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Cured yesterday of my disease, I died last night of my physician

Cured yesterday of my disease, I died last night of my physician

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“Cured yesterday of my disease, I died last night of my physician.”

–Matthew Prior, The Remedy Worse than the Disease (1714)

Before I write another word, I want to say that I believe in the efficacy of modern medicine. And I am positively excited by everything from genomes to hormones to mHealth. As any of you who have read my columns in the past few years knows, I am thoroughly convinced that the breakthroughs in quantum physics explain and enrich what many of us have seen, experienced, and understood about healing. I would like to think I am a thoroughly modern nurse.

That being said, I am distressed almost beyond words by the prevalence of greed among healthcare providers, evidenced by the appalling amount of overcharging and downright fraud in billing – and the unnecessary and even detrimental “care” that seems to be rampant in the healthcare system. According to the U.S. General Accounting Office and health insurance industry sources, between 3% and 10% of any state’s Medicaid budget is lost due to fraud and abuse. The federal Office of the Inspector General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit convicted 1,226 individuals in fiscal year 2006 and recovered more than $1.1 billion in court-ordered restitution, fines, civil settlements, and penalties. Additionally, due to health insurance fraud, 3,425 practitioners were excluded from participating in Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal healthcare programs. And that is in the State of California alone.

If this were all, it would be bad enough, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. It is this inevitable incorporation of greed into the collective unconscious that not only will undermine healthcare reform but will continue to increase healthcare costs until it is no longer a question of reform but survival.

What has this to do with you and me? Everything. Even if you don’t believe in the quantum dictum that “the act of observation participates in creating the reality,” almost everyone agrees that the only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. So what this means is that you and I help create this situation merely by observing it—and doing nothing about it. We will be caught up in a vortex of greed. We will become like them: greedy vultures feeding off the sick and dying.

References

Brill S. Bitter pill: Why medical bills are killing us. Time Magazine. March 4, 2013. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2136864,00.html. Accessed January 31, 2014

Health Policy Brief: Reducing Waste in Health Care. Health Affairs. December 13, 2012. www.healthaffairs.org/healthpolicybriefs/brief.php?brief_id=82. Accessed January 31, 2014.

Schwartz M. Quantum Relationships. http://melschwartz.com/articles/Quantum%20Relationship.pdf. Accessed January 31, 2014.

Sweet L. Preventive Medicine and the Seven Deadly Sins: Avoiding Discipline Against your Medical License. Medical Board of California. www.mbc.ca.gov/Licensees/Seven_Deadly_Sins/Greed.aspx. Accessed January 31, 2014.

 

 

The views and opinions expressed by Perspectives contributors are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or recommendations of the American Nurses Association, the Editorial Advisory Board members, or the Publisher, Editors and staff of American Nurse Journal. These are opinion pieces and are not peer reviewed.

8 Comments.

  • Has Dr. Curtin written anything since January? Perhaps there is something wrong with my computer, but it seems that, with all that’s going on – especially the Supreme Court’s decision on birth control and the implementation of Obamacare – she ought to have said something!

  • Hello let me give this testimony to the public about a great man who help me out in serious illness I have HIV AID for good 5year and I was almost going to the end of my life due to the way my skin look like all I have in my mind is let me just give up because life was no interested to me any longer but I just pray for God every day to accept my soul when ever I’m gone lucky to me my kid sister ran to me that she found a doctor in the internet who can cure HIV/AIDS she helped me out on everythin

  • Hello let me share this testimony to the world to hear about him too this man really exit I was HIV positive over 9year I have being in medication and I try to look for cure to my problem and I go through internet doctor and I found a tradition doctor named DR. ukpoyan I contacted him for help he give me all his laws and rule that if I get cured I should write about him and that is what am doing now, this man ask for some information about me, which I give him this man cure me from HIV what a

  • I was been suffering hardship from HIV/AIDS since 9yrs now, and i happen to have 2 kids for my husband, and now we cannot proceed to have another kids all because of my disease and now i have do all what a human like i and my husband can do just to get my disease healed, i have went to several places to seek for help not even one person could ever help, until i melt a comment on the daily news paper that was commented by Miss Marilyn about how this powerful traditional doctor help her get cured

  • Dear Lois,
    This column is neither pro not anti physician…It is merely a commentary on the problems of fraud and greed in the delivery of health care services. Thanks for asking…I am not sure what Them and Chris are trying to tell me, but I think that ‘casting spells’ would fall within the realms of fraud…and therefore the ‘physicians’ they speak of are practicing illegal (and greedy) maneuvers, they are not practicing any kind of medicine!

  • HI My Name is thema, I wish to share my
    testimonies with the
    general public about what this man called Dr LAWCY
    of drlawcyspellhome@gmail.com has just done for me , this man has just did what I thought nobody will ever do for me, i was HIV positive when one of my family friend introduce this man to me, I never believed that great DR LAWCY could do this, when I contacted him on this same issue on ground, he casted some spell for me and gave me some parcel to drink, now I am so happy to say tha

  • chrisbrimmys@yahoo.com
    March 26, 2014 7:50 am

    THANKS TO GREAT DR OGUN FOR SOLVING MY PROBLEMS
    I am STEPHANIE, i base here in LOndon.since the death of my late husband,and everything was difficult for me and my business was bad.
    I was just browsing through the internet and i saw series of testimonies of one particular Dr OGUN,the spell caster help them in various ways,Some people
    testified that he brought their Ex lover back, some testified that he
    restores womb, some testified that he can cast a spell to stop divorce and
    so on. There

  • I cannot figure out if this column is pro or anti physician

Comments are closed.

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