God Save Great Britain from Kaiser Permanente

This is the God Save Great Britain from Kaiser Permanente Web Section. Getting to the point. Here is some of the Clinton material that should make this pretty clear to everyone really fast.

We realize that often the people in England live by the creed of "He who hesitates is lost" but in this instance they should start living by "Look Before You Leap!"

When the NHS sent representatives to view the Kaiser system in Northern California, Kaiser employees that were on the spot have reported that a sudden revamping of the pertinent facilities and extensive plans for wining and dining the dignitaries were put in place. That is a pretty standard method of marketing and certainly appropriate conduct for receiving guests. However, when the dirt is swept under the rug and the clutter is shoved in a closet with the specific intent to mislead the guests then they really cannot see the total picture.

The Indian Journal of Medical Ethics has an interesting article on the overall situation. The article is at:
http://www.issuesinmedicalethics.org/094oa120.html
The following is from the Oct-Dec 2001 Issue:

["To reduce demand, a gate-keeper, usually a nurse, screens the patient's complaint and approves or denies access to a general physician who is expected to handle a far greater range of services than under the FFS system. A patient may consult a specialist only after a referral from the general physician (9). Patients may use only plan physicians and hospitals. Emergency room visits are discouraged by denying payment for 'inappropriate' use. Hospitalisations require pre-certification and many procedures require mandatory second opinion. Pharmaceutical cost containment is achieved by a restricted formulary (10). MCOs use case managers, usually nurses, to oversee care of high cost chronic diseases such as asthma, congestive heart failure and diabetes. Credentialing of physicians by MCOs extends beyond verification of training and certification to review of practice patterns, use of diagnostic tests, rates of subspecialty referrals etc. A system of incentives and penalties based on utilisation review 'encourages' physicians to regulate their use of tests, procedures, and specialty consultations (11, 12). Before laws prohibiting their use, many MCOs included 'gag rules' which restricted physicians to discussing only MCO-sanctioned treatments. Physicians are required to follow specific protocols limiting their clinical autonomy and are monitored for their compliance with practice guidelines. An MCO may also transfer some of the risk to the physician through a capitation arrangement under which the physician is expected to provide total care irrespective of the resources/effort required. This system came to be called 'managed care' as every aspect of medical care is managed.

To reduce costs, MCOs recruit younger healthier patients ('cherry-picking'), negotiate lower charges from hospitals and pharmaceutical companies and force physicians to accept lower fees. Costs are also shifted aggressively to other payers such as the Veterans Hospital Administration, and other insurers."]

Note: HMO's in this country generally do have co-pays. Often those co-pays make HMO use very expensive because there is a co-pay for everything from the visit to the doctor to drawing the blood, for every single x-ray, test or procedure. If you have all that done in one day you might be paying several different co-payments depending on how many departments or offices you are shuffled off to.

Often physicians under Managed Care are fed fear stories that all patients will sue them if they even cut a toenail wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. However, what happens when physicians believe this stuff they become so concerned that they either intentionally for their legal protection over diagnose which forces the patient to pay for services with needed experts to learn that they really didn't have anything wrong with them in the first place. This costs the patient money each time they go through this.

What the physician doesn't see is that a corporation spreading fear stories is manipulating them into forcing the patient to spend more money. The truth is that unless the case is a slam dunk it is very hard to find any attorney to represent a patient, especially when the chances of recouping their actual business costs that have been extended for such suits are so slim.

Some of the Clinton Material:

In the above referenced article the Clinton proposed health plan is also mentioned. (Learn how long Kaiser has been trying to grab the biggest government contract of all and how they have misled people in this country at: http://universalhealth.kaiserpapers.info/)

That proposal was nothing more than a "hidden" Kaiser Permanente plan that they were caught trying to sneak in and doing so with the participation of numerous other insurance companies. See: 1990's - Proposed Universal Health Plan - source revealed under the Clinton Administration via lawsuit.
http://www.aapsonline.org/judicial/archive.htm
http://www.aapsonline.org/judicial/friends.htm
and here is the proof of Kaiser's direct participation - beginning on page 96 where Kaiser wants their name not known.
http://www.aapsonline.org/clinton/AAPS/TASKFORC.PDF

The Clinton Health Plan
http://www.aapsonline.org/clinton/AAPS/CLINTONF.PDF
text version - NOTE: Formatting is not the same as in the Clinton.pdf
http://universalhealth.kaiserpapers.info/clinton.html

Today it appears that preparations have been made to foist the same Plan, the same program on the public again over the next few years. False and misleading data is being publicized in an attempt to create the widespread belief that we are all uninsured and all suffering from lack of basic health care. It appears to be not much more than just another corporate marketing technique for the HMO to stay in existence now that they have been exposed and shown to be an overall disappointment. The elected officials, some of which certainly shall profit if this is allowed to happen are really doing nothing more than appearing to placate their constituents - a "let them eat cake attitude."

All HMO Plans, not just Kaiser, can and are often 'worked' for financial gain and to the detriment of the patient in need of true medical care. Just as some physicians deny care or downplay the severity of medical needs for their own personal financial gain there are those physicians that also create diseases on paper to steal outright from the various HMO's. It appears that once physician's become so ingrained in these money generating systems that they forget why they became doctors in the first place and end up only caring about how much more money they can make off of the system. Many physicians that become routinely involved in such scams end up with serious psychological problems because one day they do "wake up" and realize how many people they have harmed.

If everyone were honest then these plans could work. Unfortunately dishonest people are often controlling these plans. The "Evidence" that is touted about as so almighty isn't shown to the public and many doctors are so busy that they just blindly trust. Generalized, authoritative sounding statements are made about this so called "Evidence" by the self marketing HMO's, most commonly by Kaiser, but few really know what the entire truth is other than a great deal of it is actually manufactured and very inaccurate. All data can be miswritten. Much data is in error because it is based on billing and coding thus the prior statement that it is manufactured. If a person needs care and there is no code or available specific billable coverage for their need, sometimes, in fact quite often to help a patient doctors will find a way to use a code for billing.

As a very simplified example: If there is no code for billing for a patient with a broken arm but there is for a broken hip they are going to bill for the hip. That makes the "Evidence" inaccurate. The same thing happens with all data gathering. If the system is not set up correctly to begin with it isn't going to work. If the system is set up to collect data showing a predetermined outcome it isn't going to be accurate either. Often corporations are the ones paying for the data collection and they won't be doing it unless it benefits them.

A couple of years ago the US was supposed to have had an Asthma epidemic. During this time government grants and pharmaceutical contracts were awarded to corporations to study and produce data when they wanted to get some new drugs to market and boost pharmaceutical revenue. Pharmaceutical money in this country is often shared in some manner with corporations that prescribe their drugs and elected officials that accept their donations.

A lot of kids suddenly were labeled as asthmatic. As soon as the money stopped these kids suddenly were a cured. It appeared for a while while the studies for depression and ADHD were taking place that everyone had depression and/or ADHD and needed a prescription until people caught on to what was really taking place. That was pretty dishonest on the part of the HMO's and the doctors but they still did it. See the Kaiser Papers Behavioral Health Section for further information on that. http://behavioral.kaiserpapers.info/index.html

So people of the UK, check out the source of the "Evidence." Check out the actual data. Talk to the people in this country, not just the administrators and a few doctors over here. I think that you will find that the "Evidence" wouldn't stand up in a court of law if it were seen for what it really is.

Here is an article from the September 24, 2007 issue of The Guardian that pretty well sums up what Kaiser has already done to Great Britain and how many of the people there have quickly caught on - http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,,2175838,00.html

"Tony Blair found a solution one night in 2000 as he was leaving the smart River Cafe. He was introduced to Tim Evans, external affairs director of the Independent Health Care Association, the body that represented the private healthcare industry, who convinced him that the private sector had all the answers. But the Labour government knew that a public sector NHS was close to the heart of most Britons, and a spin operation was required. So, from the start of the Labour government, ministers dismissed the NHS as Stalinist, a 1940s relic of socialism, bureaucratic and rigid. Then, in 2002, the highly respected British Medical Journal published a paper purporting to show that Kaiser Permanente (them again) was more efficient than the NHS. Within hours, hundreds of emails had poured into the BMJ exposing the flaws in the paper, from the misleading nature of the claims to the authors' links to the company. But the BMJ's editor, Richard Smith, declined to retract the paper, correct it or publish a proper scientific rebuttal." ---

When anyone who is in a position to influence an entire governmental system knowingly presents falsified information, or materials that are highly questionable, beware. Run from him. Do not listen. Do not sign on the dotted line. Cut your losses from their demonstrations and be rid of the problem once and for all.

Great Britain, you have already been presented by Kaiser Permanene representatives questionable materials, easily refuted reports and are now on the verge of being forever stuck with them. For the sake of your people, please do not allow them to continue gaining control over your system.