Truth About Our Medical Care Corporation
Truth About Our Medical Care Corporation
Sent by JUDY CHO | June 4, 2022
My husband and I were both born in June and both of my kids were born in July. Instead of having extravagant birthdays every year, we’ve decided on having annual summer family trips. Last year we went to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and the Grand Canyon. This year we are headed to Costa Rica for my husband’s 40th birthday.
We want to eventually make it back to the motherland (Korea) but we are waiting for travel restrictions to lift. Hopefully, it’s sooner than later.
STUDY OF THE WEEK — Physician Payments Sunshine Act (and Open Payments)
In 2010, the U.S. government passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Section 6002 of the ACA, commonly referred to as the Physician Payments Sunshine Act (PPSA) requires pharmaceutical and medical device companies to track and report payments to U.S. physicians and hospitals.
The Sunshine Act was designed to bring transparency to any financial relationships between physicians, hospitals, and drug companies.
Trillions of dollars transfer annually between medicine, research, and pharmaceutical sales. There’s no question that there are opportunities for collusion, bribes, and fraudulent activities, especially at the expense of the patient.
Nearly any payment or other transfer of value made by pharmaceutical manufacturers to U.S. physicians or hospitals is reportable.
Some examples that need to be reported:
- Business meals with any educational or business discussion
- Consulting services
- Education (reprints, textbooks, etc.)
- Lodging and travel expenses during contracted services
- Royalties and licensing fees
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) publishes the data for all manufacturers annually on June 30th.
You can read more about the specifics of the Sunshine Act and Open Payments, here.
While it seems compliance may be difficult to assess, it’s really quite shocking how much physicians and hospitals make from drug and device manufacturers.
Excerpt from Carnivore Cure:
Most doctors receive an industry payout for prescribing brand-name drugs and devices.
A Harvard study shows that doctors that get these payouts are five percent more likely to prescribe these drugs.
The top three highest paid doctors in 2018 made over $75M from pharmaceutical and device company payouts alone. You can check to see if your doctor received any drug or device company money in 2018 at Dollars for Docs (Figure 11.14).
You can also search a 2009–2013 database that has 3.5 million records of 17 pharmaceutical companies, disclosing payouts of $4 billion to doctors and hospitals.
The truth is that doctors who received company money tend to prescribe more brand-name medications.
Now we may not care if our insurance covers our medication, but we should care. We may not pay out of pocket for brand-name medications but when our insurance company ends up paying more, we all end up covering that cost when we renew our annual health insurance. There’s a reason our deductibles keep going up but our coverage gets more shoddy.
Insurance is a booming business. Just in the first quarter of 2021, UnitedHealth Group reported $5 billion in profit. It’s an increase of more than 45% compared to the first quarter of 2020 ($3.6 billion).
$5 billion in profits. In just three months.
UnitedHealth Group was my health coverage when I was in the intensive eating disorder facility. After a couple of weeks in the intensive care facility, United denied coverage based on my bloodwork. I wasn’t sick enough to get care.
Either I paid the $1500 daily fee or I moved down to a lower level of care.
I moved down.
I moved from 10 hours of daily care to 3 hours, two times a week.
The sad part of it all is that I tried to stay in intensive care for treatment. I really wanted to heal. I wrote in my journals that I felt suicidal (journals that the United auditors would see) but it didn’t matter.
United denied me because my lab markers were healthy.
Maybe I was too healthy but there were girls in the program that needed the support. Eventually, they also got denied.
Billions of dollars of profit and yet UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer, is one of the hardest insurance companies to get coverage. (Try to get dietitian sessions covered with United).
Oh, and if you’re wondering, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, Andrew Witty, earned over $18.4M in 2021 alone. Interestingly, he earned less than the CEO of Cigna.
We no longer hold insurance with any of these big conglomerates. I have access to all labs and testing but for big emergencies, we are members of Samaritan Ministries. It’s a healthshare community that tries to help one another in need. Every month, we write a check out to a real person in the community that has a medical emergency.
I’d rather give our money to a real person than any of these big companies that denied me services during my darkest days.
$5 billion in profit in just January, February, and March of 2021.
SOCIAL MEDIA HIGHLIGHT
WATCH THE FULL VIDEO CLIP, HERE.
Oh, how history repeats itself…
Being part of “alternative” health isn’t easy.
🍟If I wanted it easy, I would have picked a mainstream narrative. Telling you to eat everything in moderation is easy — easier than telling you to eat only meat for healing.
🎙I never planned to play on the edge of health and wellness. But my life’s journey brought me here. Being plant-based nearly took my life.
It’s probably why I share things that land me in IG jail. Funny how history repeats itself.
🤯As I healed my weakened body with fats and meats, I was in complete disillusionment with the nutritional misinformation and medical recommendations from standard care.
The more I dug, the more I saw how wrong the system was.
❓Why are we giving diabetics more insulin instead of fixing the root cause?
Maybe less glucose, instead of more insulin?
❓Why are we telling people to take statins when >50% of the people that suffer heart attacks have normal ranges of cholesterol? And why are we recommending reducing cholesterol levels when our brain is 60% cholesterol?
And even then, LDL cholesterol alone does not determine heart disease.
❓Why are we taking antidepressants like SSRIs when 90% of our serotonin is made in our gut? And same with dopamine and even melatonin? Yes, the gut serotonin doesn’t cross the blood-brain barrier, but the body is a bunch of chemical reactions.
It’s all connected.
❓Why are we told to take birth control pills to manage acne when we should fix the imbalance with our hormones?
❓And why are we never told that these meds tax our detox pathways, require excess nutrients, and also deplete others?
How many times have we been told to take CoQ10 for statins? Or folate for BCPs?
⛑It’s not easy. But I’ll always fight for truths and an alternative narrative for optimal health so we can enjoy this life that’s worth living.
📽Learn more. Watch “Money Driven Medicine.”
CATG PODCAST: Ep 62 Overcoming Struggles
In this week’s Cutting Against the Grain episode, Laura and I chat about how to overcome struggles, especially with diet.
- Acute vs. chronic stress
- Food for comfort
- The physical and emotional side with food
- Other addictions
- How Laura breaks food cravings
- How to get back on track
- #Carnivore75Hard
- See the long-term view
- Crash diets
- Some things to consider
- A moment of honest, courageous reflection
- Win the day
PODCAST SPONSOR: KetoCon
I’m excited to share that I’ll be speaking at KetoCon Austin and also part of the brand-new Carnivore panel July 8–10th!
KetoCon is an annual event in Austin, TX. It’s the largest event in the U.S. focused solely on the science and stories of living a ketogenic diet and lifestyle.
As part of the conference, there are over fifty speakers that include medical professionals, researchers, bloggers, tech gurus, and fitness experts and over 250 vendors that share products and services that help your ketogenic lifestyle.
I’m excited to share that Ketocon has given our podcast listeners a discount!
Use the discount code: CATG10 at checkout and receive a 10% discount code on the 3-Day General Admission pass.
With your 3 day pass, you will be moved with incredibly inspiring stories, new friendships and keto cooking demos. There are even learning opportunities for entrepreneurs and coaches.
It’s an incredible experience you don’t want to miss. I hope to see you there!
Make sure to get your discounted tickets before the sale ends! And don’t forget to use code CATG10 for 10% off your tickets!
NUTRITION WITH JUDY PODCAST: Unveiling the Corruption of Our Dietary Recommendations – Dr. Gary Fettke
I’m VERY excited to sit down with Dr. Gary Fettke. If you don’t know Dr. Gary Fettke’s story, he tried to save his patients from amputations by recommending dietary changes. (especially for type 2 diabetics).
Those recommendations landed him on trial and in a lot of hot water. Sounds like Rockefeller antics in action. Dr. Fettke eventually won his case after long, hard years of trial. But he is one of the trailblazers that paved the way so doctors can talk about nutrition to their patients.
But why was Dr. Fettke even in court for sharing nutrition?
These are the questions we need to consider when we consider our modern-day health care system. Does health care really want you healthy? Or does it need to make money like any business?
This is why advocating for your own health and eating the right foods for your body is critical. Because No one cares more for your health than you. ♥️
We discuss the following:
- Dr. Gary Fettke vs. Big Food
- Nutritional recommendations
- Thoughts on the low-carb diet
- Thoughts on breakfast being the most important meal of the day
- Thoughts on bland cereal
- The villainization of meat
- Food addiction
- The impact of the pandemic on our lives
Part two comes out next week and it’s all about nutrition specifics!
NwJ NEW ARTICLE: The Power of a CGM
This article shares my personal thoughts and experience with a CGM. I also share why I’ve become a fan of CGMs for temporary use.
NwJ INSIDER TIPS
This week I shared about Jack Links beef jerky in my Instagram and Facebook stories. Some people were upset I was sharing Jack Links with its less-than-ideal ingredients. As a nutritionist, I know that.
I purposely shared.
It makes my life easier to share only perfection. But I refuse to advocate for perfection because it’s not real life. As much as I advocate for wellness with the proper foods, I am human and will occasionally eat less than ideal foods.
In next week’s Cutting Against the Grain podcast, Laura and I talk about seed oils and these less than ideal foods in detail. Get ready to feel emotional.
It’s what we eat 85–90% of the time that determines our health. I’d rather eat 90% well than try to eat 100% well and trip up half the time.
I want people to get to root-cause healing and sometimes that does require 100% clean eating. But most people can heal with even 90% clean eating. I don’t want to be the person that causes people to feel shame for less than perfect foods.
Try to eat as well as possible and on the days you can’t or don’t, for all the good days you’ve taken care of your body, your body should be able to handle it.
(Don’t take this as permission to eat unwell.)
Life is messy. Health shouldn’t be only for the perfectly perfect.
Frankly, perfectly imperfect is the best place to be: not enough pressure to be perfect but enough pressure to keep trying.
Thank you for being part of this community. ♥️
Make sure to share this newsletter with your friends and loved ones as all freebies, inspirational hope, and evidence-based research is shared here first.
with ♥️ and hope for healing,
DISCLAIMER:
While I am a nutritional therapy practitioner and provide nutritional support, I am not providing medical advice. Any information provided in regards to nutritional therapy should not be considered medical advice or treatment. Always consult your primary care physician or medical team.