Morning everyone!
Welcome to another edition of the Doctor’s Note, where we talk about what’s on our minds when it comes to your health.
This week I’ve got an important message. I’ve been thinking a lot about our healthcare system, which in my opinion is no doubt broken.
I’ve been a doctor for a long time, and have observed a lot.
Remember, our goal is to stay healthy. That’s what we’re trying to do.
So, it got me thinking about trust.
Who do you trust with your healthcare?
This is a really important question.
In this article, my hope is that you’ll start to think about why you should probably trust yourself with your own health, along with a Board Certified Integrative Medical Doctor with a lot of experience and an open mind.
For one, I think there are a lot of people that you can’t trust with your healthcare.
I think of myself as a mix between traditional and alternative when it comes to being a doctor. There is good on both sides.
As a healthcare system, we can do so many amazing things! The successful surgeries we can perform. Our battle against cancer and heart disease. All kinds of good stuff.
So many good things are happening on the alternative side also.
People want to stay healthy. They want to be proactive, not reactive.
But we’ve been treating people with the “here’s a pill for this” attitude for far too long. And our main problem is obesity and drugs (illegal and prescription).
Do you trust the government with your health?
I don’t. Look at how they’ve failed us with the COVID-19 situation. Our country spends so many more billions of dollars on healthcare than any other place in the world, and yet we rank behind many third world countries when you measure health by any parameter.
We knew COVID-19 was coming before it hit us. We weren’t ready.
And to me that’s what it boils down to. We weren’t prepared for it. I noticed right off that it was mostly morbidly obese people that were dying from this virus.
Our country in general is obese, out of shape, stressed, and our immune systems are torn up.
We aren’t focusing on the right things.
The government hasn’t been honest about COVID-19, especially in regards to treatment. We’ve treated lots of people, and when done early it works. Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, and high dose vitamins like Vitamin D and Zinc. They work. This is a protocol we’ve been using for many months.
Make no mistake about it. COVID-19 is real. They were just ignoring a lot of these things and not giving us good advice.
Take for instance Vitamin D. So many people who struggled with COVID had low Vitamin D levels.
The other thing is the obesity epidemic. This is what I’ve been fighting my whole career. Again, most of the people who died of COVID were morbidly obese or diabetic with low Vitamin D levels.
Look at the CDC.
At first, masks didn’t help. Now they do. They’ve been talking in circles because they didn’t know what to do.
For some of the medications that we know work, because there weren’t any double blind studies, they couldn’t be used.
We didn’t have time for double blind studies. These medicines didn’t hurt anybody.
The government failed us on this.
Viruses have always been around. This is a bad one, but we’re always going to be dealing with them. The answer is to get in shape and get your immune system working well. Start eating right. Get your sleep, and keep stress levels down. Get rid of environmental toxins.
Start thinking about treating yourself.
Can you trust insurance companies?
No. They’re clearly only looking at the bottom dollar.
Years ago I can remember actually calling an insurance company trying to get coverage for a patient for obesity treatment. It is a treatable disease and it’s a chronic disease. Why wouldn’t they cover it? Helping patients lose weight will help them save money on healthcare costs. They knew, but by the time the treatment would benefit the patient the patient would likely be with another insurance company. They told me this.
They don’t care about you at all. And it’s really messed up doctors because they have to take insurance. Or, at least most do.
Doctors have to find a code and label you for everything, in order for them to get paid for something. It’s a game. It’s such a ridiculous system. The doctor is on the phone with the insurance company, or on a computer trying to find a 5 digit code. If you don’t get it exactly right you won’t get paid two months down the road.
This makes for an unhappy doctor. And an unhappy doctor is a bad doctor.
The thing is that there are people who get paid for every denial. They are incentivized to not pay the doctor.
This isn’t the doctors’ fault. They are so ensnarled in this ridiculous insurance payment situation, and they get burned out and lose focus. And the focus should just be on the patient!
These insurance agents are telling the doctor how to treat the patient.
The most important thing in healthcare is the doctor patient relationship. Think about that.
You need insurance for disaster. You don’t need it for a cold, and certainly not for preventative care.
Do you trust the pharmaceutical industry?
We have great medicines out there. I’m a medicine guy. But look at the price of insulin? It has skyrocketed.
The way this industry has acted the last several years is ridiculous. Look at the influence and power they have over our government. They run the CDC no doubt about it. That’s a conflict of interest in my mind.
Look at all the commercials you see on television. At least a third of them are by pharmaceutical companies. There’s a new disease, and a new medicine they’ve invented for it.
They don’t tell you how expensive it’s going to be. Plus, all the advertising these medications do drives up the cost of the actual medication.
Look at the statin industry. Most people know that cholesterol doesn’t cause heart attacks. It may play a small part in heart disease. But less than half of the people who have heart attacks have an elevated cholesterol.
The pharmaceutical industry has made billions of dollars. There’s incentive for them to corroborate with the rule makers.
It’s unbelievable how much some of these biologic drugs cost.
They aren’t really on your side. It’s a money driven business.
It has more lobbyists in Washington than any other industry by far. Twice as many. They are peddling that influence around. Lawmakers are susceptible to this thing. They’ve bought out your healthcare.
They certainly don’t focus on prevention. They’re focused on treating a disease they label you with, and making money off of it.
I’m not anti-vaccine. But think of all of the money these vaccines are going to generate for these companies making them? You have to understand that you can’t sue the vaccine makers if you die or have a bad reaction. It’s the most money making drug out there with no risk to the vaccine maker.
The answer is really to take care of yourself.
Do you trust the medical system?
When I say the medical system I mean institutions like the AMA (American Medical Association) and the hospitals.
Personally, I don’t like the AMA. I don’t think they are looking out for the doctors or the patients either one.
During the pandemic, the AMA was actually chastising doctors for using Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin. There were doctors who lost their licenses over this. Especially the doctors who were employed by the hospitals.
Last year, the Tennessee Board of Health even reached out to me. They were asking why I was using these medications. Of course, I answered that I was trying to save lives and follow the oath I took.
A lot of this is political. Profit or non-profit. It’s all for profit.
I truly believe that we are going to learn a lot from this and everything that has happened with COVID-19.
These are things I believe in.
Bottom line is to learn to take care of yourself. If you’re overweight, learn how to lose weight. We can teach you how to do this. It’s a complex medical disease.
There’s so much misinformation on weight loss. As many of you know, the food industry also isn’t something you can necessarily trust.
The most important thing you do for your health is what you put in your mouth.
The people who had mild cases of COVID often were taking high doses of vitamins and had good immune systems.
We are in a crisis right now with our healthcare system. If we as a population weighed what we did in 1960, I believe we wouldn’t have a healthcare crisis.
Be proactive. Not reactive. The healthcare system cannot and should not label you. They need to treat you like a human being.
