A predatory leader (in some cases, a sociopath) is a person who will do absolutely anything to gain power and control over others. To become a leader of an industry requires major efforts to get the results that will win them a position of power and profit. A sociopath has no conscience, therefore has no personal constraint against doing whatever it takes to achieve his goals. A person of conscience seeking advancement in the same organization will not stand a chance competing against the sociopath.

Our HMO system is designed to do one thing – deliver large profits to the owners/shareholders of the companies. By delivering minimal service or denying service to the paying customers, the profits are larger. These health companies are not run by people interested in helping heal people in need. Every expectation of their employees is about delivering profit under the guise of providing service. This is a system run by predatory leaders.

Mediatorguy

When I had Blue Cross HMO I was limited to the doctors at two local clinics, including Stanford Clinic. Sounds impressive, but
I have gotten BETTER care by being able to pick doctors since I got on Medicare.

Since I got Medicare I got my thyroid cancer diagnosed after the docs on the Blue Cross list missed it. Got the source of my breathing problem diagnosed and greatly improved, after the HMO specialists were no help at all.

Comparing national health care to the DMV is misleading since you will be able to see the same doctors and go to the same hospitals you do now.

Besides, I have no problem with the DMV. Works fine–WAY better than the privately owned telephone company.

Granny Gail

And that’s why Bush and his cronies had to destroy it.

It is the Neocon philosophy that Government Dosen’t Work.

They have done their best every day to make sure everything they do makes things worse for the average citizen.

As is the NY Times article he posted for that matter…Norway isn’t even part of the European Union, let alone Euro, yet they have the world’s highest living standard. How do you rebuke *that*?

Here’s a portion of the forward:
” This book is an act of courage on the part of its author and its publisher. Ever since I wrote The Constant Gardener I have received approaches and sometimes complete typescripts, from investigative writers determined to lift the veil on the darker side of the world’s most profitable trade: the pharmaceutical industry… Yet not one of the authors, so far as I was aware, saw his project realized. And if months later I delicately inquired why not, the answer, however wrapped up, was always the same: too risky.”

The bottom line is this: the drug industry has no regard at all for either the poor 3rd world human beings they are currently testing 80% of their drugs on, has no interest in actually curing any of its many millions of end-users, or even in keeping them in general “good health”.

There is very LITTLE, if any, INDUSTRY PROFIT in “good health”. If everyone enjoyed good health, then obviously doctors, specialists, hospitals and above all the drug industry which supplies them, would quickly be out of business… No demand? No supply. Everyone KNOWS ya gotta create a HIGH DEMAND for a product in order to SELL IT AT A GOOD PROFIT.

That’s why it does everything in its power, and its power is ENORMOUS, to debunk health practitioners who for the most part are not trained in “orthodox” medical schools which are all endowed by Big Business and Big Pharma. (Big Pharma donates ZERO dollars to schools who train Natural Medicine Practitioners. And why would they?)

“Alternative” health practitioners are vilified as “quacks” by most allopathic physicians because they ESCHEW drugs & surgery and instead tackle health issues at their ROOTS. They do not offer their patients chemical cocktails, but treat the whole patient, normally from the inside out with natural foods and vitamins and complete lifestyle or diet changes…

Parma drugs do nothing to “cure” common ailments like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, allergies and diseases caused by stress, improper diet & not enough physical exercise. Drugs will “suppress” or temporarily alleviate symptoms, thus keeping the disease in “check” while allowing people to continue to LIVE with the disease but ignore the root causes of disease and thus they can blithely continue to “enjoy” the lifestyle/diet which created all this dis-ease. Enriching BIG PHARMA and the orthodox medical community in the process… “Win-WIN” situation!

CURING affluent North Americans of dis-ease (*including Cancer) is obviously VERY BAD BUSINESS. (*and where’s the money in alleviating the suffering in 3rd world countries? These people dying of AIDS and PARASITIC DYSENTERY can’t AFFORD the pricetag of Big Pharma drugs. They can’t even afford ELECTRICITY!)

“Controlling” North American/ European (*read “white people’s) diseases indefinitely by prescribing & selling millions of daily doses of high-priced pharmaceutical cocktails is a much more LUCRATIVE BUSINESS, and Big Pharma happily cuts every cooperative golfer on their private course a nice little piece of their big FAT American Pie…

With regard to “modern medicine”, just FOLLOW THE MONEY and see where it leads to…

However, it is simply unacceptable and immoral for America–the wealthiest nation in the history of the world–to not provide health care for all its citizens. The rest of the industrialized world does; we must do as well. What good human beings would we be if we sit back and allow the uninsured and underinsured to get sick and die in this supposedly great nation?

I agree with Moore and the rest of the single-payer advocates that health care is a human right, and must be provided to all people regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the cost. However, how we achieve universal health care as fast as possible is a very important debate, and all facets of the issue must be explored rationally before we reform our health care system to ensure that all Americans have health care and are treated fairly.

And that noble goal can only be frustrated by the emotionalist and populist rhetoric on either side of the health care debate.

I was roundly attacked for trying to spread commie-socalistic medicine. My fellow nurses went on at great lenght about how awful this would be.

Finally, I had to point out to them how ridiculous what they were saying was. We work in a Veteran’s Admin hospital!! Virtually all of the nurses around the table were retired military & got their, and their families, healthcare for free at this very VA hospital!!

If the military, and the subsequent VA, healthcare systems are not ’socailistic’ then the term has no meaning.

What they meant I guess, was that they did not want public healthcare for anyone else.

At least a couple could see that this was true. The rest just said “that’s not the same. We EARNED our healthcare by SERVING”. But, what they earned is precisely a (quite inefficient) socailized healthcare system: a system that is ALWAYS there for them, as it should be for all citizens.

Apparently, it is difficult to be a ‘conservative’, and not, of necessity, be a hippocrite.

You want us to give cash to Canada?

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

I think I’ll let the right-wing idealogues chew on THAT for a while, ‘cuz if THIS ain’t a wake-up call for them, then NOTHING will be.

Canuck1963

Anyways, like I said, Glumbert.com….and check out the long, long thread.

It’s a show-stopper.

Canuck1963

I have excellent insurance with my smallish local firm.
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I really need to get those books NOW because I have a feeling in a few years they’ll be banned completely.

Comment by jake3988 — June 23, 2007 @ 11:01 pm

What’s been keeping em from being banned for the last 30 years? That drivel will always be with us.
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I, for one, am looking forward to the year long waits for non-emergency surgery we have to look forward to when we copy Canada’s system. And what ever came of the lawsuit by the Quebec man who needed hip replacement surgery and found out it was against Canadian law to pay for it privately even though he would have to go on a waiting list to get it through their socialized care system? Are we going to add that little gem to our system when we follow Canada’s lead? ;)