that expands access to affordable healthcare services. Join local advocacy groups to amplify your voice when calling for increased funding for essential public health programs. Your involvement, whether through letter-writing campaigns, attending town halls, or organizing grassroots movements will help to build the political will needed for meaningful healthcare reform.
A Different Deadly Species
February 19, 2026
The “murder hornet,” the world’s biggest species of wasp, has an MO that reminds me of a particular human species. The murder hornet feeds on other insects and kills off the worker bees until the workforce is severely depleted. Sounds like the MO of the U.S. health insurance industry. Here is a recent photo and clip of the “profit over people” gang before the U.S. House Ways and Means...
moreThank You
August 6, 2025
It’s been awhile since I wanted to thank a member of Congress. I imagine that I’m like many Americans, tired of this “august body” ignoring what Americans say they want or need. I haven’t seen a poll that says Americans want forever wars and government corruption. But recently, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, held a significant...
more100 Million People
July 15, 2022
I thought I’d read it wrong when I saw this heading in a recent posting from Kaiser Health News (KHN). I looked again and saw that the full title of the well-researched article was as follows: “100 Million People in America Are Saddled with Health Care Debt.” This is slightly less than one-third the estimated population in 2022. This 100 million includes 41% of adults “beset by a health ca...
moreWorking for Something Better
December 15, 2024
Imagine kicking over a rotting log and finding all manner of centipedes running to escape the sunlight when darkness is their life. This is how I have come to view the healthcare industry we’re living with today. Just that, it’s become an industry rather than one of the elements committed to creating good health and promoting wellbeing. For more than a dozen years, beginning in 1982, I work...
moreIdeas for Change
February 17, 2025
As Americans, we love our country, want the best for our families, a voice in deciding our future, and for elected officials to honor our needs and interests. After several stressful years, this is a bright moment when new Ideas could create the energy needed for important changes in our healthcare system. Following is the first in a series of Ideas gathered from a variety of sources. I’m...
moreHold That Pill
November 15, 2024
“If you think your doctors prescribe medications for you on the basis of their unbiased judgment and objective medical research, Carl Elliott’s book, White Coat – Black Hat, will disabuse you of that old-fashioned notion. In his superb exposé, Elliott shows how the big drug companies have bribed and corrupted the medical establishment so that we no longer know which drugs are effective or w...
moreThe More the Merrier?
September 15, 2024
By the time this is posted, who knows what Americans will have lived through. The 2024 state and federal elections will continue to use Plurality Voting which comes with enormous problems. Here’s an example: You’re a new congressional candidate (usually Dem or Rep) and get enough notice and support to begin to challenge the incumbent, the party’s favorite. Next, words like “spoiler” and ...
moreWhat Is a Whistleblower?
August 15, 2024
While the term whistleblower didn’t really make it into popular use until the 1970s, brave individuals have been reporting corruption and abuse for centuries. A current definition of a whistleblower is “An employee of an organization who reports abuse, fraud, corruption, and/or dangers to public health and safety. These individuals often have to turn to public reporting when internal reporting...
moreHow One Man Shaped Medicine
August 1, 2024
In 1910, two of the richest men in America – Nelson D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie – hired Abraham Flexner to review medical institutions across North America. The two had questions regarding the quality of the medical teaching facilities in the US and Canada. Despite his non-medical background, focused solely on the classics, Abraham Flexner was chosen for his perceived objectivity. Unlik...
moreMind Changing Events
May 1, 2024
1956 I was a sixth grader at Thomas Jefferson elementary school when our two sixth-grade teachers decided to hold a “presidential election” just like the grownups. The week before November 6th, we made patriotic themed art and learned about the role of voting in a democracy. At home, politics was a frequent topic. My father was an ardent Democrat; my Grandma Rosie said that “If Stevenson c...
moreElections belong…to the people
March 1, 2024
Up until the Supreme Court gave us George W. Bush as President, I didn’t give the process of voting much thought. I assumed it was fair and uncorrupted—with one exception. In 1960, I was living outside of Chicago and thrilled to vote for JFK. At the time, there was a rumor that Mayor Daley had “made sure” that Kennedy carried the state. I’m ashamed to admit, election corruption—alleged...
moreDown the Rabbit Hole
October 1, 2023
It’s Not Just for Rabbits A friend sent me an email several months ago suggesting her healthcare experience as a topic for a blog post. She was excited to find a Primary Care Clinic in her city that sounded perfect. They advertised, among many things, time to get to know you as a patient and a multi-team approach. She liked her doctor who looked at her mild osteopenia recorded in a DXA* scan, p...
moreHow Sausage is Made
November 1, 2022
As a kid, I watched my Grandma Rosie make link sausage (all that gross fat and pork). Gross! Remembering that experience, I am thinking about the midterm elections on November 8th. Like who can ignore them? I thought since we have candidates promising us the sun and the moon, it would be a good time to brush up on how our laws are actually made. We’re told there might be new sausage chefs eager ...
morePE – Not Your Gym Class
June 15, 2022
Do you remember when the health insurance wordsmiths came up with “patient-centered care?” Like, who else was being treated? Martians? Now, we have yet another turn of phrase - “profit-centered care.” The latest is private equity (PE) companies acquiring hospitals, doctors, clinics, rehab centers, nursing homes, emergency rooms, and anything else remotely related to give investors a “hea...
moreNordic Know-How
April 1, 2022
Several years ago, I spent two weeks in Iceland, the first one in Reykjavik and the second in the far north. My friend and I stayed at an all-age, downtown hostel with a great bar and café. We met a lot of locals due to the amazing café cuisine. Most had been to the US – a kind of rite of passage like going to Disney Land/World for Americans. On our second week up north, we were in a snow bliz...
moreThe Catch-22 of US Healthcare
September 5, 2021
I worked in the health insurance industry from 1982 to 1989, with one regrettable relapse. My first job was with an HMO. I actually believed if we provided more preventive services and made care affordable, the health of all Americans would improve. Those were innocent days, before doctors’ practices were owned by venture capitalists, before medicine became Big Pharma, before insurance companies...
moreSocial In-Security
October 15, 2020
We all face risks to our economic security throughout our lifetime including loss of wages, outliving one’s savings in retirement, and high health care costs at any age. In the US, we claim to meet these and other personal disasters through various social insurance programs – including the Social Security Act of 1935. According to various scholars, the Act was the “foundation on which modern...
moreOld
September 30, 2019
The word "Old" is so laden with negativity, we hardly ever use it. Except, of course, if you really want to go for the jugular and then it’s usually accompanied by old fart, old bag, old dog with no new tricks, and possibly “old timer” but that is kind of dear and saved for men. Women aren’t afforded the same courtesy and become “cute or sweetie.” I stumbled into the current use of the...
moreSymptomology
September 29, 2020
As some of you know, I’m working on a hybrid—part memoir and part how to get us off our collective ass and provide affordable, accessible healthcare to our people. The biggest barrier is that all we read and talk about are the symptoms—not the disease. This is like hearing an odd noise coming from under the hood of your car. You drive to your regular automotive shop and the son of the boss w...
moreMoral Injury
August 29, 2020
If I ever find an agent and/or publisher for a book I’m working on, this is how it will open: Imagine kicking over a rotting log and finding all manner of centipedes running to escape the sunlight when darkness is their life. This is how I view the healthcare industry we’re living with today. Photo by Viktor Talashuk For more than a dozen years, beginning in 1982, I was a sales and marketing ...
moreJust 90 Miles Away
May 24, 2020
In 1997, I joined 150 Americans and Canadians to violate the decades-old U.S. embargo of Cuba. My reason for going was to see Cuba’s healthcare delivery system and after working in Miami to satisfy my curiosity about the island just 90 miles away. My trip was organized by IFCO, the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization/ Pastors for Peace. Our Pastors caravan, the 7th, was dedicat...
more“Question Authority” Returns
April 17, 2025
In the 1960s, Timothy Leary, a well-known figure of the counterculture, popularized many catchphrases like the one above. It’s message was meant to raise doubts about the Vietnam War among other issues. In 2024, according to Marty Markary, M.D. we need to once again reexamine our assumptions about some medical beliefs. In his most recent book, Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wr...
moreVaccines – Part Two
June 12, 2026
Before we explore vaccines in the “modern era,” it would be helpful to determine what makes a competent scientist? These four elements are considered guiding principles: 1. Do not be swayed by unverified information; base scientific discussions on peer-reviewed evidence. 2. Acknowledge uncertainty in origin theories but remain cautious of interpretations driven by ideology or political a...
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