American education or Americoned education

Having young children trying to find a real educational system for my children is of dire importance. This article went a long way to assisting me along my journey.

The below article was found at this link: http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/opinion/sam-blumenfeld/5403-how-the-progressives-changed-the-way-reading-is-taught-in-our-schools


Written by Sam Blumenfeld
Monday, 06 December 2010 12:13


Many parents wonder why American primary schools don’t teach children to read in the proper phonetic manner. The answer is that high literacy is not part of the system’s social or academic agenda. Neither is good cursive handwriting and basic arithmetic. Have you noticed the decline in handwriting? I recently gave a birthday gift to a 13-year-old boy, and got back a thank-you note written in chicken scratches. He had attended the public schools of an affluent suburban community.

Now, of course, if you ask any primary public-school teacher whether or not he or she teaches phonics, they will all say they do. But the kind of phonics they teach is not the intensive, systematic kind that produces a fluent, independent phonetic reader. What they teach are phonetic clues to be used in the context of a Whole Language program that teaches children to read by the sight method.

Ask that same teacher if he or she teaches a sight-vocabulary. If the answer is yes, then you know that they are not teaching phonics in the proper way. In fact, they are teaching the child to look at our alphabetic words as Chinese characters, or little mind-pictures. Once that mode of looking at words becomes automatic, the child becomes dyslexic, that is, unable to see the phonetic structure of our printed words.

Now where did this atrocious methodology come from? It didn’t come from outer space, nor was it the result of accident. It came from an agenda developed back at the turn of the last century by some of the most intelligent men in America.

It started in the 1890s, when the Progressives began working on a new socialist agenda for the public schools that would promote collectivism through a new curriculum programmed to turn children away from individualism.

Who were the Progressives? They were members of the Protestant academic elite who no longer believed in the religion of their fathers. They now put their faith in science, evolution and psychology. Science explained the material world. Evolution explained the origin of living matter, and psychology provided a new scientific way of understanding and controlling human behavior.

But what about the problems of evil and sin? As socialists they rejected the biblical explanation and instead believed that evil was caused by ignorance, poverty, and social injustice. Socialism, they were convinced, would eliminate all three causes of evil.

And so they embarked on a Progressive education crusade that would prove they were right and Bible believers were wrong. Education would eliminate ignorance, which would then eliminate poverty, which in turn would do away with social injustice.

The first step in their crusade was to change the way children were being taught in the primary schools. The emphasis on teaching reading had to be replaced with an emphasis on collectivist socialization. John Dewey, the philosophical leader of the Progressives, explained it all quite openly in an article he authored in 1898 entitled “The Primary School Fetich.” He wrote:

The plea for the predominance of learning to read in early school life because of the great importance attaching to literature seems to me a perversion.

A perversion, mind you. To get rid of this so-called perversion he advocated using a new way of teaching reading that would turn children into little collectivists. That new method turned out to be the sight or look-say method that teaches children to read English as if it were an ideographic writing system like Chinese. To him the emphasis on learning to read phonetically in the primary grades was a perversion. And because Dewey knew that this view would be considered dangerously radical by parents and traditional teachers, he wrote:

Change must come gradually. To force it unduly would compromise its final success by favoring a violent reaction. What is needed in the first place, is that there should be a full and frank statement of conviction with regard to the matter from physiologists and psychologists and from those school administrators who are conscious of the evils of the present regime.

In other words, deceiving parents became a necessary part of the plan if the socialists were to succeed in its implementation. And psychologists, of whom Dewey was one, would be used to carry out this elaborate conspiracy of deception. Dewey then wrote:

There are already in existence a considerable number of educational “experiment stations,” which represent the outposts of educational progress. If these schools can be adequately supported for a number of years they will perform a great vicarious service.

Indeed, Dewey himself conducted such an experimental school at the University of Chicago, and the book he wrote about that experiment, The School and Society, became the bible of Progressive Education and the basis of early 20th century school reform.

And so, the major work of reform would not be done just by educators, but by psychologists, who found in education a lucrative source of support for their profession.

The new behavioral psychology was born in the laboratories of Professor Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig. His two American students, G. Stanley Hall (1844-1924) and James McKeen Cattell (1860-1944), came back to America anxious to apply scientific psychology to American education. Hall became a professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins University where he taught the new psychology to his student John Dewey. He later founded Clark University. Cattell introduced mental testing in education as part of the new scientific racism called Eugenics. He later founded the Psychological Corporation.

But it was Edward L. Thorndike (1874-1949) who, after studying psychology under William James at Harvard, went on to become the chief implementer of behavioral psychology in American education. At Harvard he had studied the learning behavior of chickens by using the reinforcement technique, which he later decided should be used to teach children.

After his book, Animal Intelligence, was published in 1898, he became a leading light at Teacher’s College, Columbia University. His much celebrated stimulus-response (SR) technique of teaching children, based on animal training, now dominates American education. He wrote in 1928:

Our experiments on learning in the lower animals have probably contributed more to knowledge of education per hour or per unit of intellect spent, than experiments on children…. The best way with children may often be, in the pompous words of an animal trainer, “to arrange everything in connection with the trick so that the animal will be compelled by the laws of his own nature to perform it.”

In short, American children were to be taught in the public schools as if they were little animals. Of course, there is a great difference between humans and animals. Animals can be trained but they can’t be educated. Humans, on the other hand, can be both trained and educated because they are born with brains that are far superior to anything animals are born with. But to Thorndike and his behaviorist colleagues, man’s brain is just a bit more evolved than the brains of the apes. And if you don’t believe that God made man in His own image, that is, with the ability to speak language and use his intellect, then you will believe Thorndike and treat children like animals.



Dr. Samuel L. Blumenfeld is the author of nine books on education including NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education, The Whole Language/OBE Fraud, and The Victims of Dick & Jane and Other Essays. Of NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education, former U.S. Senator Steve Symms of Idaho said: “Every so often a book is written that can change the thinking of a nation. This book is one of them.” Mr. Blumenfeld’s columns have appeared in such diverse publications as Reason, The New American, The Chalcedon Report, Insight, Education Digest, Vital Speeches, WorldNetDaily, and others

SV40. Polio, and cancer.

Wikipedia has been very helpful from time to time. Here is what it says about SV40 virus found in monkeys. Important to know since this virus was mistakenly transmitted to humans through the polio vaccines of the 1950's and 1960's. Here is what Wikipedia reports.

"The virus was first identified in 1960 in cultures of rhesus monkey kidney cells that were being used to produce polio vaccine. It was named for the effect it produced on infected green monkey cells, which developed an unusual number of vacuoles. The complete viral genome was sequenced by Walter Fiers and his team at the University of Ghent (Belgium) in 1978.[2] The virus is dormant and is asymptomatic in Rhesus monkeys. The virus has been found in many macaque populations in the wild, where it rarely causes disease. However, in monkeys that are immunodeficient—due to, for example, infection with Simian immunodeficiency virus—SV40 acts much like the human JC and BK polyomaviruses, producing kidney disease and sometimes a demyelinating disease similar to PML. In other species, particularly hamsters, SV40 causes a variety of tumors, generally sarcomas. In rats, the oncogenic SV40 Large T-antigen was used to establish a brain tumor model for PNETs and medulloblastomas.[3]

The molecular mechanisms by which the virus reproduces and alters cell function were previously unknown, and research into SV40 vastly increased biologists' understanding of gene expression and the regulation of cell growth."

Wikipedia goes on,

"Soon after its discovery, SV40 was identified in the injected form of the polio vaccine produced between 1955 and 1961. This is believed to be due to kidney cells from infected monkeys being used to amplify the vaccine virus during production. Both the Sabin vaccine (oral, live virus) and the Salk vaccine (injectable, killed virus) were affected; the technique used to inactivate the polio virus in the Salk vaccine, by means of formaldehyde, did not reliably kill SV40.

It was difficult to detect small quantities of virus until the advent of PCR; since then, stored samples of vaccine made after 1962 have tested negative for SV40, but no samples prior to 1962 could be found. Thus, although over 10 million people received the potentially contaminated batches of vaccine, there is no way to know whether they were exposed to the virus, and if so, whether it was in a quantity and by a route that would cause infection. It is also unknown how widespread the virus was among humans before the 1950s, though one study found that 12% of a sample of German medical students in 1952 had SV40 antibodies. Although horizontal transmission between people has been proposed, is not clear if this actually happens and if it does, how frequently it occurs.[14]

An analysis presented at the Vaccine Cell Substrate Conference in 2004[15] suggested that vaccines used in the former Soviet bloc countries, China, Japan, and Africa, could have been contaminated up to 1980, meaning that hundreds of millions more could have been exposed to the virus unknowingly."

Having read books on this subject I can tell you that the SV40 virus can pass from generation to generation. Meaning, if the father got it from the vaccine he could give the virus to his children. SV40 virus infected the polio vaccine due to the fact they used to breed the virus in monkey kidneys. Lets turn back to wikipedia.

"Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and most aggressive type of primary brain tumor in humans, involving glial cells and accounting for 52% of all parenchymal brain tumor cases and 20% of all intracranial tumors. Despite being the most prevalent form of primary brain tumor, GBMs occur in only 2–3 cases per 100,000 people in Europe and North America. According to the WHO classification of the tumors of the central nervous system‎, the standard name for this brain tumor is "glioblastoma"; it presents two variants: giant cell glioblastoma and gliosarcoma. Glioblastomas are also an important brain tumor of the canine, and research is ongoing to use this as a model for developing treatments in humans.[1] Treatment can involve chemotherapy, radiation, radiosurgery, corticosteroids, antiangiogenic therapy, and surgery.[2]

Excepting the brainstem gliomas, glioblastoma has the worst prognosis of any CNS malignancy. Despite multimodality treatment consisting of open craniotomy with surgical resection of as much of the tumor as possible, followed by concurrent or sequential chemoradiotherapy, antiangiogenic therapy with bevacizumab, gamma knife radiosurgery, and symptomatic care with corticosteroids, median survival is about 14 months.[3]"

So what does this have to do with the polio virus and SV40? Lets keep reading wikipedia.

"GBM is more common in males, although the reason for this is not clear.[4] Most glioblastoma tumors appear to be sporadic, without any genetic predisposition. No links have been found between glioblastoma and smoking,[5] diet,[6] cellular phones,[7] or electromagnetic fields.[8] Recently, evidence for a viral cause has been discovered, possibly SV40[9] or cytomegalovirus.[10] There also appears to be a small link between ionizing radiation and glioblastoma.[11] Some also believe that there may be a link between polyvinyl chloride (which is commonly used in construction) and glioblastoma.[12] A recent link cited in the Lancet medical journal links brain cancer to lead exposure in the work place.[13] There is an association of brain tumor incidence and malaria, suggesting that the anopheles mosquito, the carrier of malaria, might transmit a virus or other agent that could cause glioblastoma.[14]"

Did you catch the middle section there? "Recently, evidence for a viral cause has been discovered, possibly SV40 or cytomegalovirus." Hmmmm. Well, we don't know for sure if the SV40 causes glioblastoma, but it could. What I can tell you is that I know that the sv40 virus does cause cancer. Dr. Eisenstein has covered this in his books, and even the vaccine manufacturers themselves have admitted it (albeit in a back handed way).

Most who will read this know that I am a nurse and have a healthy (albeit not one size fits all) perspective on vaccines. However, this is the first time in my life where a vaccine could have (not saying it did) harmed a loved one of mine. My cousin (who will remain nameless as I don't feel giving that information is appropriate) just got diagnosed with a glioblastoma in his early 40's. A God fearing man, one who loves his family and takes care of them. He has children, and is a jem of a person. Is it too much to ask that we find out if this vaccine had anything to do with this? Am I going to say any of this to my cousin? Probably not. At least not now. But i would love to get some answers. And if this vaccine could have caused this i would love to have a little accountability. Again, not saying the vaccine is responsible (an important point). We don't know enough. But one does question.

Revenge Of The Sith

Yes Revenge of the Sith has its flaws as do all the Star Wars films. First, unlike some I think the acting is subpar in this film, the dialogue is anything but perfect, and at times it seems forced. Why do I give it four stars? Because what it does well makes everything else easily forgiven.

First, the evil Darth Sidius is the best part of this movie. He clearly is the villan that has started the clone war, is manipulating the war from both sides, and (at least for me) perfectly portrays a politician who is hungry for power. Anakin Skywalkers transformation into Vader for some is unbelievable, and I can see why one might have issues with it. However, it is how Darth Sidius manipulates Anakin into believing that he can save his love if he joins the dark side. Further, it is how Sidius manipulates Anakin into believing that he truly is the benevolent one that is probably the most compelling performance of the film.

I found things in this film that can reflect real life which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. First, you have a crooked politician who started the war and is running/leading it from both sides. Second, This same politician (darth sidius) easily manipulates the populace and in the end has them cheering for their own enslavement. Plus I found Darth Sidius very compelling when he stated, "Execute order 66" to have the republic army (who the Jedi were working for) murder the Jedi. He than had Darth Vader kill the Viceroy who were helping Sidius run the droid army on the other side. Just like crule dictators like Stalin or Hitler, Sidius murders those that helped him rise to power. The scene where the lead viceroy of the droid army looks at vader and says, "but Darth Sidius promised us peace" only to have Vader slice him in half with his light saber immediately after makes one think. One has to wonder if Lucus took history as a blue print for this film.

In the end even if you don't like these films you should watch this one. No, the acting is not great, no the dialogue is not fantastic, and the acting is subpar. However, if you understand history this film will make you ask yourself some questions.

Desert Island Play List.

Now if I were stuck on a desert island I would also want my Waylon Jennings Greatest with me, and I would have to add in Blues Traveler four. There is of course a CPE Bach string quartet that I picked up some years back that is so beautiful it almost makes you wonder why his dad is more popular. The Johnny Cash album is riveting and full of love and emotion for God, and it often takes my thoughts to biblical passages. Journey is a fav of mine always, Sam Cookes music just speaks to me. Miles Davis album is just classic, and the aaron copeland pieces are pure entertainment. Plus Copelands fanfare for the common man is whats being played as I kiss this world goodbye. After all it is a desert Island.

Heath-care given to us by the kind IRS.

This is what what a friends dad (Dave Edinger) posted on my facebook page when I put a video from the tides foundation titled, "The real goal of the public plan option-squeezing out private and employer based health insurance." This is what crazy Dave (as his son calls him) wrote.

Dave: NO Marcx - the goal is to remove greed and profit motive from a common resource: human health - we are in it together - like our water supply and our garbage collection - it is far more efficient and wise to remove Wallstreet from my street. Half the crap I buy on todays market it shoddy. I have to take my car back to Les Schwab three times - the ... See Moretires leak - My microwave in our new house is garbage - you can not program it, start it or shut it off - it is way over engineered to SELL you crap you dont need buddy -corporate crap from corporate greed - I have to re-engineer half the JUNK I buy - you gonna let MARKETERS look into the best way to heal a inflammed leg from diabetes? You are going to get a $10,000 amputation my friend - when many home remedies are wonder medicines - keep the greed out of GOOD reasoning - or your $2000 Toyota will quickly sky rocket to over $20,000 and you will beg to get the damn thing - all the on board computers and run away brake switches - you are being SOLD my friend, don't be what we call a LAY DOWN. Marketers are poor engineers and scientists. Come on over, I will cook for you - see if you can run this Preheat, defrost, pizza, bake potato, popcorn, two lighted,option accessorized, vented to nowhere Whirlpool box of crap - that you can not turn on and off simply - see if you want that company doing research on the best way to save your leg from a diabetes outbreak - A CONFEDERACY DUNCES, just may be out to SELL ya some crap. American landfills are brimming with garbage from these ego-maniacs and jesters. Lets get together, line them all up, throw them in the pit Mark. I propose the american full Guarantee a total farce. IF my product is a piece of crap I don't want my money back - that is no bargain - I WANT 5 times my money back for my waste of time, and your obvious attempt to defraud and flood the market with landfill material - things would change quickly Mark - Give me a REAL Guarantee America - money back is an absolute insult - we should have a LANDFILL probabilty code - the chance of this product being in a landfill in one year is 100 ! Or 50 - My new sports jacket I recently bought at JC Penny had the buttons fall off within a week. I sewed them back on. With real thread. A month later I reached across my car to open a door - the pocket ripped clean off - the code for the JC CRAP JACKET is 100 - I GUARANTEE this quality of CRAP will be in our landfills within one year. Therefore the code it should show would be a big 100 - pure crap - my 30 dollar belt - thirty bucks ! lasted 2 months- TWO damn MONTHS -and they offer me another one? Hell no - another product carrying the new AMERICAN NATIONAL LABLE of 100. 100% crap - see how many your mark up this next year MARC. Then tell me those grease balls are going to do my health research and foods ingredient trials -please buddy - shoddy in the country has been around since Lincoln and the Civil War - WE have lost Marc - I no longer wear belts. GUARANTEED !

OK his silly pun Marcx was noted. However, instead of getting sucked into absurd insults I decided to use facts instead.

This is what I replied:

Problem is that this bill benefits wall street. See it's going to be implemented through the IRS. The IRS is nothing more than an instrument to collect payments on the national debt for the private bank known as the Federal Reserve. Not one dime of our tax dollars goes for goods or services. This bill adds thousands (I believe 10,000) IRS agents. ... See MoreThe current system doesn't work I'll give you that. However, the current system is partially broken because of medicare and medicaid (government health care). Any hospital administrator can tell you hospitalized medicare patients are a big money hole. WHo pays the price for this shortage? Private insurance. It will bankrupt many private health care agencies. Plus even Walgreen phamacies are going to stop taking medicaid patients because they lose money. I don't care how benevolent one is, if it costs 3 million to stay in business and the govt charges you 4 million you close your doors. Once private insurance takes it in the shorts all your left with is the govt, and that's when the rationing will start. This will take years to unfold but it will happen. Social Security is a forced govt program and look how well it's doing. It's supposed to go bankrupt in like less than 30 years. Someone has to pay for this new health care. Nothing in this world iis free. I don't want the govt telling me what to do. To me, this is watching the orwellian noose being tightened around our neck with a Marxist cherry on top. I wonder if I can ask Obamas masters for a half slice of slavery. I'll try to find a good article I read on this over a year ago and post it here.

The article was By Jane Orient in the January 2009 edition of The New American. Below is that article in it's entirety. I gave Crazy Dave the link to the below article. I doubt he will even look at it.

If they had been designing a health system from scratch, the change agents assuming power in January would have done things differently. Barack Obama and Ted Kennedy would have given us a Single Payer for medical care, as in Canada and Britain (and Cuba and North Korea) and (according to national healthcare promoters) "the rest of the industrialized world."

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), on the other hand, doesn't feel he needs to go so far back in time, but he'd make similar changes nonetheless. In his Call to Action: Health Reform 2009, he speaks of failed efforts to enact "national health insurance" or "socialized medicine," starting around the turn of the last century, in 1900. It's finally time to just get it done, they say.

The motive behind their efforts, they also say, has to do with about 46 million uninsured Americans. But the politicians' plans are not just about insurance, which is only a method of payment for medical services. The real agenda is to use "coverage for all" as a lever to make fundamental changes in the way patients are treated — and in the economy and society as a whole. This is evident to anyone who listens carefully. Obama, Kennedy, and Baucus are talking about universal health reform, or what Baucus calls "serious and comprehensive reform of the health system in crisis."

This is also evident if one analyzes the "insurance" model they have in mind to follow — Massachusetts' healthcare plan, which boasts of achieving universal coverage, or almost, by forcing most people to buy insurance or face a tax penalty, or, if eligible, to enroll in a government-subsidized plan. "Progressives" like the plan for several reasons. In particular, young and healthy patients would be forced to pay more to subsidize older, sicker patients. (It plays off the Obama "wealth redistribution" idea.) Instead of pricing premiums according to risk, insurers would have to accept all comers, and charge them all the same. This changes the nature of the product from insurance, which is about the accurate pricing of risk, and turns it into a collectivized prepayment system. Welfare, in other words. Premiums become a type of privatized taxation — a neat way of sidestepping protests about tax increases.

What We're Promised

Obama has promised to allow people to keep the insurance plans they have if they like them. Their plans, however, might no longer exist because they might not measure up (likely won't measure up). The plans won't pass muster if they allow a person to benefit from good health and a prudent lifestyle, and not "contribute" enough to the collective pool. But if your plan can no longer be offered, don't worry; a proposed insurance exchange, like the Massachusetts Connector, would match people up with a "high-quality, affordable, comprehensive, nondiscriminatory Health Plan." Insurers may go along with the scheme in exchange for a guaranteed market: 46 million new customers overnight! And individuals would have to buy a product they might otherwise reject as being unnecessary or too expensive. Obama promised to delay forcing the plan on Americans until insurance becomes "affordable" — by the government's definition, not necessarily the customer's — but he may well accept the demands for mandates.

Obama and friends also promise that they will ensure that providers deliver quality care — better care than we have now. The reformers claim that at the present time the United States spends much more than other countries but still has worse health outcomes. They claim to know this because rankings made by the World Health Organization place U.S. medical care below most other developed countries — far below most socialist countries. In the WHO ranking, France has the best medical care, Italy came in 2nd, the United Kingdom was in the 18th spot, Saudi Arabia 26th, and Canada 30th. The United States came in 37th, just above Cuba (in 39th place). The politicians don't state (or don't know) that the WHO rankings are designed to place a much higher value on "equitable" access and less value on satisfying consumers' desires. In fact, if everyone in a country received poorer medical care than people in the United States, but care was "universal," it could rank higher than the United States. (See "Bad Economics & Medicine" in our January 5, 2009 issue for a more detailed explanation of the WHO rankings.)

And finally, we're also promised savings through nationwide investment in an electronic office management system for doctors' offices. A critical feature of reformed healthcare will be interoperable electronic health records. This "modernization" of the system is supposed to save tens of billions of dollars, at some point, after a hefty initial investment. But its main purpose is to monitor and enforce standards for quality, "medical necessity," reduction of "disparities," and proper billing and coding.

Wrong Diagnosis and Prognosis

The new blueprint will fail for the same reason that the system is already failing: it is really the same old blueprint that violates the basic laws of economics. When the apparent price of something, including medical care, goes down, as because of subsidies, demand goes up. If one is not charged for medical care based on one's level of health and one's number and length of visits to a doctor, one will be more inclined to visit the doctor more often. Collective prepayment drives demand even more, as people who are forced to pay for excessive insurance try to get their money's worth. This causes increased waits for medical appointments and spotlights the biggest problem. As in Canada, there are not enough physicians or facilities to meet the burgeoning demand for "free" services. To get into the "system," you need a primary care physician. In Massachusetts, the first available appointment may be a year away, if you can find a doctor in your area who is accepting new patients.

Exacerbating the shortage of doctors is the fact that when the price of something goes down, there is no incentive to increase the supply (lower payments mean fewer people become doctors). If the price doesn't cover costs and allow some profit, supply dries up completely. Under such a scenario, lines form at gas pumps; grocery shelves empty overnight; and doctors become scarce.

Doctors' Medicare fees have been restricted since the 1980s — and most managed-care arrangements are linked to Medicare. There still are some nice cars in the doctors' parking lot. Some specialist fees are still very high. Many physicians made out very well in earlier years. But contrary to the rhetoric from Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) and other politicians, many physicians are already struggling to make ends meet. Especially in primary care. This is already reducing the number of people entering the medical field, and the planned new restrictions on medical care will make the situation worse. In the past decade, the number of U.S. medical graduates entering family medicine and internal medicine has fallen by half. And it's not just the money. Time pressures and increased demands for administrative work contribute to burnout: "I felt like I was becoming a guideline-following automaton and a documentation drone," said general internist Christine Sinsky, quoted in a November 27, 2008 article in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Incentives work, but letting patient demand set prices is not in the reformers' toolbox. They just want to redistribute the pain. As Baucus admits, his plan would revise Medicare's payment formula so as to redistribute resources from "high-growth, potentially overpaid aspects of health care to underutilized, potentially more valuable services, such as primary care and prevention." This means that "some specialists might take bit of a nick." It's part of a pattern: more healthcare, less sickness care.

And increased demand for "free" services means increased spending — unless rationing is instituted. Some cost data are available. In Massachusetts, the cost of "universal" care was immensely more than anticipated and annual state spending could top $1 billion by the end of this year, but then Massachusetts knew it was not addressing the cost issue. To try to avoid rationing care, one answer has been put forth: the group appointment, like those offered by Harvard Vantage Medical Associates (HVMA). Patients can get in to see a doctor much sooner if they are willing to share their appointment time with about eight other patients. They all sit in the same room for about 90 minutes while a doctor goes from patient to patient examining them. About 80 percent of patients say they are satisfied with the arrangement; some seem to value being in the same room with the doctor for 90 minutes, even if he is not attending to their individual needs during most of that time. The doctors like it too; they get paid for nine individual visits, instead of the four to six they would otherwise be able to wedge into 90 minutes.

A video of a group appointment, posted on the Boston Globe website, is a vision of the new system. Dozens of comments about the video and its accompanying article show the deep divide between those who favor the radical "change" and those who are appalled by it. As one person commented to the Boston Globe, "I think that as a nation we need to move away from rampant individualism toward a system that embraces shared responsibility in a community. You are more likely to follow those pesky lifestyle recommendations if you feel like you'll not only be letting down yourself and your doctor, but also your community."

"It's a third-world standard of care," wrote another disparagingly.

The group appointment is about the health of society, the collective. The patients in the Globe video all look pretty healthy. Examination of fully clothed people sitting up on folding chairs in a noisy room is not likely to reveal any signs of illness that are not flagrant. The main activity is not the doctor listening to hearts and lungs, but patients listening to the doctor's canned speech about smoking, diet, exercise, and taking all the prescribed drugs. This is not sickness care, which the reformers deplore and that doctors go to medical school to learn how to do. It is not about understanding the individual patient and his illness. It is not about making a complex diagnosis. It is not about personalizing and optimizing therapy in accordance with the patient's needs and priorities. The group visit is for standardized patients with a standardized diagnosis. It's about "education," peer group pressure, and compliance with a cookie-cutter protocol handed down by an expert committee.

It's what reformers mean when they aim to change our priorities to wellness and prevention. The sick are a burden; providing them too much attention could come to be seen as antisocial. "Universal care" might move the United States up in the WHO ranking system, which places a very high value on "equity," and a much lower one on individual patient satisfaction. It would stimulate certain areas of the economy: the provision of information technology to monitor wellness, the expansion of wellness clinics, and perhaps the birth of a whole new industry like the already existing one in Canada to manage ever-growing waiting lists for sickness care. But it wouldn't mean taking better care of people with health ailments.

Enduring Myths

In its entirety, the new plan not only flaunts basic economic principles, it defies observable evidence. Each major premise behind the plan's design is based on fallacious statistics or idealistic desires that show little likelihood of being obtainable.

Prevention:: The reformers imply that the sickness-care system will simply wither away when we are all healthy. Baucus enthusiastically quotes Robert Beaglehole, the World Health Organization's director of chronic diseases and health promotion, in claiming that an estimated 80 percent of heart disease, stroke, and type II diabetes, and 40 percent of cancers, could be prevented if Americans stopped smoking, adopted healthy diets, and became more physically active.

However, there has never been a real-life program anywhere that induced a population of previously smoking, sedentary, fat patients to reform and demonstrated such an enormous drop in disease. Leaving aside public-health engineering projects such as sanitation systems, preventive health measures, though valuable, usually do not save more than they cost. The British were long ago promised that once socialized medicine had met all the pent-up demands, and all the prevention programs were in place, costs would go down, and there would be much less sickness. More than 60 years later, people still get sick in the UK and wait years for treatment. The National Health Service never has enough money. And no one learns from the experience.

The uninsured: Then there's the promise that costs will go down if we can just insure everybody and thereby keep people out of expensive emergency rooms. In Massachusetts this hasn't worked because to get in to see the correct doctor to cure their ailments, patients first need to see a primary doctor, and they can't get an appointment. So newly insured patients still go to the emergency room for every medical need, including regular prescriptions.

The constantly repeated assertions about ER abuse, in any event, turned out to be wrong when subjected to scrutiny. An analysis published in the October 22/29, 2008 issue of JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association), which looked at 127 studies, showed that six commonly held beliefs about the uninsured and emergency room use were either unsupported by evidence, or equally true of both insured and uninsured patients. The uninsured were actually under-represented among patients using the ER for primary care — probably because they were concerned about the cost. And the claim that huge cost savings could be achieved merely by keeping more primary clinics open during off-hours — reducing ER visits — isn't true either. ERs do charge more - but the actual marginal cost per patient is likely to be no higher than that of keeping a primary-care clinic open after hours.

The uninsured have become scapegoats. Costs are so high, the argument goes, because "we all" are paying to take care of the selfish freeloaders who don't buy insurance. We pay through taxes (such as for Medicaid) and higher insurance premiums (because providers shift unpaid costs). That's true to an extent. Large amounts of cost-shifting happen when people abandon private insurance for Medicaid (public insurance). But those people who are truly uninsured (no private or public insurance) often do pay taxes (except for a substantial proportion of illegal aliens and those people deemed by the government to be "poor" — who usually shift to public insurance) but arguably not their fair share.

About 40 percent of people in the United States either pay no federal tax at all or they actually get money from the government as an Earned Income Tax Credit. Some of them use medical care (less care than insured people use), and some of them don't pay their bills. There is some cost shifting from people who don't pay for insurance to people who do, just as honest shoppers pay for shoplifters, but not much. The amount: 2.7 percent in 2004, according to the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. Of the uninsured with incomes at least twice the poverty level, 8 percent received some pro bono care during a year, and 50 percent received care for which they were charged. Of the latter, 80 percent paid in full, and another 10 percent were paying in installments, according to William Snyder in a November 21, 2008 article in the Wall Street Journal. The real problem with these folks, as reformers might view it, is not that they don't pay for what they use (they usually do), but that they don't help to pay for what other people use — except through taxes and the higher prices they are often charged.

Unmentioned by the reformers is the fact that government causes far more cost shifting than do the uninsured because of underpayment to doctors and hospitals by the price-controlled government systems, Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare and Medicaid often only pay cents on the dollar toward the actual cost of care given to patients, forcing many doctors to make this money back by charging more to patients who have private insurance — and to the uninsured who pay their own bills. This fact raises the obvious question of what health institutions would do if there were no private sector to shift costs to.

The Obama/Kennedy/Baucus solution to the "uninsured problem" appears to be this: for the uninsured who can't pay big bills, require them to sign up for Medicaid — or for a subsidized "private" prepayment mechanism — so we all pay for them constantly, and not just when they become sick. For the uninsured who can pay, force them to prepay — for care they might or might not use — through insurance premiums.

Information technology: The reformers' favorite panacea is health information technology. Obama promises to "make sure that every doctor's office and hospital in this country is using cutting edge technology and electronic medical records so that we can cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes, and help save billions of dollars each year."

The savings, however, are all hypothetical, long-term savings, and they are mostly destined for the insurance companies and government entities that are paying the bills. Converting a medical office to electronic records is extremely costly and disruptive. The cost in terms of diminished productivity continues for years, and is possibly permanent. Anything that slows patient flow is, of course, an advantage to payers (fewer patients, fewer payments). Arguably, electronic medical records introduce more new errors than they prevent — and errors may be impossible to expunge.

It may seem counterintuitive to say that improved technology will cause more medical errors, but it's true because computer program designs, the programming, or the inputting of data can all cause errors. The December 11 Sentinel Event Alert released by the Joint Commission on Healthcare (operating experience and lessons-learned information from the U.S. Joint Committee on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations) includes statements such as: "Technology-related adverse events in health care can involve, but are not limited to, computerized provider order entry (CPOE), automated dispensing cabinets (ADCs), electronic medical records (EMRs), clinical decision support (CDS), bar coding or RFID (radio frequency identification), virus threats to information security, CT (computed axial tomography) scanning technology, and the loss of patient data." Patient privacy, of course, is inevitably sacrificed. The real effect of electronic records is to enable intrusive monitoring of every aspect of the patient-physician interaction.

We have much more experience with computer disasters than successes in medicine. Rollout of the £12 billion flagship centralized Cerner IT system of the British National Health Service was halted because it was "hugely expensive," "desperately behind schedule," and a "shambles from the start." Suppliers were "deserting in droves." Frontline professionals were "voting with their feet." Before investing billions, why not learn from experience — preferably other people's experience.

Medical errors: Medicine would be both cheaper and better, of course, if doctors always did the right thing for their patients, both in the way of treating them and in giving illness-prevention advice. Toward this end, the reformers plan to save money by making doctors follow strict guidelines for care. But "proven" disease-management systems exist only if we accept authoritative opinion in lieu of actual evidence.

In a system that permits research and innovation, opinion changes about every five years concerning best practices to care for patients. By following government guidelines, we can be sure that patients will be given outdated care regimens. Even a simple government direction, such as making sure a certain test is done, and recording the results, can prove problematic. If we measure certain processes, like obtaining recommended tests, we may show an increase in the number of patients getting those, but even such a seemingly innocuous mandate would change the allocation of resources and affect some medical function that is not being tested. On the items that we don't measure, such as the activities from which effort is shifted to meet the new goals, we won't know the effect, because we won't measure it. Perversely, unimportant things are generally much easier to measure than important things.

What Should Be Done?

Reformers claim that whatever the cost of implementing the new plan, it can't be higher than the cost of not doing anything. Baucus warns that "we" will soon be spending $4 trillion on healthcare if we don't do something. The answer to those who say we can't afford to do it? We can't afford not to!

Progressives always have a plan and, when they are told their plan won't work, demand that opponents have a plan that's better and more inclusive than the progressive plan. So this is the plan: as Hippocrates would say, "First, do no harm." Not jumping off a cliff is always a good first step, whether that cliff be real or metaphoric, as in government control of medical care. Recognize that health reformers like Obama, Kennedy, and Baucus are not just making empty promises. They can indeed deliver universal "health coverage." But it will be at the expense of sickness care. We've all heard of the military's excuse that they had to destroy the village in order to save it. The Obama/Kennedy/Baucus ploy is to pretend to save the system in order to wreck it, to put additional money and power into the hands of politicians. (Those politicians who are for the new plan, but who don't see it for the ploy it is, really need to brush up on their research skills or get into another line of work.)

Second, realize that America needs to undo much of what the government has already done - to go back to the free market. A free-market solution is never one, universal solution. It is the sum of millions of individual decisions. Allowed freedom, individual decision makers would unleash creative destruction on much of the current system. To allow a solution that is likely to exceed all expectations, and to reduce costs dramatically, it is only necessary to remove the barriers. Some suggestions, for starters:

• Stop all tax discrimination against individually owned sickness insurance. The present system gives tax breaks to companies that provide insurance to employees, but workers who pay for their own insurance get no such deduction. This causes insurance companies to be unresponsive to providing inexpensive insurance for individuals, and it means insurance is tied to a job instead of being portable between jobs.

• Allow individuals to purchase sickness insurance across state borders, to avoid costly mandates by states. State governments create lists of services that insurance companies must cover, including non-illness-related things such as in vitro fertilization. The Washington Times wrote: "A health policy for a single Pennsylvanian costs roughly $1,500 annually. Cross the Delaware into New Jersey ... and a similar health plan costs about $4,000, thanks to state regulations."

• Expand health savings accounts by removing regulatory barriers so that Americans can pay for medical bills with before-tax money.

• End Medicare price controls. Allow patients and physicians to contract for mutually agreeable fees. Medicare can compute its reimbursement by any mechanism it chooses, but that should not determine the fee. This would also have the effect of drastically reducing physician overhead by removing the costs required primarily to justify Medicare's price-controlled, coded fee.

• Repeal the McCarran-Ferguson exemption that permits insurance companies to engage in behavior prohibited to other industries by antitrust law. (Insurance companies can form giant conglomerates that fix prices and make it impossible for competitors to enter the marketplace.)

Much more could be added. But the one-sentence answer is to put patients back in control of their medical dollars and their medical decisions. In a free-market system, prices would be much lower, and patients would have much broader choices. If they had more money in their own pockets - having given less to their insurer - more people would opt for less expensive, less toxic, possibly more effective treatments that insurers have historically refused to cover. Self-insurance for all but the most catastrophic expenses would be very common. There will always be a role for charity and social safety-net programs, but the neediest will be better served by programs targeted to their needs rather than demolishing the ship and giving everyone no choice but to cling to the wreckage.

Jane Orient, M.D., is an internist in solo practice in Tucson, Arizona. She is also executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons

The global empire, Big government and war sucks

Over the past year and a half I have listened closely to two nursing colleagues I have. Both came immigrated legally from Bosnia during their civil war. I have heard stories of economic collapse, wheel barrels full of money to buy food, getting drinking water from a polluted stream, and many more.

This blog will be short and I will only high light some of the things I've heard from my two bosnian friends. I will not reveal their names but will only list quotes they've said that found a place in my mind over the past year and a half.

"This is what happened to us a few years before everyone lost everything. I want to sell my house and have nothing so they can't take anything from me." November Prior to McCain/Obama election. She was speaking of the housing crash and the declining dollar.

"Oh no their not stupid. Once the money does down far enough they just start putting a one on it again." When I thought out loud and on how our government was going to print 1 billion on our bills. In Bosnia a bill would be 1 billion of their version of a dollar. Ya know when their version of one actual dollar a few years prior actually had some value.

"They used to cut the womens babies from their stomach, and throw the infant into the river. They would than cut the womens breasts off and leave her to die." When discussing the war in Bosnia.

Both of these individuals came to the United States seeking safety, and economic stability. What happens when we fall? Where will people run to? If the communist/fascist systems of the world worked so well in the past, why are people still running here? Even in our dilapidated state we are still the only place in the world people turn to for help. We still have in our history the pillars of freedom. The pillars of Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Maybe those who think socialism and big government are the way should go visit those families in Bosnia. Maybe they should listen to some of the stories I've heard.

It has taken me over three years just to get what I have written here. Talking about this is not easy for those who have witnessed it. I pray that none of this happens on our soil. However, it is us the citizens of the U.S.A who have to make sure of that.

As many line up at their ballot boxes voting for slavery. I wonder if they truly understand what they are doing? My guess is no.

Phillip Dru, The road to global enslavement.

Phillip Dru is a poor excuse of a novel, and as such I give it negative one star out of a possibility of 5 stars. Having said that I would encourage every American to read this trash. Why? Because the man who wrote it is Edward Mandell House chief of staff under President Woodrow Wilson and a major political advisor to FDR. This book originally writen in 1911 outlines many of the events that transpired in the Wilson administration and FDR's "New Deal." What might be even more frightening is that House actually reveals how he manipulated the entire system. As the back cover of my copy states, "It has been said that House 'copyrighted fascism' before Mussolini took power in Italy. House was not adverse to the allegation, writing in 1935 that he had 'anticipated Mussolini by several years.'"

In this book House writes of a supposed "benevolent dictator" in Phillip Dru. As Dru over throws the American Government he implements a graduated income tax (The IRS), forms a "League of Nations" (which Wilson attempted a few years after Dru was written but wasn't accepted until it was renamed the United Nations years after Wilson was out of office. Again the book is written in 1911.), sets up a system very much like social security, and eventually conquers Mexico and brings all the Latino countries together into one government (almost like what were seeing with all the NAFTA's, Gatt's, and North American Union talk). After completing House's painful attempt at fiction one can't help but to conclude that for the most part he's been successful. House has slowly tricked the American People into believing that fascism is capitalism. House also established (created) a group called the Council on Foreign Relations. How is this significant? Well this small group has its members in all the important places in government and media (You know like all the top media are members, and yes FOX news big wig Rupert Murdock is a CFR member). Lastly, don't forget that the end game of House's desires is world goverment. Now, I ask you how important is this book?

Don't believe me? Here are some quotes I and a friend of mine have taken from the book.

Chapter VI

" This feeling will grow, it is growing, and when it comes to full frution, the world will find but little difficulty in attaining a certain measure of altruism. I agree with you that this much to be desired state of society cannot be altogether reached by laws, however drastic. Socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx cannot be entirely brought about by a comprehensive system of state ownership and by the leveling of wealth. If that were done without a spiritual leavening, the result would be largely as you suggest."

I must thank Stephen T. McCarthy for quoting the following text in his blog allowing me to copy and paste (thus saving me a lot of time). http://xtremelyun-pcandunrepentant.blogspot.com/2010/02/x-y-z-mechanix-of-amerycan-politicz-or.html, is where you can find the quoted text in the context he displayed it.

Chapter XII – “Selwyn Seeks A Candidate”
Selwyn then began carefully scrutinizing such public men in the States known as presidential cradles, as seemed to him eligible. By a process of elimination he centered upon two that appeared desirable.

One was James R. Rockland, recently elected Governor of a State of the Middle West. The man had many of the earmarks of a demagogue, which Selwyn readily recognized, and he therefore concluded to try him first.
. . .
Selwyn settled back in his chair, nodding his approval and telling himself that he would not need to seek further for his candidate.

At Rockland’s earnest solicitation he remained over another day. The Governor gave him copies of his speeches and messages, so that he could assure himself that there was no serious flaw in his public record.

Selwyn cautioned him about changing his attitude too suddenly. “Go on, Rockland, as you have done in the past. It will not do to see the light too quickly. You have the progressives with you now, keep them and I will let the conservatives know that you think straight and may be trusted.

“We must consult frequently together,” he continued, “but cautiously. There is no need for anyone to know that we are working together harmoniously. I may even get some of the conservative papers to attack you judiciously. It will not harm you. But, above all, do nothing of importance without consulting me.

“I am committing the party and the Nation to you, and my responsibility is a heavy one, and I owe it to them that no mistakes are made.”

“You may trust me, Senator,” said Rockland. “I understand perfectly.”

Chapter XIV – “The Making Of A President”
Selwyn now devoted himself to the making of enough conservative senators to control comfortably that body. The task was not difficult to a man of his sagacity with all the money he could spend.
. . .
It was a fascinating game to Selwyn. It appealed to his intellectual side far more than it did to his avarice. He wanted to govern the Nation with an absolute hand, and yet not be known as the directing power.
. . .
In the meantime his senators were being elected, the Rockland sentiment was steadily growing and his nomination was finally brought about by the progressives fighting vigorously for him and the conservatives yielding a reluctant consent. It was done so adroitly that Rockland would have been fooled himself, had not Selwyn informed him in advance of each move as it was made.