This blog is a way of sharing the information and resources that have helped me to recover my son Roo from an Autism Spectrum Disorder. What I have learned is to view our symptoms as the results of underlying biological cause, which can be identified and healed. I say "our symptoms" because I also have a neuro-immune disorder called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.

And, of course, I am not a doctor (although I have been known to impersonate one while doing imaginative play with my son)- this is just our story and information that has been helpful or interesting to us. I hope it is helpful and interesting to you!


Monday, September 9, 2024

The Dangerous and Deadly Effects of For-Profit Health Care

Most Americans have a very simplistic understanding of how both our economic system and our medical system actually work, and so while there is widespread frustration and anger regarding the American health system, there is little agreement about what has caused the problems and what should be done to improve it.  The problems endemic to the US healthcare system seem innumerable, and even focusing on only those that are directly related to money and corruption doesn't seem to make the list much more manageable.  For starters, science done in the context of profit and business secrecy destroys its credibility.  Allowing the same people to give advice who have a vested interest in which advice you take further undermines reliability.  Insurance, including health insurance, is literally the textbook example of what economists call "market failure", a situation in which characteristics of an industry mean that a competitive market cannot operate in that industry and various forms of regulation are required.  Then there is just straight-up, old-fashioned corruption. 

Medical research has increasingly been funded by sources with vested interests in the outcome, calling into question the neutrality and validity of the results.  Research has become slewed towards drug development rather than other types of prevention and treatment which might be more effective and safer but are less profitable.  The encroachment of private investment into medicine has reached its peak destructiveness in the form of private equity investments that are doing little more than buying up hospitals, medical practices, pharmacies, insurance companies, and other medical businesses, raiding them for their assets, and then leaving the carcasses in bankruptcy.  This has jeopardized the safety of most Americans and led to more deaths and serious harm than we will ever know, just so that the already obscenely rich can become even more obscenely rich. 

The nature of the healthcare industry itself has had to change and adapt over time, complicating matters and obscuring some of the more harmful changes.  Large scale changes in the types of health problems facing the American public began in the 1960s with the recognition of auto-immunity and the meteoric rise in prevalence of auto-immune conditions, which remain poorly understood and for which treatments are not very effective or reliable.  A similar rise in prevalence in atopic diseases- diseases involving allergic and allergy-type responses- began not long afterwards, beginning in the 1980s.  Cancer rates have skyrocketed, and there has never been an area of research in which more money has been spent and yet so few advances have actually been made.  Many of what are claimed to be advances have more to do with playing with statistics and altering definitions than with actual improved patient outcomes.

Endo’s End Around: How One of the Nation’s Largest Opioid Makers Escaped a $7 Billion Federal Penalty
Reporting Highlights:
-Delayed Justice: After a whistleblower exposed the criminal behavior of Endo, a drug manufacturer, the Justice Department waited more than a decade to bring charges against the company.
-A Steep Discount: Federal agencies said Endo owed up to $7 billion in criminal fines, back taxes and other charges. The government settled this year for just $200 million.
 -Winners and Losers: Endo is still selling narcotics. Lawyers made $350 million. A few executives shared $95 million in bonuses. Thousands of opioid victims are to share $40 million. 

Please read this article.  There are so many ways that what Endo did, and how it avoided accountability, are so deeply wrong.  If you were horrified by the case of Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family, be prepared for the same but on a scale orders of magnitude more massive.  The complicity of the government (including the DOJ, DEA, CDC, FDA, Medicare, and more) shows a level of corruption and complicity that frankly cannot be remedied- it must be replaced, entirely, from the ground up.  You simply cannot reform something that is not broken, but rather working exactly as it was designed to work, by people who use their power to enrich themselves and make others pay the price at any cost. 

Sanders Says Senate Hearing Will Put 'Greed on Display' With or Without Healthcare CEO
A company called Steward Health Care has made massive profits, paid its private owners millions in dividends, and the CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre paid himself $4 million and purchased a mega yacht thought to be worth $40 million, while incurring massive debt and driving all 31 of its hospitals into bankruptcy.  

Further, "On Thursday, CBS News reported that in 2017 Steward executives including de la Torre illegally conspired with Maltese officials in order to secure a hospital contract, according to a whistleblower.  While a spokesperson for the executive denied any wrongdoing, whistleblower Ram Tumuluri alleged in a complaint to the U.S. Congress that "in touting Steward's supposed competitive advantage in Malta... de la Torre boasted that he could issue 'brown bags' to government officials if necessary to close transactions."

Medicare Advantage is rife with corruption

Medicare Advantage plans 'intentionally using prior authorization to boost profits': Senate report