The War on Healthcare: Patients Who Hate Doctors

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Dr. Maurice Bernstein on his Bioethics Discussion Blog has an interesting discussion going on about people who hate doctors and their reasons. Reading through the large number of responses located at http://bioethicsdiscussion.blogspot.com/2005/06/i-hate-doctors.html , a common theme emerges: those who are well educated and particularly those with a PhD really hate those with an MD degree. This is no surprise to me as the current American healthcare system pits patients vs. doctors in a battle. Here a few snippets from the comments: 1 of the comments: “I hate arrogant, sadistic, amoral, money-grubbing scumbags, and unfortunately, it seems far too many of these types have weaseled their way into the medical profession. I am one of the millions of people with chronic pain in this country who is at the “mercy” of the American medical profession, and thus cannot get my pain … Read more

Note on Malware: Godaddy Shared Servers Compromised

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Unfortunately, last September 14, 2011, the .htaccess on this site which is hosted on Godaddy shared servers was compromised. For more information on this compromise please see http://blog.sucuri.net/2011/09/godaddy-shared-servers-compromised-htaccess-redirection-to-sokoloperkovuskeci-com.html This was quickly identified and the .htaccess file was fixed. Because of this, this site was temporarily blacklisted by Google which has since been removed by Google. Further portions of this site were recently down due to migrating the old servers to different Godaddy servers which hopefully will be faster and help prevent against future attacks.

Dumb Americans Trust Their Doctors for No Valid Reason

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Gawker has written an article titled “Stupid Americans Trust Doctors” written by Parenne and published on June 17, 2009, located over at http://gawker.com/5294409/stupid-americans-trust-doctors in which it says: ” Doctors are lazy and greedy and do not care about you. But Americans do not know this! Because of the TV, they think doctors would come up with a good national health care plan. They would not. If the doctors made a plan, it would involve paying them even more money to not bother keeping up with advances in their fields and not ever letting you sue them when they hurt or kill you.” Here is one female doctor’s view on why she went into medicine via http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/jul/02/the-health-reform-we-need-are-not-getting/?page=3 “I am a doctor and… yes, I love the money! Its amazing, you gomers keep coming back to us and we just sprinkle a little Rx here or a little … Read more

Michael Arrington Forced Out of Techcrunch

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The popular blog Techcrunch was founded in 2005 by Michael Arrington. He then sold Techcrunch in 2010 to AOL for somewhere around $30 million. Now he has been forced out of his own blog which is now owned by AOL with a statement posted earlier today on Techcrunch located at http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/12/deciding-to-move-on/ Here is another article that expands on the events http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904265504576566694092557886.html “I Sold My Company (to a Bunch of Idiots) and Expected to Still Maintain Control Over It.” -Michael Arrington Here are some videos of AOL back when it literally seemed like everyone was using it in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Source: http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2010/09/28/aol-acquires-techcrunch-a-good-day-for-arrington-a-bad-day-for-his-readers/

Haggling With Doctors: Lower the Cost of Your Medical Bills

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Consumer Reports has recently put out an article by John Santa M.D., M.P.H. titled “How to haggle with your doctor” published in September 2011 and located at http://www.consumerreports.org/health/doctors-hospitals/how-to-haggle-with-your-doctor/overview/index.htm The article recommends that if you are healthy you talk to your doctor about costs. Dr. Santa touches on the fact that some doctors will pursue more aggressive treatment options due to perhaps financial motivations and because of fear of being sued. There is a focus on looking over your hospital bill to make sure everything you were billed for was done and priced properly and inspect for any possible errors. In addition, Dr. Santa recommends that if you are having an elective procedure that you take time to conduct a lot of research on different providers and options that may be available. Dr. Santa went on the NBC Today Show recently in … Read more