Mr. Moderate

Michael Savage is a conservative radio talk show host whose program I listen to and whose web site I link to here on my own blog. First and foremost we must recognize that Michael is an entertainer, with millions of listeners, and it is the job of an entertainer to entertain. Entertainers will frequently use exaggeration to get our attention, and Michael is one of the greatest exaggerators I’ve ever listened to. Last week Michael started a controversy about autism when he exaggerated the over-diagnosis of the disease. Media Matters then picked out his most-overblown statements:

On his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage claimed that autism is “[a] fraud, a racket. … I’ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’ “

Many people reacted to the above statements with anger and strong complaints against Michael Savage, trying to get his program thrown off the air for those remarks. One conservative blogger even called Michael “the most hated conservative in America.” Well, in some sense I suspect that Michael relishes the label of “most hated” so long as it gains attention for his talk show and increases his base of listeners.
Continue reading ‘Michael Savage and the Autism Controversy’ »

We all know the classic image of the ostrich with its head in the sand while its body is exposed to whatever comes along. In our culture, we interpret this image as a refusal to see the obvious. Well, Lyme Disease exists, but 9,999 out of 10,000 doctors have their heads in the sand when it comes to properly diagnosing and treating Lyme Disease. But anybody can go on the Internet and find a picture of the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria which causes Lyme Disease. It shows that the organism is a spirochete, or “corkscrew-shaped” bacteria. How can Lyme Disease not exist? This gets to be a real mystery, so please read on.

This is the first of a two-post set, the other of which discusses the claims by Michael Savage that the mental diseases of autism and ADHD are vastly over-diagnosed in this country. As I say at the end of that other post, what is totally a mystery to me is this: Why does the establishment (schools, doctors, drug companies, etc.) want to diagnose kids with autism and ADHD and yet they refuse to diagnose kids (or adults) as being sick with the actual bacterial disease of Lyme?
Continue reading ‘Lyme Disease and Medical Ostriches’ »

The one thing which is most broken here in the United States is the health care system. I believe that the reason it is broken is rooted in the economics of health care. When it comes to individual doctors treating individual patients, I believe that the free market economy, as ruled by the law of supply and demand, ought to produce a good outcome for everybody. However, for almost a century now, there has not been a free market in health care.

If we look back a century and a half or more in America, all it took to become a doctor was enough learning from books to absorb the concepts of how the human body worked and what could be done (based upon what was known at the time) to repair whatever was deemed to be wrong. Many of my ancestral cousins in the old south were deemed to be “doctors” because they had enough learning from books to be able to treat slaves and assist mothers to give birth to babies. Of course, so little was known about “proper health care” in that day and age, that the concept of medical malpractice rarely entered the picture. Even today, it is difficult to find one “expert witness” doctor who will tell a jury that what another doctor did was absolutely wrong and caused injury to the plaintiff. In the distant past, juries were supposed to use common sense in deciding cases, and “expert witness” testimony was rarely used.

But my real point here is that the law of supply and demand is broken now when it comes to health care. All of the changes in how medicine is practiced have led to a situation where there isn’t any real free market in health care, and thus it is easy to understand why costs are out of control.
Continue reading ‘Economical Health’ »

Unable to find a decent “permanent” job, I took a one-year contract position with a major contract labor company. This at least allowed me to have access to a decent health care plan, even if I was required to pay the entire group rate premium out of my gross earnings. However, I’m approaching the end of my one-year contract term, and that means I’m approaching the end of my ability to (barely) afford health care. Now, its true that I will have the option of continuing my coverage under the COBRA law. But it is also true that my maximum monthly unemployment benefit will just about equal my health insurance premium under COBRA, so how am I supposed to afford food, shelter, and other basic needs?

Unfortunately, my family and I have chronic health care problems. As long as we are covered by health care insurance, our chronic problems are manageable. But if we ever become uncovered, we descend into medical Hell, and getting covered again becomes increasingly problematic as our chronic conditions are all “pre-existing conditions” for any new plan. This means that I do not dare allow my plan to lapse, as exclusions for “pre-existing conditions” are waived if you are simply moved from one plan to another. That being the case, though, how do I afford food, shelter, etc. while paying for health care?
Continue reading ‘Health Care Horrors’ »