"Mad As Hell!?!"

Health care reform is a MUST! Our forefathers gave us, the citizens of this great land, the freedom of speech. It's time to exercise that right and stand up for what is rightfully ours. Stop Health Care Reform from the bureaucrats that do nothing but rape our pockets!

We The People

It's Thursday, July 9th, 2009, and it's time for we the people to take over health care reform.

It's time for a revolution.

"I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!" said Howard Beale (actor Peter Finch) in the 1976 movie called Network.

I'm not as histrionic as Howard Beale in the movie, but the patient's life is at stake. The patients health is at risk. The patient must be the most powerful entity in the health care system, not the lobbyists, the government, the HMOs, the insurance companies, the hospitals, or the drug companies.

I'm a patient, physician, and economist, retired due to injury and illness, and I have seen how important it is for the patient to be in charge of their health care. And health care should be based on good science with some good incentives for preventative medicine.

There are more patients than there are bureaucrats. That gives us the power to take over health care reform. We have been silent long enough.

Bradley Hennenfent, M.D.
patient, economist, & physician
retired due to injury and illness

nationalized electronic medical records system

"The push to create a nationalized electronic medical records system has been stepped up with a massive influx of another $20 billion in government funding and new mandates. Independent studies estimate the real costs to taxpayers will run at least $75 billion to $100 billion over the next ten years, as CNN Money just reported. The goal is to put the health records of all citizens into a government computer network within the next five years. The medical records from every doctor office, clinic, hospital, laboratory, pharmacy and diagnostic facility in the country would be interconnected “to ensure the uninhibited flow of health data” among all stakeholders and federal agencies, according to the Department of Health and Human Services Department." - Sandy Szwarc
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2009/01/national-patient-registry.html

Your medical privacy is a great concern with any national medical records system.
I will be watching this development closely.
Why not let patients control what to share?

Bradley R. Hennenfent, M.D.
patients, physician, and economist

Image via Wikipedia

retired due to injury and illness

Risk Pool

A fundamental insurance principle is to spread the risk as widely as possible.

Ten Commandments of Health Care Reform

1. Health care reform shall put patients first.
2. Health care reform shall be simple.
3. Patients shall be the most powerful people in the health care system.
4. Patients shall be in charge of spending the money.
5. Patients shall be told the price of everything in advance or they don't have to pay.
6. Patients shall be able to get their medical records instantly and easily.
7. Health care shall be based on science.
8. Health care shall encourage prevention.
9. We shall have the best health care in the world.
10. These Ten Commandments of Health Care Reform shall be adopted.

Bradley R. Hennenfent, M.D.
patient, physician, and economist
retired due to injury and illness

Taking Over Health Care Reform

This is the website for:
TakingOverHealthCareReform.org
Patients Taking Over Health Care Reform
Doctors Taking Over Health Care Reform
Nurses Taking Over Health Care Reform
Patients, Doctors, and Nurses Taking Over Health Care Reform
Patients, Doctors, Nurses, and Allied Health Care Professionals Taking Over Health Care Reform
Economists Taking Over Health Care Reform
People Taking Over Health Care Reform
Angry Patients Taking Over Health Care Reform
We The People Taking Over Health Care Reform

You Are The Most Qualified Person to Take Over Health Care Reform

You are the most qualified person to take over health care? Why, because like me, you are a patient.

I have been treated by private health care and public health care. The indignity of it has been difficult.

In addition to being a patient, I am also a physician and an economist. Together we are going to take over health care. We are going to make the patient the most powerful person in the health care system.

There is no better way to save lives and protect people's health.

Bradley R. Hennenfent, M.D.
patient, physician, and economist
retired due to injury and illness

Health Care Reform Revolution

It's time for a health care reform revolution.

"I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!" said Howard Beale (actor Peter Finch) in the 1976 movie called Network.

The patient's life is at stake. The patients health is at risk. The patient must be the most powerful person in the health care system, not the government, the HMOs, the insurance companies, the hospitals, or the drug companies.

I'm a patient.

There are more of us than there are them. That gives us the power to take over health care reform. We have been silent long enough.

Bradley Hennenfent, M.D.
patient, economist, & physician
retired due to injury and illness

Health Care Reform Essay - Donated by a Friend

1) Patients must be the most powerful people in the American health care system.
2) To be fully empowered, they must have full information, delivered in plain English, in a timely fashion and sparing no detail or qualification.
3) Patients shall have full access to their entire medical record, in a readable, portable format, and with clinical diagnoses and observations translated into terms the patient can clearly understand.
4) Doctors should make every effort to be accessible to their patients in person, via telephone or e-mail. They must be held accountable for follow-up.
5) All those who work in medical practices should be fully trained and authorized to assist patients when doctors themselves are not immediately available.
6) Medical offices should embrace the latest technologies to maximize patient service, and diagnostic and billing accuracy.
7) Patients must be fully informed of all fees for service and any required follow-up, and doctors should be forthcoming about alternative treatments which may be as effective and more cost-effective.
8) Doctors and specialists must be more collaborative in the development of treatment plans.
9) Our system for training medical professionals must place as much emphasis on patient sensitivities as on the practice of medicine itself. However qualified or talented a medical student may be, hospitalized patients or those under treatment for chronic conditions must always have confidence that their cases are being actively managed by senior, experienced physicians.
10) Government policies and programs must incentivize both doctors and patients to favor wellness over treatment, and in so doing, provide doctors the means to practice the foregoing principles. And those programs, too, must become standardized, uncomplicated, easy to understand and navigate, more afforadable and responsive to the needs of the patient.

Declaration of Health Care Independence

"All the beautiful celebrations of of our nation's Independence Day, yesterday July 4th, 2009, inspired me to begin writing The Declaration of Health Care Reform Independence. All the quotes are from the original Declaration of Independence.

I see all these meetings on health care reform. I see all the "suits" and lobbyists meeting. I don't see anyone in a hospital gown at these meetings.

The Declaration of Health Care Reform Independence

We the people of the United States of America shall have the best health care in the world. Health care reform shall put patients first and patients shall be the most powerful people in the health care system. Patients shall control spending the money.

Health care shall be simple.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Thus, we deserve the best health care in the world. Happiness cannot exist without good health.

"...Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ... whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter ... it, and to institute ... such principles ... as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety .... "

There is nothing more important to our health and safety than a health care system that puts patients first, rewards prevention, and is based on medical science.

We the people are not going to allow a transfer of power in health care from patients to third parties. Instead, we the patients, are going to take the power back during health care reform.

"We ... solemnly publish and declare," that the patient shall be the most powerful person in the health care system.

"And for the support of this Declaration ... we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

Bradley R. Hennenfent, M.D.
patient, physician, and economist
retired due to injury and illness