Health Biz and Politics

Sam Piccione the founder of the Debt Network Academy Even before the global pandemic and the resulting economic fallout, an American Psychological Association (APA) study found that 72% of Americans felt stressed about money at least some of the time. The recent economic difficulties mean that even more of us are now facing financial struggles and hardship. Like most other sources of stress, financial stress can have a significant impact on your physical and emotional health. You probably have experienced adverse health reactions to Financial stress - such as increased irritability, nervousness, or worry. We often have a difficult time understanding why we have mood swings, including anger or sadness. Mr. Piccione provides an insight into a secret solution that is rarely introduced from the Financial Industries - how your financial stress can be reduced and even eliminated, in less than 90-days!

Sanjay Prasad - Surgeon and founder - SurgiQuality Dr. Prasad has founded a venture to help patients pick the right specialist for acute treatments like surgery while avoiding the 20% of unnecessary interventions. Surgical referrals currently stem from a patient's primary care doctor or emergency room physician to surgeons without concern for cost or outcomes. This lack of guidance in picking the best specialist hurts especially minorities, leading to racial disparities such as more hysterectomies for black women, less frequent aneurysm repairs for black men, and higher post-surgical deaths for black patients. The referral process is the heart of the problem in surgical care. Dr. Prasad hopes the public's appetite for change post-COVID will ignite interest in these abuses of patients and racial disparities. He wrote a handbook on this theme, "Resetting Healthcare: PostCOVID 19 Pandemic", to help patients understand common myths widely held involving surgical care and why no employer or health plan can say no.

After the government in the mid-1980s legitimized high dose prescription of medicine based on the poppy plant - the supplier of pain relief for thousands of years - opioids flooded local communities, not just doctors’ offices. Families and police complained about pain pill addictions and found an easy scapegoat for the travails of struggling neighborhoods. The Drug Enforcement Administration found a goldmine of good press, too, going after "pill mill" doctors who honestly were merely doing their job - relieving suffering patients as best they could. The DEA unleashed its dogs, caging eminent physicians as "drug kingpins", and forcing patients to divert to even more dangerous non-steroidal anti-inflammatory prescriptions. For purer, poppy plant-based relief, too many patients have had to buy illegally on the streets - whose dealers sometimes tainted their drugs with dangerous ingredients like fentanyl. Lauren Deluca, one of these pain patients (that makeup to 20% of the population), has found the Affordable Care Act exposed each of these pain patients into experiments without Informed Consent. Freeing doctors to practice medicine - unhindered by politics - is critical to the relief we deserve should pain ravage our lives.

Wendy Scipione - National Sales Director - Mpowering Benefits Learn about a healthcare solution where members gain more freedom, control, and flexibility in their healthcare choices at affordable rates. The concept has been tested for 25+ years and is now gaining incredible traction due to the current limitations, barriers, and cost for many with the traditional options. Membership benefits include helping the whole body, i.e., mind, body, and spirit. Memberships are geared towards health-conscious individuals and small businesses who want to take back control of their health and wealth. Mpowering Benefits has helped thousands of clients save anywhere from $50-$1500 per member, per month!

Dan Noffsinger – President - Regenerate to Heal P.M.A. Patients suffering long-term (chronic) or acute disease increasingly are refusing doctors' orders for: * pills to manage the signs and symptoms, * chemo to poison, * radiation to burn, and * surgery. Since 1993 Dr. Noffsinger has enhanced natural regeneration to stimulate new cell growth while simultaneously identifying and destroying abnormal cells, and all types of unfriendly microbes, bacteria, fungi, yeast, and viruses. And he's growing his market via a method called a "Private Membership Association", critical to spare patients and their healers’ harassment from special interest-influenced government smothering. Close to 100% of chronic diseases can be completely reversed, showing no signs or symptoms of the disease because all cells regenerate. Just some of the treated diseases include glaucoma, diabetes, developmental disabilities, infections, and problems associated with the circulatory, nervous, and musculoskeletal systems. When a doctor claims "there's nothing else to do", it is time to free the market to allow entrepreneurs to solve this problem. The only barrier to superior care stems from the government, as usual, controlled by special interests opposing novel treatments that threaten their market power. It is government that determines what care is allowed, in exchange for a license; what medical schools can teach, and what gets researched - threatening unemployment and derision for any maverick healer who dares promote patient needs over industry profits. To get around the government's special interest-constructed box, innovative healers have discovered the method of "Private Membership Associations" (PMA). In a PMA one can speak the truth about cures as long as one does not place a member in danger or offer such cures to the public (outside the PMA). Without realizing it everyone already operates a private membership association, daily in your home! In your house, one can run around naked, and the public may not trespass on your property. Starting with a contract offered by a respected, proven PMA service, a doctor with offerings that exceed mediocre medical standards can join with patients and privately treat them in superior ways unavailable to the public.

For years patients have known about cash practices that don't accept insurance - chiropractors, naturopaths, biocompatible dentists. ObamaCare, though, made almost every individual health plan owner a cash patient, too, simply because high deductibles kept insurance from ever having to be used. What about non-insurance reimbursable pharmacies? Janet and Shawn Needham haven't taken insurance since 2002. Are they thriving - and do their loyal customers save money while improving health? Freedom Hub had TW Taylor discuss integrated pharmacies, how pharmacists have a niche for prevention unavailable via family doctors. This niche stems from the ancient practice of "compounding” or mixing ingredients to curate treatment for an individual's unique health needs. The Needhams wrote a book about this and more, regarding patient empowerment. They titled it, "Sickened: How the Government Ruined Healthcare." With their podcast, too, they believe cash must proliferate if ever we aim to save our health from the special interests.

It didn't take long after last year's start of the Covid panic for plenty of doctors, scientists, and other experts to call off the crisis. Before Tech engaged in its insidious role as censors, information left free allowed for a pattern of knowledge - enough to relax self-thinking Americans that apart from sheltering the comorbid and aged from the viral spread, the rest of us should have returned to normalcy, allowing natural herd immunity to bring the pandemic to a comfortable end. But that's not what the special interest-influenced govt and media let happen. Instead, as Tamny writes in his very well-received book, the establishment exploited the fear to impose draconian orders that sabotaged livelihoods and markets, insanely interfering, for example, in the market info regarding (1) successful early treatment; (2) corruption of testing and death certification; (3) outright lying about the vulnerability of anyone not comorbid or old; and (5) setting up a globalist Technocracy where the only gateway to normalcy required participation in a worldwide experiment with gene-altering therapy. What would have taken place over the past year had markets been allowed to clear info in a way that helps in every other type of crisis or opportunity? Are regular humans too dumb to protect themselves absent authority? Is authority trustworthy enough ever to empower with controls over our response to dire situations like a pandemic? We can't let the past year's hysteria - and possible crimes - get away without investigation. One of the biggest victims may have been the free market as a solution for crises.

With almost 50% of Adults declining Covid shots, Govt next is trying to inject our kids. Is it time to re-examine the ENTIRE vaccine schedule?-Mary Holland-General Counsel-Children’s Health Defense - childrenshealthdefense.org With the govt threatening employment, access to shopping, travel and learning for Americans unwilling to participate in the Covid vaccine experiment, almost 50% of Americans are pushing back against the hysteria and declining the shots. But with the government now pushing children to join these trials, folks need to look at the entire schedule of childhood vaccines, not just for Covid. These childhood shots are free, under insurance plans. But they are not as “safe and effective” as claimed in the media. A special court for vaccine injuries has paid $4 billion for harms, and new studies show over 1,000% more chronic disease among the vaccinated compared with those never injected. If the real epidemic isn’t covid but rather a chronic disease, how have our health agencies failed so badly to protect us? At the nonprofit founded by legendary environmental toxins lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., , Ms. Holland worries children will suffer grievous injuries combining Covid shots for Fall Enrollment with the other school-based shots (for HPV, meningitis, DTaP, MMR, etc.). Health plans don’t charge for shots, but are they safe for you or your kid? 30% of parents already delay school shots. Maybe it’s time to raise that figure to 50% as well.

The federal government's Democrat majority wants to subsidize a rescue for the insurance-based health care system while destroying the myriad alternatives that have risen for struggling consumers and entrepreneurs. Should smaller employers even try anymore to offer benefits to their workers? For the NFIB and mom 'n pops, agent Rick Willard in the Northeast has found innovative ways to insure families and retirees. He's seen many happy customers, but also too many opportunistic politicians. Trump, for example, opened up the market for smaller businessmen priced out of ObamaCare. Biden unfortunately has pledged to reverse these innovations - and try instead to bribe everyone back into insurance. (But his subsidies won't help reduce deductibles or expand networks already excluding the best local doctors). What's an entrepreneur to do? Willard will explain what he tells customers, of all types. Whether you're seeking affordability for a family or a decent plan for up to 50 workers, Rick has the experience of success to provide good advice. For the NFIB he'll also invite caring folks to help the cause for more options. Visit: willard.mpb.health

A chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) pain disorder is the underlying diagnosis for 70% to 80% of those living with chronic pain. Among the top 12 causes of disability in the United States, musculoskeletal disorders cause more than one-third of years lived with disability and are among the leading causes of disability worldwide. Chronic low back pain, neck pain, hip and knee osteoarthritis, and fibromyalgia are the most common types of chronic musculoskeletal pain. It is also a top driver of the cost typically in the top three for most employers. Because no individual therapy has a consistent benefit, an Integrated MSK model can expand treatment modalities. With primary care at the center of this model, care and cost can be efficiently managed to maximize patient outcomes, reduce waste and inappropriate treatment. Mark Testa, DC, MHA spent most of his 30-year career working in this model with primary care, pain management, occupational medicine, orthopedic surgery, and hospital systems. He has seen the effectiveness of integrative care and how a team approach benefits all stakeholders.

A year ago, Kaiser found in a poll that the pandemic hysteria had hurt the mental health of almost 50% of respondents. Nearly the same percentage were numbing the stress with binge drinking or non-medical prescriptions. A quarter already were diagnosed with mental illness, and this led almost 90% of employers to offer some behavioral wellness benefit. But only 12% of employers offer telepsychiatry, and Mr. Troutman is frankly unimpressed with the quality of company "lifecare" benefits. Wellness, in particular, suffers low worker participation. Sought after for his expertise in upgrading "Employee Assistance Plans", John tells you cookie-cutter solutions cannot satisfy patient demand. There exist hundreds of variations of solutions for helping families in their daily needs. John breaks it all down for us.

With the collapse of private long-term care insurance and huge gaps in what Medicare covers, retirees face more exposure than ever to bankruptcy from Out-of-Pocket health costs - like skilled nursing care or chronic treatments. What do elderly folks do when their bill exceeds what they can afford? For years Mr. Gagliotti has bought life insurance policies from families who no longer can afford premiums, no longer have a dependent requiring life insurance, or face an untenable expense. The policyholder loses the death benefit but gains relief from premiums and a substantial "surrender value" that provides needed funds. A lot of people need this service but most have never heard of it!

Trump may have issued a regulation attempting to disgorge opaque hospital pricing, but most employers have not done their part to upgrade to more transparent, effective health plans. Attorney Aldeen warns this employer intransigence may lead to a huge legal liability. Doug has been speaking to a lot of experts, how commercial insurance plans serve as an "ATM" for hospitals - at the expense of employers and patients. This is because, as Mr. Aldeen believes, no one is monitoring, auditing, and demanding to see what’s getting billed, what’s getting paid, and why. And with the employer fiduciary duty under ERISA (the federal employer health plan law), this could be a costly oversight for employers (and their advisors?) that may lead to lawsuits in the future. Having represented reference-based pricing organizations, PPO networks, medium to small self-funded plans, TPA’s, and provider-sponsored HMOs in various capacities, Aldeen is the type of in-the-trenches health lawyer that deserves attention from the community of advisors, payors, and employers.

The fact that half the country is refusing the covid vax, and more than half use supplements and self-diagnose (despite their doctor's wishes), suggests the need for a broader idea on the meaning of "primary" care. Indeed, with chronic diseases having exploded among adults AND kids, experts might point the finger at allopathy and demand an explanation. Increasingly families are going to want more than a pill pusher or referring agent for specialists. Indeed, with the growth of naturopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, functional medicine, and new ideas about root cause - such as the gut biome fascia - it is clear that integrated doctors will gain patients in the future health market. How will this change in demand affect supply? Will insurers and hospitals fall behind if they resist the maverick healers and picky patients? Will the government continue to do the dirty work of the status quo, shutting down superior healing?

Despite barriers imposed by government, 30 million Americans have added to their health plans tax advantaged Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Families want them and business owners offer HSAs to workers because sheltering around $7,000 annually can easily build to $100,000 by retirement when one desperately needs help with Out of Pocket (mostly long term care) costs. But what if an HSA holder could INVEST balances to build even more help for costly healthcare? Scott Borden’s company is known as the “Investors HSA”, and as the “HSA Guy” Mr. Borden explains why the HSA is the family’s best friend. But he also explains what legislative changes are needed to make these incredible heath accounts available to everyone who deserves investable savings!

Primary care doctors and patients are exposing a gap in the health system exacerbating cost and quality - around surgeries. Up to 30% of them lack proven necessity, and a smaller percentage of customers will suffer (painful) complications. Despite the existence of cost and quality shopping assistance for recommended interventions, the market still lacks a comprehensive tool to connect patients with surgeons with better outcomes and proven cost-efficiency. A surgeon himself, Dr. Prasad designed SurgiQuality to give patients (and primary doctors and payors) this missing tool. Analyzing surgeons based on numeric procedures ("a busy surgeon is a good surgeon") as well as successes versus complications, Sanjay's venture empowers patients via well-informed decisions. Further, his process avoids unnecessary surgery but when needed - reduces needed surgeries to zero Out of Pocket for the patient.

Dr. Wallen tried the management route but left the hospital whose values conflicted with his Hippocratic Oath. Although early in his medical career, he brings a unique perspective to the problems we face - systemic harms worse for patients than physicians ever could be. Yet the latter are held responsible for the system’s faults, and often silenced and disenfranchised for becoming a “problem” for the hospital. Unraveling the collusion inherent in the complex health care model, Dr. Wallen explains how in his independent urology practice he serves as an example how other specialists can join his upgrade that will empower the doctor experts and the patients they humbly serve.

Middle-class families over the past decade have found themselves becoming cash patients due to deductibles amounting to thousands of dollars, and most institutions now offer a discounted price for cash patients. Former President Trump even mandated price disclosure, to facilitate competition to drive down costs and improve quality. Yet many hospitals - and insurers - resist bundling services around expensive surgeries to allow true, comparison shopping. For decades Matthew Dale and his father, Dr. Tony Dale, have helped health payors negotiate prices to help this cash market. First, for a Christian sharing ministry, the elder Dale pushed hospitals across the country to give his cash patients a fair price. Out of this experience, the Dales formed the Karis Group, renowned for their ability to disgorge prices from reluctant providers. Cash pay doctors are becoming increasingly popular as a result of expensive insurance premiums and poor coverage. Matt walks through the benefits of cash payments for patients and providers, and how cash pay knowledge can help all patients find (and sometimes negotiate) quality care for a fair price.

Doctors and hospital execs outside of major urban areas stress how they can attract top talent and keep small-town America satisfied with healthcare. Employers - everywhere - are too slowly learning of a small cadre of benefits advisors who will tell them about plans that cover more for their workers - without relying on the bankrupting premiums via insurance companies. Bob Pfeiffer is one of these innovative brokers, and he has a plan for underserved, rural America. The plan is standard now for the better brokers taking larger businesses off of insurance, which never seems to get affordable. These brokers replace insurance with self-funding (backed by reinsurance) but more importantly contract directly with hospitals, independent practices, and a host of other health care providers to cut the cost for the owner - and reduce Out Of Pocket exposure for employees. Direct contracting creates a COMMUNITY solution that revives entire regions by keeping the money within the community! Mr. Pfeiffer is embarking on a plan that can bring this innovation to the bulk of the country just outside metropolitan centers. This majority of America is full of great, especially INDEPENDENT practices, who are excited to create community-based solutions that will make working ANYWHERE in America full of care of a quality competing with any urban market.

Millions of families have found local pharmacies more convenient than doctor's offices for some basic health services, like vaccinations or prescription advice. As our earliest historical records in the Ancient Near East show, pharmacists always have cooperated with physicians (and priests) for patients needing care. Dr. Taylor believes pharmacies can take an even greater role in patient health - including reversing disease. The primary innovation stemming from pharmacy entails what's called "compounding", or the pharmacist's mixing of various botanicals and chemicals into a concoction unique for the patient. There's one pharmacy in Estonia that's continuously prepared medicines since 1422. Professional pharmacist education in America began in the 1820s. Because of anecdotal stories regarding contaminated compounding facilities, this special practice has faced artificial limits from regulators at the Food and Drug Administration. Another bit of government demagoguery - over the War on Pain Doctors - has deputized pharmacists to leave many pain patients in unrelieved pain, due to the government's targeting of liberally prescribing pharmacists. Expanding his pharmacy to focus more on prevention, Dr. Taylor aims to treat not sickness but rather root causes. He has seen disease reversal, changing his patients' lives. Warning about excessive sugar intake and the deadly ingredients of popular foods, he will explain why people are hungry all the time - how our bodies have become nutritional deserts. He believes pharmacies can play a role in restoring health, stemming the national chronic disease epidemic.

Brock D'Avignon & Melinda Pillsbury-Foster-Percentage as You Earn (PAYE) Finansurance Consultants When President Reagan's Housing Secretary, Jack Kemp, privatized some government housing stock, he used a financing strategy promoted by polymath Brock D'Avignon. Mr. D'Avignon realized that a huge swath of Americans had careers too episodic to maintain fixed payments over time. But these struggling workers and entrepreneurs COULD pay into funds as their incomes permitted - make it worth the time of investors, who got paid - if not on a fixed schedule. In the early 1990s, Brock tried to offer the same "pay as you go" strategy for healthcare, attracting the interest of President Clinton, who sought to reform the healthcare system. Bill Clinton's friend Vernon Jordan saw value in it, but not Hillary. She had an agenda - that included only government and its special interest exploiters among large insurance and pharmaceutical companies. It is still a good idea, though, having proven the concept via homeless housing. Statisticians, actuaries, and econometricians are troubleshooting Percentage As You Earn (PAYE) medical mutual finansurance - with an intelligent charging method that has genuine incentives for preventive, epidemiological, and rapid long-lasting curative care. Learn how simple this is and hear the story of 300 years of history which proved to be healthy does not have to be a problem. Any group of 10,000 individuals has the same medical statistics as an entire nation; so, we do not need single-payer fuhrers nor Rigid Installment Payments (RIP)s, nor charity. It is possible to have extremely affordable care with no restrictions on treatment choice.

Most American employers are suffering unnecessarily costly health benefits plans. This despite good publication by the renowned Health Rosetta advisors that plenty of both Fortune 500s and smaller businesses are flattening their cost curves while lowering Out Of Pocket exposure for their workers - and improving the quality of health outcomes. These advanced brokers analyze employee health trends like accountants, ditching immediately the biggest cost-driver: INSURANCE! Through the Affordable Care Act, health insurers gamed a price "control" law that has backfired, worsening annual premium hikes (and worsening quality). At Mitigate Partners, Mr. Schuessler has summarized his two-decade experience into what he calls "The FairCo$t Health Plan".Containing 16+ Cost Containment Solutions, the FairCo$t Health Plan enables business owners to become active managers of their health plan rather than continuing to be hostages of the traditional passively managed Insurance world. Operating as Population Health Managers rather than “Brokers”, Mr. Schuessler's team specializes in Cost Containment and Risk Mitigation strategies that result in dramatic reductions in the overall health plan spend.

For checking accounts and small loans, families are finding better deals and customer service not just with community banks, but also with credit unions. A million, mostly smaller-size entrepreneurs and middle-class families have accessed protection against catastrophic medical expenses not from insurance, but from what is called Health Share Communities. Like credit unions, sharing companies can offer better service at more affordable prices. But how do customers enjoy the Health Sharing experience, and what does a Medical Cost Sharing CEO consider to take even more customers from insurance companies? Robert Steele has sold insurance and other benefits for decades and mastered the art of the sale such that the University of North Alabama has a namesake wing at his alma mater North Alabama University.

America's half-dozen, largest health insurance companies have successfully lulled business owners and executives and their HR departments into accepting inevitable, annual price increases - with higher deductibles and often narrower networks that can exclude the best providers. Too few businesses are aware that a growing cohort of their competitors are actually providing HIGHER QUALITY health care and seeing substantial REDUCTIONS in costs, with lower to ZERO out-of-pocket costs and BETTER medical outcomes. After mastering this alternative-funding benefits model that manages the health care supply chain, Nelson Griswold founded the obligatory ASCEND conference for other brokers fed up with enabling the rip-off of American companies by the health insurance companies. These benefit improvements are freeing up capital for smaller entrepreneurs as well – and improving care for workers with better choices and less to no out-of-pocket costs. Everyone wins.

Obama’s Affordable Care Act exempted small business owners from the law’s requirements if they hired less than 50 employees, but these entrepreneurs never have had many affordable or high-quality choices to insure their workers. Entrepreneurs by definition are the problem solvers on whom society relies, so we need to care how they can access better benefits to recruit and retain key employees. Growing up in a household selling Prudential Insurance, Todd rebelled against the status quo, went independent, and developed the “pro-life” group benefit that helps employers help their workers while helping themselves. Mr. Marley upgraded this system into “Plan Panoptic” - bypassing traditional insurance, emphasizing wellness, broadening networks, and replacing one’s “lease” of benefits with their ownership. Agents nationwide are mopping up this fantastic solution for their local businesses.