Groups leading the charge for free market healthcare
In my quest to find objectivist-leaning companies and business owners with whom to trade with, my highest priority now is healthcare providers. For anyone paying attention (which ought to be everyone here), you know the medical industry in the US is headed dangerously towards a complete government takeover with socialized medicine as a fundamental "right."
There are a lot of doctors and healthcare providers who are unhappy (or worse) about this. It's very hard for me to understand how and why they have let things go this far down the road to serfdom... but here we are my friends.
In my search for regional or local capitalist medical providers, I have found some national groups that are promoting this approach. Here's the list.
When you see who is here, please ask yourself these questions:
Do you recognize any of them as having efforts in your area?
Do you have any experience or knowledge with a group that you can share?
Some of these groups organize on a chapter level. I'm investigating options and tradeoffs to determine which group(s) would be best to engage and propose for action in my Sacramento CA region. (Being the capital for the People's State of California, it's a target-rich landscape and a trend-setter for the rest of the country.)
If you happen to know anyone near me who might want to learn about future happenings and efforts, I'd greatly appreciate a referral or introduction. A coalition or network is forming. I have some doctors and med students eager to save their careers and independent judgment (and future wealth). Thanks, Brett
Free Market Medical Association (FMMA)
https://fmma.org/providers/
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
This group has a broad and inclusive name like the AMA (Amer Medical Association) but their materials and efforts are refreshingly pro-liberty.
https://aapsonline.org/
Docs 4 Patient Care Foundation
https://d4pcfoundation.org/
They have a member who has created this:
Manual for starting up a DPC practice:
https://dpcmanual.com/
Benjamin Rush Institute
https://www.benjaminrushinstitute.org/
Finally, here is a doctor office in Wichita KS who I've been told about as an objectivist-principled practice. He put Atlas in his name so he must be serious about it. ;-)
Atlas MD - Josh Umbehr, MD
https://atlas.md/wichita/about-us/our...
If anyone has more suggestions I'll be grateful to learn about them. But please keep it focused on groups who are focused on IMPLEMENTING free market healthcare NOW at the STATE or LOCAL level, Not publishing white papers and lobbying in DC. Or tackling a lot of other issues besides heatlhcare. I am laser focused and need a group aligned with my goals (and values).
There are a lot of doctors and healthcare providers who are unhappy (or worse) about this. It's very hard for me to understand how and why they have let things go this far down the road to serfdom... but here we are my friends.
In my search for regional or local capitalist medical providers, I have found some national groups that are promoting this approach. Here's the list.
When you see who is here, please ask yourself these questions:
Do you recognize any of them as having efforts in your area?
Do you have any experience or knowledge with a group that you can share?
Some of these groups organize on a chapter level. I'm investigating options and tradeoffs to determine which group(s) would be best to engage and propose for action in my Sacramento CA region. (Being the capital for the People's State of California, it's a target-rich landscape and a trend-setter for the rest of the country.)
If you happen to know anyone near me who might want to learn about future happenings and efforts, I'd greatly appreciate a referral or introduction. A coalition or network is forming. I have some doctors and med students eager to save their careers and independent judgment (and future wealth). Thanks, Brett
Free Market Medical Association (FMMA)
https://fmma.org/providers/
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
This group has a broad and inclusive name like the AMA (Amer Medical Association) but their materials and efforts are refreshingly pro-liberty.
https://aapsonline.org/
Docs 4 Patient Care Foundation
https://d4pcfoundation.org/
They have a member who has created this:
Manual for starting up a DPC practice:
https://dpcmanual.com/
Benjamin Rush Institute
https://www.benjaminrushinstitute.org/
Finally, here is a doctor office in Wichita KS who I've been told about as an objectivist-principled practice. He put Atlas in his name so he must be serious about it. ;-)
Atlas MD - Josh Umbehr, MD
https://atlas.md/wichita/about-us/our...
If anyone has more suggestions I'll be grateful to learn about them. But please keep it focused on groups who are focused on IMPLEMENTING free market healthcare NOW at the STATE or LOCAL level, Not publishing white papers and lobbying in DC. Or tackling a lot of other issues besides heatlhcare. I am laser focused and need a group aligned with my goals (and values).
My insurance company and I spend hundreds of dollars a year for my doctor to treat my type II diabetes. He regularly checks my glucose, A1c, and weighs me -- then tells me to lose a little weight. All of these factors have been constant for a decade -- I measure them myself (except the A1c which I could). But I need this to maintain my $4 prescription for Metformin.
We could do a lot with software, but everything has to carefully avoid the hint of "practicing medicine".
You can also order other lab tests from LEF.org. You pay them, and they write you a lab slip that you use at a local blood drawing place of your choice. The results get mailed to you for your records.
At some point in the future, your primary physician will be software based, available 24/7 and have such a low cost to use it will be essentially free. It will be able to recommend tests and drugs and refer you to a specialist if you need more sophisticated care.
But we can't build that tool today because that would be practicing medicine without a license. It will probably start in some country not dominated by the FDA where they simply can't have enough doctors and have to accept alternatives.
Whatever AI might be able to do in the future, it can't do that now. There have been many projects trying to implement expert systems and more in software for medical diagnoses and other kinds of professional judgment. I would expect that the first practical systems would be used by doctors themselves who use it for improved efficiency and coverage of knowledge while still maintaining a true expert's oversight of the results.
I hope your experiences with routine medical checks watching your diabetes mean that it is stable and under control the best possible. Periodic checks are necessary to detect changes that might otherwise be obscure or missed, with the knowledge to know what to further investigate. I think the insurance company requires professional checks on what might seem an obvious candidate for self-help because they would rather pay for the tests and professional insights than risk paying more later because a large number of patients would not be responsible or because rote tests are not necessarily sufficient.
As for the injunction to lose weight, I hope you are. Obesity causes all kinds of problems in addition to diabetes, and that is something else for the doctor to watch for. Too much time in front of keypunch/terminal/workstation/PC without compensating activity is not good :-(
One of the objections doctors have against the current system is that they aren't allotted the proper time to talk to a visiting patient for more personal attention beyond routine checks.
And, yes, I do watch my diet glucose levels and exercise. My point is not that the advice is wrong, simply that one doesn't need years of medical school to know that. Much less expensive mechanisms could be developed to monitor the vast majority of the millions of patients with type II diabetes, many of whom are going completely without any care or medication because they can't afford to "go to a doctor".
There have been good diagnostic tools available for some time. Part of the problem is the validation -- we consider a doctor as valid if he goes to an accredited school and passes an exam. We don't have a good way of validating the software.
Your doctor does more than rote reading test numbers when you see him, he looks for other symptoms and exercises judgment in context. The first problem with automatic diagnostics is validation of specific uses. When your gps directs you to drive over a cliff you know not to do that (though some have not). Medical judgment is harder than that, but there are some real time diabetes-related tests you can do at home now (and are), then use them to decide what to eat, etc. to compensate or whether to see a doctor sooner. But the intrusive FDA bureaucracy has made everything more expensive.
Yes, they would know they are helping a US citizen to break the law in our country. But who the F cares... we have a right to get our care from anyone in the world we want. Our govt doesn't have jurisdiction over other countries when it comes to individual healthcare.
Someone here will argue against me I'm sure. But the game is on for our capitalizing on our digital world. "Stay the hell out of my way" is my attitude, as someone once said...
Reputation always matters. It's dangerous when people ignore it because they think some government agency is doing it for them. It's worse when they become accustomed to tacitly downplaying reputation where no one is watching at all.
A: A good start!
When doctor-patient relationships were more personal and direct, there was more trust and confidence between them. I wonder how DPC practices are protecting themselves from the threat of legal action...
For an insurance-like product, you could check out the Alliance of Health Sharing Ministries. http://www.healthcaresharing.org/abou...
Scroll down for three health sharing ministries.
They qualify for legally avoiding the PPACA penalty according to the IRS website. They are much more market-oriented than PPACA-compliant plans. Technically they're not insurance. They're Christians helping one another with their medical bills. Even attending UU services counts as "Christian" since UU is an offshoot of Christianity.
There is a lot not to like about them, BUT when you dig into the details and set aside the Christian language, it actually makes sense. Their basic plans are very inexpensive, and you legally avoid the PPACA penalty.
As usual, "I told you so" means it is too late, at least for that phase and today's mess. It is not too late to give a proper argument against the current schemes to prevent the failures of government controlled medicine from being used as an excuse for extending them instead of getting rid of them.
Some primary care docs are going with concierge plans where you pay like $1500 a year to have access to one, in addition to the payments made by medicare.