By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, MD

While people’s lives and jobs are being devastated by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), and there has been no FDA-approved treatment, governors or state pharmacy boards in Nevada, Michigan, New York, Ohio, and Texas are issuing emergency orders to restrict which medications doctors can use to save lives.

These politicians have no background in infectious disease, medicine, research design, or epidemiology, yet they presume to dictate to front-line physicians who are reading the emerging research and caring for patients.

Many doctors are using older medicines, FDA approved for more than 70 years and widely used worldwide to treat malaria, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis—chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil). They often add azithromycin (Z-pak), a commonly used antibiotic with some activity against this virus.

These politicians are presuming to decide that doctors may not prescribe these drugs “off-label,” i.e. for anything other than the disease for which the FDA originally approved the drug. Their pretext is that we do not have large randomized controlled clinical trials (RCT) for this new indication.

While we are facing one of the most devastating public health crises in our lifetime, there is NO time to wait for the years-long process of an RCT to provide “proof.” Doctors who use the drugs can observe first-hand how patients respond.

While governors have been handing down orders, doctors in the U.S. and overseas have been reporting remarkable success in treating COVID-19 patients: reductions in hospitalization, less need for scarce ventilators, less need for ICU and intubations, and significantly lower death rates. Two studies from France, conducted by Dr. Didier Raoult, specialist in infectious disease and viral illness, are very promising. Besides helping relieve signs of illness, hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin also appears to shorten the period of infectivity, which is critically important in controlling disease spread. Data on safety and effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin are coming in almost daily from more than 10 countries, including Canada, Australia, Israel, South Korea, and China.

Several Governors jumped on this restriction bandwagon soon after President Trump announced at a recent Corona Task Force briefing that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine showed hope in treating COVID-19, based on several small clinical studies from Johns Hopkins, France, and (at last count) eight other countries. He did not say he recommended these medicines, as some media have falsely stated.

After 70 years of experience, physicians are well-acquainted with potential side effects, and are aware of patients who should not take them. On the whole, they are quite safe. Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, a board-certified family physician in a small community in New York state hard hit with coronavirus infections, has been successfully using the combination of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, zinc and vitamin C to treat almost 700 patients in the outpatient setting. His results are remarkable: zero deaths, zero intubations/ventilators needed, and only four patients hospitalized due to pneumonia. This protocol has been effective in several countries to decrease hospitalizations, and reduce the duration of viral shedding that is a risk to other people.

Yet Governor Cuomo’s emergency order restricted this treatment to only hospitalized patients, and only those in a New York approved clinical trial. Such a rigid restriction of FDA-approved medicines being used off label to help patients stay out of the hospital makes no sense. Why is a politician making arbitrary medical edicts?

Those who are afraid of “off-label” use need to know that physicians use medications in this way constantly. Until this crisis, there has been no outcry about doctors using old medicines for new uses. This freedom has allowed more rapid discovery of life-saving treatments. Here are a few of many possible examples:

• Amitriptyline (Elavil®), first approved for depression, is now used for nerve pain.
• Trazodone, approved for depression, is widely used at lower doses for sleep.
• Sildenafil (Viagra®), approved for erectile dysfunction, is also used to treat pulmonary artery hypertension.
• The anti-parasite medicines nifurtimox and eflornithine were successfully used off label to treat children with the rare, fatal brain cancer neuroblastoma.

The United States FDA on Sunday March 28, 2020 issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to be used as approved treatments for COVID 19. This EUA illustrates my point: Governors should NOT be jumping into medical decision-making on limited data and with no medical training, especially at a time of a National Emergency and pandemic when medical information is changing rapidly, and to save lives we must use the tools we have at hand, as safely as possible in a war against an invisible enemy.

Physicians take the Oath of Hippocrates to use their best medical judgement to prescribe treatments for the benefit of their patients to the best of their ability and above all to “Do no harm.”

Can Governors who are restricting physicians’ prescription decisions in the COVID 19 pandemic truthfully say the same?

• Dr. Vliet has been a leader in patient centered, individualized medical care. Since 1986, she has practiced medicine independent of insurance contracts that interfere with patient-physician relationships and decision-making. Dr. Vliet focus is medical freedom and free market approaches to healthcare. Dr. Vliet is the founder of Vive Life Center and Hormone Health Strategies with medical practices in Tucson AZ and Dallas TX, specializing in preventive and climacteric medicine with an integrated approach to evaluation and treatment of women and men with complex medical and hormonal problems from puberty to late life.
• Dr. Vliet is a 2014 Ellis Island Medal of Honor recipient for her national and international educational efforts in health, wellness, and endocrine aging in men and women, and is recognized in the US as a motivational speaker in health and wellness and a powerful patient advocate, proponent of free market approaches to lower healthcare costs.  Dr. Vliet is the recipient of Voice of Women Award from Arizona Foundation for Women in recognition of her pioneering advocacy for the overlooked hormone connections in women’s health.
• Dr. Vliet’s consumer health books include: It’s My Ovaries, Stupid; Screaming To Be Heard: Hormonal Connections Women Suspect– And Doctors STILL  Ignore; Women, Weight and Hormones; The Savvy Woman’s Guide to PCOS,  The Savvy Woman’s Guide to Great Strength, and Stamina.
• Dr. Vliet is a past Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a member of the AAPS Editorial Writing Team on healthcare reform, and a member of International Menopause Society and the International Society for The Study of the Aging Male (ISSAM). She received her M.D. degree and internship in Internal Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, and completed specialty training at Johns Hopkins Hospital.  She earned her B.S. and Master’s degrees from the College of William and Mary in Virginia.
• Dr. Vliet has appeared on FOX NEWS, Cavuto, Stuart Varney Show, Fox and Friends, Sean Hannity and many nationally syndicated radio shows across the country as well as presented hundreds of Healthcare Town Halls addressing the economic and medical impact of the 2010 healthcare law and free market reforms, as well as seminars and radio shows on healthcare reform, Men’s Health and Women’s Health.
• Dr. Vliet speaks as an independent physician, not as an official spokesperson for any organization or political party. Dr. Vliet has no financial ties to any health care system or health insurance plan.  Her allegiance and advocacy is to and for patients.

By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.

A recent poll of more than 6,000 doctors from 30 countries found that 37 percent rated hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as the best treatment for novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Yet, during a recent webinar on COVID-19, doctors across the United States described threats from many governors and state medical boards for prescribing HCQ and azithromycin “off label” for non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

It was shocking to hear that our front-line warriors are not only having their medical decisions blocked, but are being threatened with disciplinary actions, and even loss of license in some states.

The international poll conducted by Sermo highlighted crucial differences between the U.S. and other countries. Many fewer U.S. physicians–only 23 percent—had prescribed HCQ, while 72 percent of Spanish physicians used it as their first choice in COVID-19. Also, in the U.S. it was most commonly used for hospitalized high-risk patients with severe symptoms, while in other countries it was equally used for out­ patients with mild symptoms at onset of disease.

HCQ has been FDA-approved for malaria since World War II, and it is now also approved for treating lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

These findings mean the U.S. lags behind other countries in using HCQ to prevent infection, to reduce the time that a person sheds virus and can infect others, and to keep patients out of hospitals and off ventilators.

Basic science and clinical outcomes studies from more than 10 countries show that HCQ works both before and after COVID-19 enters the cells. It increases zinc transport across the cell membrane, and the two work together to keep the virus from multiplying itself using our own cells’ machinery.

It is the viral multiplication or replication that triggers the inflammatory cascade, or cytokine storm that damages organs, especially the lungs leading to the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and deaths.

Adding the antibiotic azithromycin, or possibly doxycycline for elderly with contraindications, shows a synergistic effect, as reported from France, China, and several clinical outcomes studies in the U.S.

A new 2020 study showed an additional way that HCQ works: it prevents the virus from attaching to host cell surface molecules. The authors conclude: “Our data do support the use of chloroquine and preferentially hydroxychloroquine as a first intention therapy for patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19).”

On Mar 28, 2020, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an Emergency Use Authorization for HCQ to treat COVID-19—but restricted this approval to hospitalized patients.

That restriction means loss of the critical early window of opportunity to achieve four urgent goals to stop the pandemic: (1) prevent the virus attaching to host cells, (2) reduce viral replication that prolongs time of infectivity and spread, (3) reduce the number of hospitalizations and need for intubation and mechanical ventilators, and (4) reduce risk of multi-organ damage and death or permanent lung impairment after recovery.

At the Apr 4 Corona Virus Task Force Briefing, reporters continually focused on the potential shortage of ventilators, yet no one was asking about using effective medication approaches to keep patients from becoming so critically ill that they need mechanical ventilation.

When World Health Organization and U.S. experts say there is “no evidence that any medicine can prevent or cure” COVID-19, they correctly mean We don’t yet have a randomized, placebo-controlled, double blind clinical trial (RCT). But designing, setting up, conducting, and analyzing any RCT takes years. And that is only one form of evidence in medicine. Case studies (pejoratively called “anecdotes”) and decades of safe use worldwide provide other valid sources of clinical outcomes evidence, which have guided physicians for more than 2,000 years.

As a matter of historical record, we had no RCT “proving” that smoking caused lung cancer, but that did not stop common-sense recommendations by the Surgeon General and physicians who advised patients to stop smoking cigarettes, based on clinical outcomes showing higher lung cancer and heart attack deaths in smokers.

We have no time for an RCT. We can’t wait months for a vaccine. People are dying every day. Staggering numbers of people have lost jobs, incomes, and ability to live life normally. We cannot ignore the well-known fact that times of massive unemployment lead to lost lives, from drug addiction, depression/suicide, domestic violence, and losing access to medical care. These losses could exceed those from the virus if the country remains shut down for a prolonged period. This is real damage, not just theoretical, and it is escalating every day.

In this war against the invisible virus, doctors–our soldiers on the front line– simply must be free to use the medicines at hand, to the best of their ability and judgment for each patient, free of politicians and bureaucrats’ second-guessing and threats.

Doctors must be able to prescribe, pharmacists to dispense, and patients to take already-approved drugs for this novel use against a novel enemy. About 20 percent of all prescriptions are for “off-label” uses. The FDA may restrict pharmaceutical companies marketing for off-label uses, but it has no authority to interfere with doctors’ prescribing them off-label. That is called the practice of medicine. It is unprecedented—and lethal—for state governors and medical boards to forbid the freedom to prescribe long-approved and safely used medications.

America urgently needs a Presidential directive to remove the FDA’s red tape and state political obstacles to save lives, reduce the rate of spread of COVID-19. Hospitals must quickly be fully opened to treat patients with urgent medical and surgical needs beyond COVID-19 to avoid losing hospitals and medical staff. We should .  consider India’s approach with a national recommended guide for physicians. Stop this patchwork quilt of governors’ arbitrarily deciding what prescriptions can and cannot be used in each state.

In a war to save lives and our country, we must fight with all the weapons we have at hand, even if not yet “proven.”

Author/Contributor short bio:

• Dr. Vliet has been a leader in patient centered, individualized medical care. Since 1986, she has practiced medicine independent of insurance contracts that interfere with patient-physician relationships and decision-making. Dr. Vliet focus is medical freedom and free market approaches to healthcare. Dr. Vliet is the founder of Vive Life Center and Hormone Health Strategies with medical practices in Tucson AZ and Dallas TX, specializing in preventive and climacteric medicine with an integrated approach to evaluation and treatment of women and men with complex medical and hormonal problems from puberty to late life.
• Dr. Vliet is a 2014 Ellis Island Medal of Honor recipient for her national and international educational efforts in health, wellness, and endocrine aging in men and women, and is recognized in the US as a motivational speaker in health and wellness and a powerful patient advocate, proponent of free market approaches to lower healthcare costs.  Dr. Vliet is the recipient of Voice of Women Award from Arizona Foundation for Women in recognition of her pioneering advocacy for the overlooked hormone connections in women’s health. 
• Dr. Vliet’s consumer health books include: It’s My Ovaries, Stupid; Screaming To Be Heard: Hormonal Connections Women Suspect– And Doctors STILL  Ignore; Women, Weight and Hormones; The Savvy Woman’s Guide to PCOS,  The Savvy Woman’s Guide to Great Sex, Strength, and Stamina.
• Dr. Vliet is a past Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a member of the AAPS Editorial Writing Team on healthcare reform, and a member of International Menopause Society and the International Society for The Study of the Aging Male (ISSAM). She received her M.D. degree and internship in Internal Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, and completed specialty training at Johns Hopkins Hospital.  She earned her B.S. and Master’s degrees from the College of William and Mary in Virginia. 
• Dr. Vliet has appeared on FOX NEWS, Cavuto, Stuart Varney Show, Fox and Friends, Sean Hannity and many nationally syndicated radio shows across the country as well as presented hundreds of Healthcare Town Halls addressing the economic and medical impact of the 2010 healthcare law and free market reforms, as well as seminars and radio shows on healthcare reform, Men’s Health and Women’s Health.
• Dr. Vliet speaks as an independent physician, not as an official spokesperson for any organization or political party. Dr. Vliet has no financial ties to any health care system or health insurance plan.  Her allegiance and advocacy is to and for patients.

As Reported by WikiLeaks: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927

Affordable Care Act

Hillary Clinton Said She Wants Us To Have A Debate Where Our Differences Are Fully Aired On Healthcare Reform Since There Are Different Approaches. “Now, what does that have to do with health care reform?  Well, I want to see us have a debate where our differences are fully aired because, clearly, there are different approaches about what we think can work.  We don’t have one size fit all.  Our country is quite diverse.  What works in New York City is not necessarily going to work in Harrison, Arkansas or Albuquerque, so we do need to have people who are looking for common ways of approaching problems using evidence but leaving their blaming, their gaming, their shaming, point scoring at the door.  Because when we think about it, our country is such a remarkable accomplishment.  Think about how diverse we are.  We’ve had lots of disagreements.  We even had a civil war for heaven sakes, so it’s not like we just — you know, like in those drug commercials where we just hold hands and dance through the meadows while somebody is telling you everything that can go wrong like your ear’s falling off if you take the drug they’re advertising.” [02262014 HWA Remarks at HIMMS [Orlando].DOC, p. 10] Continue reading →

By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, MD – http://herplace.com

As an independent physician advocate for patients against restrictions of “establishment medicine,” I greatly admire that both Senator Cruz and Donald Trump have been unafraid to speak the truth about critical issues that affect the very survival of our country.

I applaud Trump and Cruz for boldly stating the obvious: the flood of illegals into America is costing us dearly in lives and social costs. They are right: it must be stopped, and soon.

Trump has also been masterfully successful in business. He understands that the key with countries like Mexico, China, Russia, Iran, and others is negotiation from a position of strength, not concession.

But these two men are at opposite ends of the spectrum on healthcare:

• Trump admires the “single-payer” system of Canada and Scotland/UK.
• Cruz is for immediate and total repeal of Obamacare.

“Single payer” is healthcare policy jargon. Most people don’t know what it really means: government control of every aspect of medical care delivery, how many doctors, in what specialties, what treatments are allowed and for whom, and price controls that drive hospitals, doctors, home health agencies, hospices, medical device makers, and pharmaceutical companies out of business. All of the controls implicit in “single-payer” healthcare mean patients lose access to medical care.

Cruz supports a return to the free market, giving patients more control, and portability, more choices of what insurance to buy and what treatments to use. It is freedom that has allowed the innovation making American medicine the best in the world, with the best survival times for critical illnesses.

I have personally experienced being a patient for major medical emergencies and surgeries in two free-market systems (U.S. and Santiago, Chile) plus 3 single-payer systems (UK, Argentina, and Canada). I will tell you unequivocally that for top quality, best outcomes, and survival, the U.S. and Chile lead the world.

“Single-payer” government-run systems everywhere, as I experienced as a patient, have three consistent, systemic, and immutable flaws:

• Long waits for access to primary medical care, even longer for specialists;
• Reduced options for state-of-the-art treatment and choice of specialists;
• Reduced quality of care. Simply look at the VA here in the U.S. to see how the single payer treats our veterans.

To take an approach from business, at which Trump clearly excels: check the bottom line. In every example of single-payer systems, the bottom line is the same: Patients lose.

Some patients lose their lives waiting for care. Some lose critical function unable to get timely treatment. Most lose quality of life.

I doubt that Trump would accept such poor quality outcomes for his business enterprises. Why should we accept these poor results for medical care that affects patients’ lives?

Since Trump’s business success has come from free market opportunities that would have been denied him in a “single payer” buyer’s monopoly (or monopsony), I respectfully recommend that he re-evaluate his position on whether single payer “works well” for patients with serious medical problems.

On the issue of freedom, and thus excellence in medicine, Senator Cruz and Dr. Ben Carson are exactly right: Obamacare must be repealed in its monstrous entirety. The GOP members of Congress, and other Presidential candidates, have been talking about “tweaking” or “fixing” Obamacare rather than repealing it.

Think about it. You would not want to “tweak” or “fix” a bomb under your house! You’d want it dismantled and removed. Obamacare is a bomb already exploding healthcare costs, closing hospitals and doctors’ offices, and reducing patients’ choices of physicians and hospitals.

Mr. Trump’s “single-payer” model of government micro-management, restricted options, and price controls do not work any better in medicine than in business.

The first GOP debate certainly created a firestorm on many issues. I work in Arizona and Texas, so I know the border issues in depth, particularly as they place heavy burdens on the medical system and taxpayers. Cruz and Trump are both right on immigration.

On medicine, Cruz and Carson see the most clearly. Free markets are crucial for business—including the business of medical care.

Medicine, however, is more than a business: it is patients’ lives at stake.

Decisions in medicine belong in the hands of patients and the doctors they choose: not in the hands of third parties, such as insurers under Obamacare dictates, or government as “single-payer.” Cruz and Carson support return to patient-centered medicine. I approve this message.

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For further substantiation, see Forbes link here:  No, Donald Trump, Single-Payer Health Care Doesn’t ‘Work Incredibly Well’ In Canada & Scotland

Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D., is Chief Medical Officer of Med Expert Chile, SpA, an international medical consulting company based in Santiago, Chile whose mission is high quality, lower cost medical care focused on preserving medical freedom, privacy, and the Oath of Hippocrates commitment to individual patients. Dr. Vliet is a past Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). Dr. Vliet also has an active US medical practice in Tucson AZ and Dallas TX specializing in preventive and climacteric medicine with an integrated approach to evaluation and treatment of women and men with complex medical and hormonal problems. Dr. Vliet received a NECO 2014 Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the Arizona Foundation for Women 2007 Voice of Women award for her pioneering medical and educational advocacy for overlooked hormone connections in women’s health. She received her M.D. degree and internship in Internal Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, and completed specialty training at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She earned her B.S. and Master’s degrees from the College of William and Mary in Virginia. Dr. Vliet has appeared on FOX NEWS, Cavuto, Stuart Varney Show, Fox and Friends, Sean Hannity and many nationally syndicated radio shows across the country as well as numerous Healthcare Town Halls addressing the economic and medical impact of the 2010 healthcare law. Dr. Vliet is a past co-host of America’s Fabric radio show. Dr. Vliet’s health books include: It’s My Ovaries, Stupid; Screaming To Be Heard: Hormonal Connections Women Suspect– And Doctors STILL Ignore; Women, Weight and Hormones; The Savvy Woman’s Guide to Great Sex, Strength, and Stamina, and The Savvy Woman’s Guide to PCOS. Dr. Vliet’s websites are http://www.HerPlace.com, and http://www.MedExpertChile.com.

By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D., http://HerPlace.com

The Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, is one of the lesser known features of “healthcare reform” tucked away in the thousands of pages of the “Stimulus Bill” from 2009 and the healthcare law passed in March 2010.

Just exactly what is IPAB and how does it affect your life and health, and your access to medical care? And how does IPAB fit with our Constitutional Republic and our guarantees to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” under the US Constitution?

IPAB is a panel of unelected, government-appointed bureaucrats set up under the guise of “efficiency” and “clinical effectiveness” to “recommend” cuts to Medicare services in order to “bend the cost curve downward.” That is government-speak for “spend less money on patient care.”

IPAB is a threat to your health, and your life, if you are the patient whose care is denied because of your age, your condition, and cost based on how many “quality” years you are expected to live.

IPAB is set up to function exactly like the rationing board of the National Health Service (NHS) in Britain, called National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE). The strong arm of NICE prevents NHS doctors from prescribing state-of-the-art drugs for breast, stomach, lung, and prostate cancer or diseases like multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and many others.

IPAB is also charged with slowing the growth of payments to doctors and hospitals, reducing the rate of medication reimbursement under Medicare, and “reducing waste” in Medicare spending. “Waste,” however, is defined solely by bureaucrats, and may include medicine you actually need.

An 80-year-old patient recently said, “The pharmacist just told me that Medicare is no longer going to pay for my heart medicine because I am now too old.” His choice? Pay out of pocket or die.

Recently, the government quietly directed Medicare to cut reimbursement for 4 million diabetic seniors by 66% and also reduced the number of companies that are allowed to supply blood sugar monitoring supplies from more than a thousand to 15. Older patients are already being hurt by Obamacare reductions in Medicare services.

Dr. Jane Orient, Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons said “Even the American Medical Association (AMA), which endorsed ObamaCare, is calling for repeal of IPAB, citing worries about payment cuts, lack of ‘meaningful dialogue’ with Congress, and potentially limited access to care.”

The AMA avoids strong words like “death,” “dictatorship,” “rationing,” and “unconstitutional.” But as physicians, we do use those terms because our focus is on the lives of our patients. And IPAB is very bad “medicine” for older patients whose medical care is being cut so that Medicaid can be expanded for younger people.

What about IPAB and abuse of power as a threat to the Constitution? In her new book, Beating Obamacare, Betsy McCaughey explains it like this: “IPAB is a radical departure from Medicare as we’ve known it. In creating IPAB, Congress cedes nearly all control over Medicare spending to unelected bureaucrats. Congress is admitting it doesn’t want to make unpopular cuts and then face seniors. The Obama health law says the whatever cuts IPAB ‘recommends’ automatically go into affect unless Congress enacts a different set of Medicare changes with the same net savings. That arrangement—making IPAB into a lawmaking body—turns the U.S. Constitution on its head, many argue.”

As a physician who took an Oath to serve the individual patient to the best of my ability and judgment, I believe it is a major assault on our very right to life to have unelected, politically appointed bureaucrats making medical decisions—especially without any right of appeal or Congressional oversight or judicial review. In passing the healthcare law, the Democrats ruled out any review of IPAB diktats now or in the future—an astonishing abuse of power.

Life is a gift from our Creator, not the government. IPAB must be repealed before we become like Britain: a place where old people are condemned to die sooner than God intended.

Dr. Vliet will be a featured speaker at the prestigious Harvest Celebration and Casey Research Conference, March 14 – 19 in Cafayate, Argentina.

Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. is a preventive and climacteric medicine specialist with medical practices in Tucson AZ and Dallas TX that take an integrated approach to evaluation and treatment of women and men with complex medical and hormonal problems. Dr. Vliet is also President of International Health Strategies, Ltd., whose mission is twofold: liberty and privacy in treatment options and preservation of the Oath of Hippocrates focus on the individual patient.

DISCLAIMER: Dr. Vliet speaks as an independent physician. Dr. Vliet has no financial ties to any health care system, pharmaceutical company, or health insurance plan. Her allegiance and advocacy is to and for patients.

By: Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D., http://HerPlace.com

Many promises were made to different groups to sell the new healthcare law to a skeptical public. Having watched the medical insurance games–government and private–for my whole career, I thought these promises were too good to be true.

What is coming to light now is like “The Big Con” that Robert Redford’s character skillfully pulled off in the classic movie The Sting. Only the Pelosi-Reid-Obama trio forced through an even bigger “Sting” on the entire country, especially the very constituencies they promised their healthcare law would help.

One by one, the political promises fall like dominoes. The very groups that strongly supported government control of healthcare are now some of the ones getting stung badly. The effects are like a swarm of killer bees suddenly descending on the unsuspecting, stinging everyone in sight.

Our personal New Year’s sting was a 22.5% jump in my husband’s Medicare supplemental premium for the 2013 renewal. Reason: Obamacare regulations and mandates.

Then I received the notices for our employees’ health insurance premiums: more premium increases – even though we have a high deductible, catastrophic illness type plan to help keep costs affordable.

Next, the IRS projected premiums of $20,000 per year for a family of four. Affordable? For whom? This sting is a $3,000 to $5,000 increase instead of the promised $2,500 savings per year—a miscalculation of $5,500 to $7,500 for a family of four.

Large national restaurant chains are cutting employees’ hours because they cannot afford to pay the high health insurance premiums for “fulltime” employees. How can the middle class make ends meet on part-time work?

Liberal groups that overwhelmingly supported Obamacare are also getting stung. Of course, these announcements came after the election, in which these constituent groups supported Obama in droves:

• College students: Before Obamacare, young healthy college students paid average health insurance premiums that only cost $100-600 per year. Obamacare mandates mean that premiums are rising to $1,700 to $2,000 per year. In New Jersey, where health insurance is mandatory for college students, this is indeed a huge sting!
• College faculty: At many universities, faculty hours are being cut back to less than 29 hours a week to avoid the costly Obamacare premiums.
• Union members: the sting of Obamacare has come in many forms, so Big Labor is now seeking waivers for union members.
• Smokers: Many who fell for Obama’s promise of “free” or lower cost medical care are learning that their premiums will be 50% higher than nonsmokers –up to $4,250 dollars per year in excess costs for smokers age 55 and older.
• Employers: Paying for all the Obamacare mandates in employer-provided health insurance adds $1.79 to the hourly rate to hire an employee. That’s why many are not hiring.
• Seniors: After the election, seniors are learning that all the promises of “no cutbacks” in their medical care were false.

The Senior Sting is especially ugly. One 80-year-old patient told me his heart medicine was no longer covered, “because I am too old now.” Preventive services and cancer screenings for the older patients, such as prostate and breast cancer checks, are being cut to pay for “free” birth control pills. As of 2012, hospitals are paid more to provide fewer surgeries. Popular and lower cost Medicare Advantage plans are being cut back or eliminated.

Then there is the Medicaid sting: States that are expanding Medicaid plan to cut payments to doctors and hospitals to about 56% of what private insurance companies pay. This means more patients lined up for fewer doctors and hospitals.

And let’s not forget the privacy sting. Your electronic health record will be used to decide what treatments you will be allowed. The IRS will be collecting expanded personal information about your income, habits and family to decide what to sting you on penalties.

In short—old or young, black or white, liberal or conservative—once Obamacare was forced on patients across the country (except Congress and the President)– everyone has gotten The Sting….in the Biggest Con of all.

Dr. Vliet will be a featured speaker at the Harvest Celebration and Casey Research Conference, March 14 – 19 in Cafayate, Argentina.

Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. is a preventive and climacteric medicine specialist with medical practices in Tucson AZ and Dallas TX that take an integrated approach to evaluation and treatment of women and men with complex medical and hormonal problems. Dr. Vliet is also President of International Health Strategies, Ltd., whose mission is twofold: liberty and privacy in treatment options and preservation of the Oath of Hippocrates focus on the individual patient.

Dr. Vliet is the 2007 recipient of the Voice of Women award from the Arizona Foundation for Women for her pioneering advocacy for the overlooked hormone connections in women’s health. Dr. Vliet received her M.D. degree and internship in Internal Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, then completed specialty training at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Vliet is a Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

Dr. Vliet has appeared on FOX NEWS, Cavuto, Stuart Varney Show, Fox and Friends and syndicated radio shows across the country addressing the economic and medical impact of the new healthcare bill.

Dr. Vliet’s books include: It’s My Ovaries, Stupid!; Screaming To Be Heard: Hormonal Connections Women Suspect– And Doctors STILL Ignore; Women, Weight and Hormones; The Savvy Woman’s Guide to PCOS, The Savvy Woman’s Guide to Testosterone.

Dr. Vliet’s medical and educational website is http://www.HerPlace.com.

DISCLAIMER: Dr. Vliet speaks as an independent physician. Dr. Vliet has no financial ties to any health care system, pharmaceutical company, or health insurance plan. Her allegiance and advocacy is to and for patients.

Health law based on bad economics

Article by Jane M. Orient, M.D.

The Green family, owners of the craft goods store Hobby Lobby, has taken a courageous stand for religious freedom and for life by defying the Obamacare mandate requiring employers to provide coverage for their employees’ emergency contraceptives, which violate their religious views on abortion. Why is our entire nation not reeling from shock over this administration’s tyrannical action? How shall we characterize a government that would severely punish people for living by their conscience and refusing to participate in an act they — along with millions, perhaps even a majority, of Americans — regard as evil?