If employed by Chicago, you’ll take whatever “preventive” medicine the city demands—or pay far more in insurance premiums!
Under Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan, unveiled last week, city employees must enroll in a conventional medicine–structured “wellness program” to manage chronic health problems such as obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Employees who do not participate in the program will be required to pay an extra $50 per month in insurance premiums for each family member covered.
The Chicago program includes “enhanced screening and wellness training to establish benchmarks and long-term goals, including weight loss, medication, exercise, and kicking the smoking habit.” A form of this plan appears in the healthcare reform act as well—which should be no surprise, as Rahm Emanuel was one of its chief architects.
So imagine this picture. Conventional medical doctors tell you to take your blood pressure medication, whether you think it wise or not, whether you want to try natural alternatives or not. And if you don’t, you pay. Same for taking statins for high cholesterol, medications which many medical professionals agree are really dangerous to your health.
Preventive medicine is a hotly debated topic, as it should be. But for Rahm Emmanuel, it’s one-size-fits-all. You had better have your blood sugar at a specified level, or you will be required to take highly dangerous diabetes drugs. At least they won’t fire you or put you in jail if you don’t comply—it will just cost you money. So far.
This kind of incipient medical fascism is mainly a gift to Big Pharma, and we can be sure that Big Pharma is cheering Emmanuel on.
93 comments
Comments are closed.
This will eventually lead to how many children you can have. What you can and cannot eat. Maybe even when to go to bed and when to wake up. We all better wake up soon!
Better vote for Ron Paul if you value your liberty.
This is just another example of a dog serving his true master. BTW, if you think any of those GOP dogs are any different, think again. Their solitary priority is objective money, not any subjective notions you may have of liberty, although they will tell you whatever they think you want to hear so you will vote for them. So long as voters fail to hold electeds accountable for their voting record, they will continue to serve whoever gives them the biggest donations. In a post “Citizens United” America, they can take even fatter checks from Big Pharma, oil companies, Koch brother billionaires or whomever they please.
Solution? Know who serves your best interests. If you don’t make more than $250K net income per year, then you are a fool to vote for GOP candidates b/c they don’t care about improving the quality of your life. They prove this with their voting record. They serve big corporate interests, end of story.
The politicians had best wake up and smell the coffee. Nearly 3%of the population buy raw milk, and at least 30% of seniors are aware that there are alternatives to main line medical treatment. I’m waiting for one of the candidates, when asked what they will do about medicare state that it will begin paying for some supplements.
As far as Chicago goes, they are making the expensive machines that go ping available. Nothing stops them from eating healthy or pursuing alternatives. Most MD’s don’t want to hear what “else” you are doing because they would have to account for it in their reports and most don’t have a clue.
A friend reports that the Dr. treating her fibro told her… “I dont know what you are doing and I don’t want to know but keep doing it.”
i checked the voting record. you should too if you’re going to use it as a way to discredit specific people. Dr. Paul’s voting record is… let’s just say he’s not your typical GOP.
This is what we get by allowing the corporations and rich to run the country while we watch the Kardashians or some garbage. The legacy is toxic GMO “food”, to kill you. Fluoride in your water even though it is proven bad. Your children will be taken from you and be given chemo if you ask for a second opinion re childhood cancer, if Gov Brown in Calif signs this stupid bill your 12 yr old child can be vaccinated w/Gardasil, Hepatitis B vaccine or any new “STD” vaccines made in the future WITHOUT your knowledge or consent. But you have to pay for adverse reactions if they hit. We have earned the privilege of having FDA SWAT raids on alternative health care providers, supplement manufacturers, and raw milk farmers. And the list goes on while the corporations like GE pay no taxes and get tax refunds.
I hardly think that the Chicago program would dictate the drug or method of maintaining safe blood pressures or sugar levels. Freedom of choice still survives. I have not read the program but I must assume that there is an appeal process. One must not assume the worst about a plan until the plan is read and understood. Helping people stop smoking is a proper goal and for some people a monetary penalty will help them stop. My dad stopped in the 1950’s because he realized he’d have more money to save or invest or enjoy. Our bodies are funny. People can eat veggies, not smoke and get exercise and still not live as long as a friend or relative who abused tobacco. Something about our genes probably.
You need to learn the art of suspending disbelief ( I can’t believe they would do that!, I can’t believe my representative is morally bankrupt!, I can’t believe the wealthy and powerful are only out to enrich themselves at my expense!, I can’t believe big pharma, the cancer industry, and corporate america own and control the FDA, CDC, EPA, USDA, FTC, congress, Justice Dept. state gov’ts, etc.) Why gee! They are only interested in my health, well being and the economic standard I am able to achieve in an economy they and wall street wrecked! How dare us think otherwise.
The road to truth: 1. Suspend disbelief. 2. Be skeptical. 3. Be pessimistic and 4. Follow the money.
I just finished reading Orwell’s “1984.” Everything that you stated was an integral aspect to the fascist society of Oceania (which included the US, Canada, Mexico, and Britain.) One was even told WHEN to exercise!
Every worker should view this as a stomping of their rights, and all should strike. We continue to put up with small chiseling s of our rights. I wonder if and when Americans are going to wake up and smell the corruption from the big business controlling us!? I wouldn’t take an ace inhibitor, or a statin no matter what the rules were. If only people would stick together and stop these companies from controlling our lives. I believe some day, That this will be known as the dark age of medicine. The age when men/women/children, were forced to take medicines that actually kill them. History will look upon the age of big pharma as the corrupt, murdering industry that it is. In the mean time, they get to rule for the sake of the almighty buck without regard for any of us. United citizens could change it all. Unity is might; it’s a shame people are not more educated on how pharmaceuticals are killing them., We do have the power to change it all,; just in our numbers alone. So many people are snowed with what they are told about their so called medical treatments. A sad state of affairs in my opinion.
This is a more complicated issue. I like the idea of getting people into a wellness program to tackle the national obesity and Diabetes epidemic, for which we are all paying with higher insurance premiums and taxpayer money for the millions of uninsured. Some people do not have the discipline to adhere to a healthier lifestyle and so therefore they need some get along help. I do not agree that convential medicine approach is the answer either, it should be one’s choice as to a convential or integrated practitioner treatment. I work as a nurse and see firsthand the crisis developing in regards to rapidly increasing healthcare expenses due to obesity, Diabetes and the consequences such as cardiovascular diseases, kidney failure with need for dialysise, leg ulcers and amputations. The annual costs for one patient receiving dialysis are staggering. We have miilions on dialysis. Smoking related diseases are adding to these costs. Who is supposed to pay for all this? Everyone of us is. I also practice as an acupuncturist and know that taking care of oneself prevents much suffering. Chronic diseases would be managed much better with therapies, such as acupuncture, nutrition and education in lifestyle changes. Those should be covered by health insurance, maybe for an additional cost per month. First and foremost people’s attitude towards their body and health has to change. It is each individuals responsibility to maintain their own health, not to be a burden on the healthcare system or expect the doctor to “fix” them, when things go south. As long as so many think they can have their cake and eat it too, things will not get better. And despite popular believe there is not a pill for everything. But I see it all the time. People come to the hospital and expect to get fixed, then go home and continue with the same as before. Most are so brainwashed by the medical establishment and the pharmaceutical TV commercials, that they can’t even fathom the idea of acupuncture being a viable choice. Maybe a paradigm shift is needed to awaken people or our healthcare expenses need to skyrocket past our GDP to get the whole system moving in a more wholesome direction. And maybe the Chicago mandate is a tentative step in a different direction to get people thinking. It may not be the ultimate solution.
Remember: Rahm Emanuels brother is the Doctor that worked on the Obama Health Care bill!
Fascism, you are right ANH. Thank you for calling it exactly what it is and standing up for freedom.
This is only the beginning. Dictatorial boundaries have a way of encroaching more and more, over time.
We have simply got to find a way to stop this.
If we don’t know how, we need to brainstorm as a public.
Maybe consider leaving the country and paying taxes elsewhere, as one solution. Legitimately cut back tax payments by working as self-employed or independent contractor, increasing the write-offs from being an employee. Claim as many legitimate write-offs as you can. Stop paying this nonsense. Organize protests (peaceful, non-violent ones) and boycots and “we will not comply” messages. This has to be stopped.
Last but not least, expose the voting records of those in office Whodunnit and get to work with the peaceful, legal pen to get them ousted from public office.
This cannot be allowed to stand.
please leave. No one is saying you can not be a smoking, obese, sedintary lump if you choose to be. We who choose to live healthy lifestyles are just sick of paying for your choices.
I think what lone voice is getting at is that government has no right to dictate every aspect of our lives. One has every right to live a healthy lifestyle just as much as one has the right to choose not to live one. It seems that Chicago almost wants to force prescription drugs down people’s throats, obviously to solely benefit Big Pharma. The major issues with poor health today are a for-profit medical industry and negative societal expectations (long working hours preventing adequate exercise and diet, environmental poisons, FDA-approved poisons in our food, over-medication, and the simple fact that people are getting poorer, and the rich are getting richer.)
I, for one, do not want the government to dictate when I go to the doctor, or require me to take unnecessary medication when more natural means may help with the problem. It just seems like the government is catering to the corporations, as usual, and us citizens are stuck footing the bill and further sacrificing our Constitutional Rights.
Peaceful protests will get you arrested as those who protested outside the NYSE….This may be a (thinly-disguised ) attempt to MANDATE for the future mandatory (mercury-laden) flu shots for all, a big boon to Big Pharma at $ 95–$ 198 per patient……and, also Gardisil shots for pre teens , all of which are dangerous and do nothing to prevent the (illnesses ) for which they are marketed and adverstised to prevent….I, myself, have elected to withdraw from the Medicare program this year ( a Social Security rep SCREAMED at me ) and, instead, I sock my $$$$ into pure vitamin C and other anti oxidents, etc…..I eat little processed foods, buying fresh, and I just use my common sense….at 57, I take no meds, have not had a flu shot since 1982 (active military) and I will not even take a tetanus booster….***** Let us remember, way back in time…In London, centuries ago, the “cure” for most illnesses was blood-letting with leeches at the local barber shop…..Fast forward in time to +50 years in the future….Those people will be looking backwards to us ( in 2011) and laughing and calling us fools because of our radiation and chemo and barbaric surgeries , which, by the way, do nothing to aid cancer , only make the oncologists in excess of + $ 90,000.00 per patient…..It is all about greed and trying to dumb the population down…..and they can also shove their (chem trails) which contain toxic aluminum and cover our crops…..Pure vitamin C morphs into oxygen inside the body within 2 stages….the presence of oxygen renders the following things harmless..( parasites, Candida yeast, bad bacteria and viruses, cancer cells)……and, so it aids weight loss…..I am the ONLY one who did not have the flu last season…..One always has flu viruses…..but only those with weak immune systems develope symptoms of the flu……Cancer has been linked to low levels of vit D3, iodine, sulphur…and magnesium is cheap and a cure-all…….But one cannot patent hydrogen peroxide , nor Epsom salts, nor sunshine……nor maple syrup…and this is really bugging the heck outta Big Pharma……stay cool everyone and keep safe as you can….
How did you get out of paying for Medicare Part B Premiums? I’d like to do the same. I have a late enrollment penalty and am paying about $35 a month more than others. That’s $131 a month I could use for my supplements. I don’t use a regular “doctor” since I stopped taking prescription drugs that caused my health to become worse than without them. I’ve done a lot of research on supplements that wouId be helpful for me. I can’t afford natural supplements that would benefit me because of the cost of Medicare Part B and I can’t even afford any co-pays or co-insurance so I don’t use it. It’s money down the drain for me that I could use for supplements that would be more beneficial for me.
“How did you get out of paying for Medicare Part B Premiums?”
Just call SS and tell them you no longer require part B coverage. Tell them you have lost all faith in Industrial Medicine and “government” for that matter.
Do it now. It will soon be illegal.
Of course you will be “naked” without “coverage”. But this coverage is an illusion. YOUR health is in YOUR hands with or without “coverage”. Without being able to run to the Medical Industry you will be FORCED to research and salubriously solve your health problems.
You will soon figure out that true prevention is the only way to go. Preventative health care and Industrial Medicine are polar opposites. Learning the hundreds of aspects of “modern life” you must avoid to stay healthy takes a little time but is mostly just common sense. By avoiding the Medical Industry you will be avoiding MANY of these threats.
http://healthyprotocols.com/LIST_threats.htm
Amen, brother. There is a cheaper way to stay healthy. Too much fear and brainwashing out there, in addition to people not taking responsibility for their own health.
This sounds like a good idea in theory if that if we have to pay for people who smoke or do other stupid things, that they should be forced to use preventative health care; however, we know where this is going- it will come down to the government forcing dangerous unproven vaccinations on people or they will pay more insurance premiums- either way the cartels win! Either way the people lose- many people will die and have horrible side affects- some of them lifelong from the mafia corporations complete control of government- with none other than the present day Al Capone from Chicago, Obama, leading this.
no way! — before i even finished reading the article – i realized this is another form of dictatorship under the auspices of what others “believe” – and not KNOW to be true – what is best for any one person — there has never been nor will there ever be a “one size fits all” health science – especially when it comes to the human body — what we have here are so-called “one world order” minions that are attempting to put into play their rules — stop the insanity now!!! there’s a great study course called “a course in miracles” online and in book form that states in the preface that:: “nothing real can be threatened – nothing unreal exists” — and the course commences from there — wake up people! — there are 300 million of us out here and we need to stay on top of this form of tyranny! AND, get it! — these people make this stuff up as they go along to comfort and pad their own altered egos and pockets — we as a united front have the power to reject this nonsense! — start VOTING as if your life depends upon it – CAUSE IT DOES!!!!
Some of you sound as if you have never traveled outside your own nieghborhoods. What you are saying is a complete slap in the face of the millions of people who do live in dictatorships, those who have no freedoms. Get some perspective, please!
We may not have it as bad as people in other countries, but there are signs that our government is becoming more and more fascist (the Patriot Act is a grave example.) They often create these laws gradually and the mainstream media (CNN, FOX, MSSNBC, even NPR) has not been reporting violations on our Constitutional Rights. How many protesters are arrested and/or beaten these days? The Tar Sands protest and the current protest in front of Wall Street are recent examples. We are heading into a corporate dictatorship. If we don’t resist now, then it may be too late. The signs are there.
Lee, you may have a point. However, dictatorships are founded based on government control of the economy. This turns around and affects human freedom. THink about it. The boundaries will only encroach all the more, and it is only a matter of time before the loopholes close as a noose around our necks.
We must act, now, before it is too late.
“Get some perspective, please!”
Joe Stalin put your name on a list you were rounded up and disappeared into Siberia never to bee seen again.
Our puppet president can put your name on a list and a tank busting bomb can be dropped on you.
I’ll take Siberia.
Does Mr.Emanuel have to follow the same rules that the public employees do ? Mr. Emanuel IS a public employee.
We have to fight all this MANDATORY practices. There is another that I found ridiculous, every year if you are a health care provider like myself, a Physical Therapist, have to have a PPD test done to see if you have tuberculosis, and in my case I test positive due to I had the vaccine when I was a baby in southamerica, is that I have to have Xrays done. And everybody has this test done over and over and nobody question this practices, I can get either fired or not hired. What do you think of this?
I understand your concern about yearly x-rays. I don’t even like them at the dentist’s. But what would you propose? It bothers me that my fellow nurses in the longterm care facilities are no longer periodically tested for TB, and I’m just referring to the tine test. A few yrs back in my son’t swim class there were children from India that were coughing something horrible and then spitting in the water! Maybe they had TB. Too few people are getting tested. Notice the resurgence?
Seems a bit Orwellian to say the least. I could say more but without using foul language? Maybe not, so I will leave the rest of what I would say up to the imagination of whoever reads this.
This is ridiculous and just what the Capps Law will do.
When wages are not going up, or job opportunities are not popping up, deciding to offer your employees a “choice” which is really no choice at all, is questionable at best. Coming from the man who regarded people who demanded a public option to national healthcare as “retards”, I honestly wonder how he personally profits from it–because I do not think it comes from any great concern for the physical or mental welfare of his city’s employees.
I see this as an attempt to control the lives of people who work for you because you can. This is extremely dangerous, however fulfilling it may be personally, and will ultimately even affect the author of this action in unforeseen and undesirable ways.
Medical fascism – as u said, that’s exactly what it is. Yeah, this needs to be overturned. How does this get defeated? Once it starts in one city…it starts creeping into other cities, and then to the private sector…and then it bites all of us…
The intent of Chicago plan has some merit. I have seen many people quit smoking when companies impose additional insurance costs. That is fair. Why should those who refuse to make lifestyle changes to improve their health, pay the same amount as those who take responsibility for their own health by making good choices? That said, my faith in Big Pharma and the “medical profession” is highly compromised after working well over 20 years as a hospital based RN.
Instead of putting down this plan, perhaps the focus should be on influencing the formulators and implementers of the plan, to include alternative health care. Once that becomes an option in a plan, I think that many people who never considered or even knew about alternative health options, will gravitate toward this much better option.
I just finished watching the film Gandhi. If Americans would just stand together and say “no,” we could have our country back instead of being governed and controlled by the likes of the bankers, pharmaceutical companies and Monsanto. This country is dying.
How much sicker can they make us? They feed us awful food full of unnatural chemicals, they pump our babies full of vaccines, they drug whatever ails us, they pollute our environment, they send our industry to other countries, and they help the banks and corporations who are failing financially while the rest of us lose our homes and our livelihoods.
It’s really easy to become discouraged and complacent. What we need is a spiritual rebirth. We need to believe in freedom again and prosperity and purpose. And we need to vote with our dollars. Buy local. Buy from small producers. Keep $ in America but away from corporations like Monsanto. And stay out of debt. Okay, end of my soapbox.
I think this program is about personal choice.
I have chosen which vaccines my baby get and I decided the schedule. I have found ways around the daycare/school requirements in order to do what is best for my baby. I took that personal choice and forced it on the doctor and laws that were trying to make that choice for me.
I choose what I eat. No one is feeding me. I work and purchase my own food. No one is force feeding me.
When I am sick, I choose to take my herbal antibiotic instead of taking prescription antibiotics. I choose the course of my medical treatment, not my doctors.
We are in a capitalistic country. Laws can only do so much. If everyone is sick and tired of having drugs, processed foods, etc… ‘forced’ upon them, the answer is simple – stop buying them and stop taking them. That is how to send a message that we need change and we will not stand for what is going on. Money talks. If over the next ten years individuals stop buy processed crap and choose herbal or holistic medicine over pharmaceuticals, these industries will suffer and make adjustments to what they push and what they offer or new players will enter the market to fulfill the need. That’s the way to make change happen.
How sensible! Really, you vote with your dollar every time you pay for something. I would give just about anything to have affordable, healthy food, but at this time in Amerika I find it a real struggle and a pain on my pocketbook to eat healthy. Because I am gluten intolerant, allergic to dairy and chemically sensitive because of agent orange exposure in Vietnam I have to eat well and I feel like I pay a big premium for doing so every time I shop. There is a very real reason poor people eat at McDonald’s. I was glad to read here about people refusing to pay for Medicare. I am sure thinking about stopping it also. Thanks for sharing.
You mean well, but I am sorry to say that you are wrong.
When dictatorships take over, they jail you for owning certain books they don ‘t want you to have. I am not talking about porn et al, i am talking about philosophers not on their approval list—benign, good ones. Etc.
You have to stand in line to buy bananas. And ever heard of Christmas oranges? That’s because they are not available year -round in certain countries.
They will control the heat in your own home.
Do you think I am kidding?
I am not making predictions. I am passing on what others from dictatorships have told me, first-hand.
The time will come when we no longer have a choice. We are so blissfully innocent here in the USA because we are accustomed to our freedoms. We can’t imagine certain things. So we think truth tellers are simply paranoid.
We are wrong in so assuming. Check out the facts, with people who have lived in dictatorships.
Whoever posted above that alternative care should be an option too, also had the wrong thought. It’s not about *forced* choices. it’s about *free* choices. Period. That means keeping those kinds of “choices” out of the government’s hands. Period.
DUH!
It’s already started. The company my husband works for is instituting a similar policy. We refused to take part but we get mailings and emails encouraging it constantly.
Damn it—-What can we do to get “thinkers” like this out of public office and out of our lives? I find it incredible that any American can conceive, let alone force such a controlling concept. Maybe he sees the rest of the world as “epsilons”. I don’t think much of what some radical Republicans want either, but they are the lesser of two evils.
Huxley had it right.
I believe many insurance companies have already started “grading” docs’ effectiveness as to whether or not they are using “best practices.’ That would be one size fits all medicine. I’m waiting for insurance companies to start dropping folks who won’t follow these practices, be it a multitude of tests treating our bodies as a “disease looking for a place to happen” or the mandatory drugs.
I like real preventive medicine. Helping folks with diet, exercise, stress reduction, getting rid of toxins in their lives, etc. If only that would happen.
Fascism at its best is not too slowly and very surely encroaching upon our right to make choices, “in the name of protecting the public”. WE ARE THE PUBLIC! Is it really time for a revolution. Can we have a peaceful revolution a la Gandhi in India and take back our country from BIG PHARMA and the AMA?
Rahm usually sounds intelligent….but this is not reasonable. Can there be a letter writing campaign through this website to him? Perhaps he should be visited by some of the wonderful ‘alternative’ medical doctors who practice in and around Chicago?
We have several great raw, live food restaurants in Chicago, too. The owners/chefs are well versed in healing through proper foods.
What a big windfall for the big Pharmaceutical companies! Health is NOT popping more and more dangerous drugs with horrendous side effects, not to mention drug interactions and being robots taking whatever the AMA and FDA thinks is good for you this month! I could see rewards for joining a gym, doing an exercise program like 15 mins. before work or making an exercise break, some deal like “an apple a day” available for employees and those who eat at least one apply get a reward or lowered insurance cost, same for those who quit smoking, lose X amount of weight, etc. BUT we are talking taking serious drugs and not being responsible for one’s health by doing known helpful actions.
I had a similar problem with my son in elementary school in Florida. Every time he did something very well, they would reward him with a colorful candy and his behavior at home got worse and worse. When I found out about the candies, I informed the teacher he was allergic to food coloring and begged she give erasers, stars or some other reward. She refused and he went back to bad behavior so he wouldn’t cause me more trouble at home. Soon after we moved back to Maryland, he hit puberty and outgrew his allergic reaction to certain food coloring.
Schools and governments should not promote unhealthy rewards and focus on pill popping.
Don’t punish people for trying to be healthy – it is our bodies, not the government’s bodies. People are eating way less healthy due to the financial crash so financially penalizing them for doing what they feel is best is adding insult to injury. Government should get out of our personal lives which should include our personal health solutions!!!
One very simple solution if all of the City Employees would do it is simply refuse to comply. If all of the City Employees would refuse to accept this than the order by Rohm Emanual would be useless.
Is there a Health Freedom of Choice Bill that would protect us from this kind of tyranny. The guy sounds completely mad! Who would ever imagine anything like this? In America! Not I. But here it is happening.
I remember seeing the cover of Life Mgz I think it was, in 1971 that read how in the future there’d be a drug for everything. It made the hair on my arms stand up and I got chills. I had just said good-bye to my mother a few weeks past. She’d died from cancer and I was becoming disenchanted with the medical system…..becoming very interested in the plant kingdom, natural ways of healing. The medical system could not even alleviate my mothers suffering. Knowing what I know now, my mother would have lived to be an old lady. There was a cure for cancer. Dr. Burzynski…but he was not allowed to do his work. It was supressed! Emanuel needs to be taught about such things. He’s under the influence of deception, lie$ and greed. I wonder if he has ever seen a loved one die from cancer?
Now, they are causing dis-ease with their drugs. And smart meters. What right does this “Emanuel” have to dictate to people regarding their own body? He has no right and he needs to be told. Where is there a good attorney when you need one. HELLO……..there’s gotta be just one….
David Lewton, I love what you say about how it will ultimately affect the author in unforeseen ways ! BRAVO!! Well said.
We need to point this out to those in office. People assume themselves to be immune. Wrong assumption, and they may have a rude awakening to the truth one day. Let’ s point this out to them.
For the rest, I suggest we brainstorm about solutions. If we moan as a group, we will only discourage each other and the proactivity that can get things done.
Got solutions? Thoughts, anybody? Please post below!
I suggest we start by seeding this article to blogs around the web, to raise awareness. Ask people to be proactive. One person above posted that there are 300 million of us, right on! There is a strength in numbers, and 300 million people are a tsunami! So what are we waiting for?
Letters to college newsletter editors are less likely to be censored than mainstream newspapers. And parents read them and talk to their kids. Two birds iwth one stone!
Let’s ask people to expose the voting records of those in office who support this, as a way to make them less popular and help get them ousted from office . One way to start slapping ’em on the wrist and deliver a strong message!
Ahoy, let’s go!
typical responses, i’m so proud to be an american, the land of the free, and whiners all. i’m in health care and wellness is just that, you stay on top of your health, ie regular checkups and later down the road we dont have to pick you up on the road because you never knew you were diabetic
I have the BCBS wellness program filth at my workplace in oklahoma. Since the free trade agreements and tax cuts for all people making more than $12,000 a year are sending me to bankruptcy, I just pay the extra because it costs less than the bad health the wellness program promotes. Plus I do not avoid sticking claims to BCBS anymore.
“I just pay the extra because it costs less than the bad health the wellness program promotes.”
LOL!
This is sad but true. Industrial Medicine’s idea of preventative medicine is toxic drugs and even more toxic “vaccinations”.
All this “wellness testing” gives us some numbers. BUT what do we do with these numbers? Incidentally I would not be “wellness tested” at the point of a gun.
Lets take the issue of “high cholesterol”. The human body and our ancestor species have lived with, developed and PERFECTED cholesterol ever since our ancestor species lived in the sea close to a billion years ago. How can anyone possibly think there is something wrong with cholesterol. Natural selection would have ELIMINATED any flaw in cholesterol hundreds of millions of years ago. Cholesterol made it possible for the single cell bacteria to join up with other bacteria species and eventually produce a multi-celled, multi-function organ of almost infinite complexity the human liver. Without cholesterol the human as well as the plant cell cannot function. That is why each and every cell in your body can make its own cholesterol.
If every doctor in this country would just read a good book on cholesterol; the physiology of cholesterol; this cholesterol insanity would cease. The bottom line is cholesterol has HUNDREDS of functions in the human body. Your body in its wisdom is constantly adjusting your cholesterol level to attempt to USE cholesterol to help solve the challenges, mostly HHS and YOU have presented it with. For example if you have an infection your body will often flood the infected area with cholesterol to act as an antioxidant, absorb toxins and for other purposes. HHS has made sure many of us are in a CONSTANT state of inflammation. Eating 25% of your calories as sugar as we do on average produces CONSTANT low level inflammation SYSTEMICALLY.
“High” Cholesterol is not a PROBLEM, “high” cholesterol can be a SYMPTOM of a problem or problems. Please don’t shoot the messenger.
An yet we have tens of millions of people taking toxic drugs to “lower” their cholesterol. We have an Industrial Medical Industry who approves this AND now we see the leading edge of a political moment to FORCE perhaps one half our population to take these totally UNNECESSARY counterproductive toxic drugs. The Statin pushers are pushing to force kids six years old on this poison.
There is no polite way to say this folks but Industrial Medicine is being used to kill us. None of this is an “accident”. Rahm Emanuel the brother of “Doctor Death” it’s perfect.
Under Obomacare I Billion dollars were allocated to study and implement evidence based solutions to various medical conditions.
This is underway. Unless you are brain dead you can imagine what’s coming.
This program is run by Rham Emanuel’s brother.
Meanwhile the FDA is proposing rules to have all new supplements introduced in the past 17 years undergo testing, as though they were new DRUGS, in order to remain on the market. This is inherently not economical for supplement makers to do. If these rules are implemented you can kiss your supplements goodby.
BIG PHARMA…BIG PLANS..BIG DOINGS.
Connect the dots. Contact your political representatives. Make BIG PROTEST.
Preventative medicine for employees is a good thing – good for the services rendered to the public and good for the employee, even if he or she is stupid enough not to see that it is good for him or for her.
This is happening right now at my company in Pa. They started a “wellness” program where they offer every employee screening tests, all voluntary at this point anyway. If you do the “wellness” program and go through the screening process you get a discount on your insurance premium. I myself have opted out as this reeks of Big Brother. I can see it happening in the near future that they will up my premium because I did not participate. The insurance is a joke anyway. We pay a huge amount every month (over $700 for a family of 4) and I am still on the basic plan with a $3000 deductible…it’s insane!
I think the idea of promoting a healthy lifestyle is great, however, I would implement this differently. Rather than mandate participation, I would offer a discounted rate to those that get into the program. This incentivises people to participate and ends up being beneficial to everybody
“This incentivises people to participate and ends up being beneficial to everybody”
How about this: everyone starts each year with 8K in a medical account. At the end of the year any money left in the account is transferred to another savings account to be used for health care costs OR given to the healthy person who incurs NO major health care costs during his working life.
Talk about incentives..
I think this article is a bit of an overreaction. I am a licensed ND who works in corporate health risk management (wellness programs for businesses). One of my business cliensts has a benefit that allows its participants to use alternative practitioners and treatments up to a certain dollar amount per year. Even so, it is extremely difficult to get the participants interested in anything other than mainstream medicine. For most participants, doing NOTHING is the alternative to taking blood pressure medicine.
I don’t know the details of the Chicago program, but most wellness programs have a focus on one of two things: process or outcome. If process is the focus, participants must be engaged: join a weight management or smoking cessation program, work with their doctor on health risks (they can find a doctor who will work with them the way they wish), etc. They are not penalized if they don’t lose weight, quit smoking,or fail to control their diabetes, but they have to keep trying.
If outcome is the program focus, participants pay less for insurance premiums if they are healthy. Due to US law the difference in cost can’t be more than 20%. With an outcome focus, participants are given the tools to get healthy, but if they don’t get healthy they pay more.
I have seen nothing in either approach that restricts an individual from working with a health care provider of their choice. The benefit plans often won’t cover an alternative provider, but that financial disincentive is not new.
If a participant uses an alternative treatment and gets healthy, (normalized cholesterol or blood pressure, controlled blood sugar etc.) he or she is rewarded in whatever way the wellness program rewards its participants.
Companies are scared to death about rising insurance costs. This is ALL about saving money – ok, and partly about improving employee health.
“Companies are scared to death about rising insurance costs. This is ALL about saving money”
As long as our health care paradigm continues to be
“Eat crappy “food”, sit on a$$, get sick, go to doc. Doc diagnoses symptoms and prescribes toxic drug. Get sicker from toxic “food”, toxic drugs and sitting, go back to doc.”
our health will CONTINUE to deteriorate and our “health care” bills will RISE. The more money we pour into “health care” the sicker we will grow. “Vaccines” and avoiding the sun add the crowing touch to this insanity.
The Rockefellers, HHS and the Medical Industry have devised the perfect suicide pact for the American people. We wise up or we die.
Agree?
Can this be legal?! How can someone be allowed to dictate the type of treatment we CHOOSE?!!! I hope this is challenged in the courts!
Tina,
If the City of Chicago wellness program is like most others, it does not dictate the type of treatment participants choose. It simply urges them to GET TREATMENT if they have a health condition. In the programs I have worked with, participants can send in a letter signed by their doctor saying they are working together on health goals (lose weight, control blood sugar, etc.). I could send in a letter from my primary care doctor – a chiropractor/acupuncturist – saying we are working on smoking cessation. The letter doesn’t mention that I’m using hypnosis and acupuncture: just that I’m getting treatment (this is theoretical of course since I don’t smoke).
Of course, if I’m a smoker and I want Big Brother off my back and refuse to take advantage of the FREE tools that will help me quit, then I’m welcome to continue puffing my life away. But in the City of Chicago, I now have to pay $50 a month for the privilege of driving health care costs up for everyone else.
“it does not dictate the type of treatment participants choose. It simply urges them to GET TREATMENT”
Chicago does not need to dictate the form of treatment. This has already been done by the Rockefellers via the medical licensing boards. Your doctor is REQUIRED to use the Industrial Medicine treatments approved for the “disease” diagnosed by the symptoms or wellness numbers. In the case of most “disease” this consists of a toxic drug, a surgical procedure, radiation or some other tissue/health destroying “treatment”.
For example most doctors who are following the literature on Otitis Media KNOW that inserting tubes and giving antibiotics is NOT the way to go. However they may be REQUIRED to use these PROVEN ineffective and often counterproductive “treatments” because that is all that is approved.
“90% of upper respiratory infections, including children’s ear infections, are viral, and antibiotics don’t treat viral infection. More than 40% of about 50 million prescriptions for antibiotics each year in physicians’ offices were inappropriate.” CDC
“I have treated many hundreds perhaps thousands of cases of ear infections with echinacea and I know it works. I rarely have to give antibiotics or use tubes to clear up these infections.” Doctor Jay Gordon, Pediatrician Cedars Sinai MC
“The best way to prevent allergy in infants is to breast feed them. Children who are allergic to foods often have fluids in the ear tube leading to infections.” Prevention
“80 out of 100 children, if given only medication to reduce pain or fever, would recover from an acute ear infection within a few days. If they were given antibiotics instead, the number would rise only to 92 — and 3 to 10 of the children would develop a rash, while 5 to 10 would develop diarrhea.” Journal of the American Medical Association November 17, 2010; 304(19):2161-2169 , Note if you forget the “medication” and allow the fever you will see even better results IMO How to treat ear infections Doctor Mercola
The whole “Medical Screening” scam gets you to commit to usually ineffective and DANGEROUS “treatment” based on “wellness numbers”. Folks this is a modern form of witchcraft..
Very interesting article. I am a relatively new “member” of ANH-USA’s mailing list, having exposed to your organization because of my interest in alternative medicine. In general I like the work that you do.
However, I do not see the Emanuel Plan (as you describe it above) as a doomsday scenario. Yes, we must be vigilant, but we must also not lose sight of the fact that all of us have a role to play in the quality of our life. And this role goes beyond vigilance. It also includes personal responsibility.
I am 68 years old and know how difficult it is to exercise regularly, but I do exercise at least five days a week. Rather simple deep breathing, stretching and body weight exercises. I add a bit of regular brisk walking for good measure. I also try to eat as sensibly as possible (including supplements). I also do not allow the daily “news” to affect me negatively, and I avoid negative people and conversations like the plague.
The result is that I am in pretty good health – not overweight, no diabetes but slightly high blood pressure (family history) working on it to bring it down.
No I am not among the “fortunate” rich. Not even middle class. I live on my social security plus a part time job.
What if addition to focusing on the “gift to Big Pharma” aspect of the Emanuel Plan, ANH-USA were to point out its positive aspects, and also suggest ways that the plan could be improved while also reminding your members of the simple and inexpensive approaches they could take to reduce their dependence on “Big Pharma”.
Maybe we could help reduce our National health problem, while maintaining the rather delicate balance that is necessary for this democracy that we all love and take for granted sometimes.
I have no problem with helping people get on track to being healthy. But they way its written you can bet that the medical industry wrote the bill. I’m not for medical dictatorships.
In my small town, our doctors here might as well be witch doctors. They both have the same effectiveness. Now that I’m eating healthier, taking vitamins, and exercising conventional doctors are rarely needed. When I go in with Jill, the doctors seem to be very surprised that I haven’t been to the doctors in years.
The thought of being forced to use only conventional medicine makes me very angry. When a rich corporation can force you to choose their treatment, your in for heck of a lot of fraud.
Is this a liberal or conservative point of view? When will people wake up and smell the coffee? I certainly hope soon or we won’t have any freedoms left at all. More government control only leads to more of this. Bigger governement (that means more programs like healthcare etc for those of you that don’t know what bigger government means) always means less freedom.
So what you are saying when calling this a fascist program is that you are being forced to comply. Prove it. If you have the option to not comply, then you are not being forced to comply.
If you want to drive to work, are you being forced to buy gas for your car? If you are addicted to meth, are you being forced to buy it to feed the habit? Cigarettes? Are these all fascist programs? Is the government fascist because it collects taxes (mandatory) to keep your roads and bridges and healthcare safety net and unemployment system intact? Is it fascist to require your kids to go to school? How about limiting your speed on the highway – better yet, the speed of the guy who is going to kill you by driving too fast?
Your claims that this is ‘fascist’ are unfounded, and my several friends who grew up in truly fascist (communist/socialist dictatorships) laugh and say, ‘you don’t know what you’re talking about’ when people like you use such terms. Orwellian? You are overly dramatic to say the least. Look at what many of you all glommed onto – the article was about efforts to improve public health by example of public employees. You have all seen the police who likely can’t run AT ALL. And you don’t see something wrong there? YOU are paying that police officer to protect you and you are paying for the healthcare for the gaggle of people standing around the door of city hall smoking, and so you are complaining about a program that hopes to change that paradigm? You should be ashamed! Pretending to be progressive, but ending up stuck in the mud.
Some problems with your arguments: You singled out a drug class – statins – that are not specifically addressed in the news item about the program you linked to. You CREATED a controversy and your commenting readers glommed onto that controversy, then neatly distributed the controversy over all prescribed drugs. YOU ARE THE WORST KIND of public citizens, hanging the accused before the trial. The details have not been released that address statins or the situation that would arise should a patient choose not to take statins because of their risk. Do you KNOW that a patient for whom statins are prescribed would be forced to take them or pay the $50? Of course you don’t, because you do not have details or facts or experience with this new program. It’s a good question, but not a reason to condemn the entire program.
A gift to big pharma? I think not. Better health leads inevitably to fewer drugs being needed. How about pointing that out? We are a drug dependent society for now, but if you all are in perfect shape, non-smokers, disease free and exercising daily, then you are not part of the norm. Patients who fail to follow prescribed treatments COST YOU more money by needing additional and usually more expensive medical care to make up for their failure to follow prescriptive expectations.
“Forcing” city employees to participate. They can either pay $50 to decline, or participate and gain… if they quit smoking on the taxpayer’s dime, they will save an average of $225 per month (personally) not buying their cigarettes (based on only $5 per pack and 1 ½ per day which is the average for regular smokers) and will save the tax payer loads down the road in future medical bills from the effects of smoking. That is a choice. Choosing to participate means more money in their pockets, also known as an incentive. How is that ‘forcing’? Please explain it, and don’t give me the ‘poor people’ crap – these are public employees with jobs some of whom spend $225/month to increase their chances of getting cancer.
I assume you all choose not to send your kids to school, don’t use unemployment benefits when you lose your jobs, will not accept Social Security when you retire, refuse the help of police and fire fighters when they arrive when you have an emergency, don’t use the roads in front of your houses, don’t use public sewers and water supplies and of course, that you don’t vote. These are all choices you have – that cost A WHOLE LOT MORE if you don’t use them, but are government incentivized infrastructures that you use daily because they make life better. They are part of a social system that should include incentives to get people to choose to be healthier. If we can’t outlaw Coke/Pepsi/Soda, deceptive advertising, sugar laden foods and the manufacture of food that is not nutritious, perhaps our other option is to incentivize education about healthy living habits.
Most of you (writer and commenters) ignored the healthy living and ‘baseline’ language in the article. This program will coach people about how they can lose weight, eat better, give up smoking which means a better quality of life. If you think it is fascist policy to try to make life better for the public, then you have all got your heads a bit twisted. Setting a baseline is creating a knowledge base for the citizen. If you don’t know where you are coming from, you can’t understand the impact small efforts can have. This is a MAJOR step in solving the healthcare crisis. The longer people sit in front of their televisions seeing ads for drugs that solve their problems, the higher our healthcare costs will go. People need to know that they are at risk for future diseases and need to know that they have current issues in order to know where to go.
You are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Criticisms like these of programs with significant potential to improve and change how healthcare is managed, that is, taking it away from purely reactive and VERY expensive systems and creating preventative and less expensive alternatives should be what you are all lauding. Instead you did exactly what you criticize politicians of doing – you created a controversy that can only help to hold up the process of change.
Before you all think I’m coming from the Bush camp to smear your campaign, let me tell you a thing or two about myself. I am a 22 year Vegetarian, live a healthy non-smoking life. I grew up eating little to no sugar, avoid unhealthy foods (processed, sugar and salt-filled fare) and I take the stairs, not the escalator/elevator. I am EXTREMELY liberal in my politics – and here I am reading your criticism of a good attempt to nudge people towards living responsibly, being responsible for their own health rather than expecting the overwrought healthcare pool to keep floating them. You are criticizing good citizenship.
“I am a 22 year Vegetarian, live a healthy non-smoking life.”
I think not.
Under my authoritarian plan you would be REQUIRED to complement your hopefully salubrious vegetables with PROVEN required animal products.
I assume you are ingesting quite a bit of GMO soy as most vegetarians are. Under my authoritarian plan you would be required to abjure ALL GMO “foods” and all soy not fermented.
And just to add a little humor under my authoritarian plan you would be REQUIRED to smoke a little sacred mj. LOL
I think you get our perspective. One mans “healthy non-smoking life” is another man’s poison.
Who decides?
Evryone should follow prison planet website. They tell the truth re EVERYTHING. At times you may be made uncomfortable, but will you trade security for freedom? For example, he points out that our elections have been rigged for a long time now, in that WE don’t get to pick the candidates. We have two hopeless parties who put up a play fight with each other, to distract us from what’s really going on.
If I were one of those employees, you better believe the best lawyers would be hired and the city and mayor would be sued. NO ONE has the right to take – our rights- away and impose their belief. The citizens of Chicago should ship him out to the far East of the world, he would fit perfecty there, but Mr. Rahm this is not Afghanistan this the USA. Get that through your thick head!
I have often thought that people who do what is necessary to maintain health should be given a DEDUCTION in their health insurance. I am 75 years old, and I have been taking an amazing food supplement for over four years. Before I started on this product, (still working but mostly volunteering to help others) I did take a handful of pills (vitamins and minerals) every morning and evening. I had colds, coughs, and sore throats almost all winter and allergies when I mowed my large yard. Since I began taking the product, a powder I mix with water or juice twice a day, I have never been sick, and I have more energy and feel much better than I did when I was 50. I wasted time going to a doctor once, to have my labs run, to satisfy a worried friend, and the results were perfect. I have to pay as much for Medicare as people who spend most of their time in the doctor’s office. Shouldn’t I get a deduction or a bonus? The mayor just got it wrong!
Actually you don’t have to do any of this—but please do, as it will make you healthier. If you don’t want to, then please go find private insurance elsewhere? I don’t want my taxes to pay for your horrendous hospital bills.
This has already happened here in CT. I am a state employee & participation in this “Value Health” program was one of the concessions we had to make to the governor in order to avoid layoffs. It’s the exact same deal as Chicago’s. I think it stinks. The union reps. who made the deal didn’t want to hear why conventional medicine’s idea of preventative medicine has nothing to do with wellness at all.
“At least they won’t fire you or put you in jail if you don’t comply”
This is of course where “socialized medicine” is going. The “vaccines” that will be mandated will not only make you infertile but will slowly kill you; sometimes not so slowly.
Industrial Medicine long ago sold us out. Yes most doctors are good people but the good doctors work for depopulationists. Cholesterol causes CVD is a scam. HBP “medicine” is a scam. “Drugs” for simple depression is a scam. “Vaccines” are a deadly scam. Who needs it?
Folks please op out of Industrial Medicine. You have NO choice. Invest a few hundreds/thousands of hours in discovering YOUR health and tell government and Industrial Medicine to take a hike.
“I have to have Xrays done. And everybody has this TB test done over and over and nobody questions this practices”
The TB Testing Scam and why the Sun is the Answer
You can carry the TB bacillus in your body all your life and yet never come down with active TB, in fact 2 billion of us on planet earth carry the inactive TB bacillus. But let your vitamin D levels fall, the bacillus will emerge and bam you have full blown active TB. IMO do NOT get a test for latent TB. It’s a scam to force you to take a year of VERY toxic drugs which will in all probability completely ruin your health. Latent TB is not a problem it’s active TB they should worry about. As usual it’s not your health or the health of the community they are worried about. For many years the medical “cure” for TB was the sun. It is still among doctors who know what they are doing.
Moving millions of dark skinned people from the equator into the northern USA and Canada is GUARANTEED to start a TB epidemic there. Recently a deadly strain of TB was tested in South Africa. The depopulationists are in control folks. You don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.
I have a health savings account. I do not take any medications. I believe most medicine is more damaging that their benefits. I am not a fanatic, but would only take patented medicines as a last resort. The President said we could keep out insurance if we like it, but they have changed the health savings accounts and I think they are going to phase them out. I would always use an alternative before the western medicine model. It appears people like me are going to be forced into something we ideologically oppose or be punished. What country am I living in?
If they just said if you are obese, or have super high cholesterol, or high blood suger, and you do nothing to improve it, (or smoke daily and don’t stop) you pay the higher insurance premium – would that upset all you folks?. Certainly I can understand and even support higher insurance premiums for regular pack a day or more smokers or for that matter the morbidly obese – in other words for incredibly bad health habits. I would not charge more for those who smoke a rare cigarette or are just “overweight” but not yet in the “obese” category. But for dramatically bad health behavior I can support paying more. I might at the same time offer rebates for the lean and super fit total non-smokers. Whatever the program, rewarding fitness and charging more to insure extremely bad health behavior may be in the future and should we actually object? I don’t think so. Now in this case in Chicago, they do not insist you take the statins. No you can leave your high cholesterol high and still be a couch potato but you pay more. You still have the choice. If you don’t want to take the statin, and don’t want to pay more, then walk 5 miles a day in hilly terrain or hike up 100 flights of stairs twice a week and bingo you won’t need that statin. You still have the choice to do nothing and pay more or proactively get better using natural methods or in the end take their bad medicine. Your choice. Seems fair. If you really believe natural remedies are as good as statins (as I believe) well prove it and get healthy on your own so you don’t have to pay more. Well that is just my opinion at this time, and subject to change as these sort of programs unfold. If they get too intrusive in life yes I would object too. Don’t mess with my scotch…..(laugh)
I personally do not know how this person will benefit from all this, but please stop complaining about someone bossing your choices around. America is a gluttunous culture because of that very attitude. How sad to be so independant and free as a nation and not have an integrous model of health and wellness. Instead, we have all these health issues because some poeple cannot find fulfilling and meaningful tasks in life to do other than fill their stomache/pleasures. Use your freedom of choice & money wisely or obviously someone is going to make those choices for you. Get involved in equipping the younger people with healthy-wealthy-wise life choices so we can end these kind of forum discussions/debates/opinions and keep up with the solutions – everyone enjoy your day.
Do we get to Sue the Commie government folks, when their impositions fail to help us live a healthier life?……NOT.
I work for a southeastern Wisconsin health care system that is requiring all employees to get a flu shot or lose our jobs as of January 1. In arguing w/those who see nothing wrong w/this, I put forth a theoretical situation like what you are describing–“how would you feel if THIS was to happen?”
Imagine my horror to see it IS happening, and right now, not 25 years down the road….
The “flu shot” is PROVEN non-effective and contains 25 mcg of the PROVEN EXTREMELY toxic mercury. How can they MANDATE a proven infective and EXTREMELY toxic “treatment”?
Perhaps it is not your health they are concerned about. Perhaps population control trumps health every time.
The Standard Model of the “Seasonal Flu” is INCORRECT
“Our review found no human experimental studies published in the English-language literature delineating person-to-person transmission of influenza.” CDC, Note WOW think about this awhile
“Studies have found the influenza virus is present in the population year-around; why is it a wintertime illness? Even the common cold got its name because it is common in cold weather and rare in the summer. Vitamin D blood levels are at their highest in the summer but reach their lowest levels during the flu and cold season. Could such a simple explanation explain these mysteries?” Doctor John Cannell Vitamin D Council
“The Hong Kong virus arrived in Britain in August 1968 but despite being a new antigenic variant in a non-immune population did not cause significant illness until winter that year. It had spread widely during the summer without causing epidemic illness, only to emerge when winter came and vitamin D levels in the population dropped. In fact the largest epidemic of Hong Kong flu did not occur until the following winter of 1969. Flu epidemics invariably occur in winter whether in the northern or southern hemisphere. A major factor in these winter epidemics of flu and colds, is almost certainly low vitamin D levels in the population.” Good Vitamin D Treatise
“Over 200 viruses cause influenza and influenza-like illness, which produce the same symptoms (fever, headache, aches and pains, cough and runny noses). Without laboratory tests, doctors cannot tell the two illnesses apart. Both last for days and rarely lead to death or serious illness. At best, vaccines might be effective against only influenza A and B, which represent about 10 percent of all circulating viruses.” Cochrane also published the following telling statistics:
IMO The Standard Model of the “Seasonal Flu” is incorrect, following this model to justify “flu shots” thus does not produce protection from the “seasonal flu”. ALL the “seasonal flu prevention” the CDC et al are pushing is WRONG and will NOT prevent seasonal or more importantly ANY viral flu.
The standard model of the “Seasonal Flu” posits you are exposed to the seasonal flu, during “flu season”, by contact with the seasonal flu virus, usually from other people already infected with the virus. Then you come down with the flu.
As you will see below this is incorrect.
So with the standard model of the seasonal flu being INCORRECT how can we expect a solution based on this incorrect model to work for us?
The ACTUAL Life Cycle of the “Seasonal Flu” virus
http://healthyprotocols.com/2_flu_shot.htm
Class Action lawsuit with constitutional issues?
What if you refuse insurance? The majority of patients that survive hospital stays are the ones without insurance.
Research shows that although the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ message to the public seems to encourage the integration of wellness and promote self-care options- “It is important that individuals be informed of existing community services that support health promotion, such as exercise programs, educational classes, self-management training, and nutrition counseling. If diagnosed with diseases or adverse health conditions, they can be linked to these same community services to enable them to take a holistic approach to improving their health.” – her ideas are not aligned with what is currently offered at the community level. Allopathic care is sickness care that plans to keep you sick, personal care is preventive care. The HHS Secretary’s ‘nutrition counseling’ turns out to be a meals on wheels, and the only ones she is interested in teaching self-care management training to is HIV/AIDS patients. Sanford University’s wellness program to teach the elderly how to care for their chronic diseases is as bad as Chicago’s employee plan. I think using the HHS secretary’s words and other phrases in the new health reform legislation should be turned around and made to work against current regulations. They do it with supplement legislation all the time.
http://www.hhs.gov/secretary/about/priorities/priorities.html
Unfortunately this is NOT a new program! Safeway employees in Texas have been under this type of Insurance requirements for 4-5 years! The first year, it was smoking. We were not ‘punished’ for the habit but we paid a ceraint amount more each week for our insurance. The next year it was smoking, high blood poressure and BMI. Last year it was FIVE items!! Smoking, high blood pressure, BMI, Cholesterol and Glucose levels! If you research the “Safeway Ammednment” you will see that only 10% percent of the some 250,000 employees are ‘eligible’ for the ‘incentives’. Reason being? Most of Safeways store level employees are union! The Texas Division is not union hence along with Office workers, we are Safeway’s test group. It was not challenged and now.. it is spreading. I predict it will contiue to spread. Medical fascism. Again, if you research the Safeway ammendment.. you might likely find the ‘source’.
This article is very misleading and assumes that all doctors in the Chicago area promote drugs rather than lifestyle changes; that is just not true. Most doctors in this area will only start with medication if the diabetes or other health situation is severe. At first onset of mild diabetes most doctors will tell their patient to go on the diabetic diet. The same goes for high bad cholesterol. Medication is introduced to patients who refuse or are unable to control these easily controllable conditions on their own through lifestyle changes.
One of the major points of the policy is the exact opposite of what this article leads readers to believe. Chicagoans that refuse to take easy steps to prevent, control or cure medical conditions that are proven to respond well to lifestyle changes and continue to allow their health to decline should take on the financial burden of their preventable healthcare requirements.
I personally am on the verge of having several health problems. I am a smoker and pre-diabetic. I am 20 pounds over the high end of my ideal weight. I have nerve problems that have made me stop exercising. I also have reactive hypoglycemia. I know that controlling my diet can prevent my hypoglycemic episodes and can prevent me from getting diabetes in the future. I also know that quitting smoking can prevent a multitude of complications and diseases later. I have tried and failed multiple times to consistently control my diet and quit smoking. I need support. I have very limited time due to my lifestyle and schedule. I am in the suburbs of Chicago and not in public service. I would love to have support and more incentive to manage my health and take preventative steps. Chicagoans in this program will have access to many different educational and support classes to help them. I think they are lucky.
Why not give it some thought? One thing that could happen with this Chicago plan is that people might take more responsibility for their health and the health of their kids. They might learn some healthy habbits and how to eat better and get some exercise. They might get up off the couch and start moving, their kids might see healthy examples so they will learn to take care and eat right. If people take better care of themselfs there won’t be as many insuance claims and our insurance won’t keep going up. Personally I’m getting tired of paying higher rates because someone doesn’t take care of themself. If they want to be sedentary and eat poorly that’s fine, let them pay for their choice and not push it onto me who does take care of myself. You’re right we should have a choice, and the choice we make has consequences that go with that choice, not have others pay for the people that don’t want to take responsibility. Just look around, to many people are obese and unhealthy. That’s not good for them or us.
This would, for me, be discrimination. I found out four years ago that I have a genetic liver mutation in which my liver isn’t able to detox or metabolize correctly; I CANNOT have RX or OTC medications. So unless the doctors were willing to work with me to find other ways of controlling any problems or issues that are wrong with me without putting me on drugs, making me pay more money for health insurance because I can’t take drugs would mean, in my eyes (and maybe even legally?) that I would be discriminated against.
In my case, I have to work with alternative doctors in order to make sure my body is working correctly. So unless the allopathic doctors are willing to work with me with my alternative doctors/care, this “Wellness Program” wouldn’t work.
Have they thought about what to do with those people who aren’t able to use allopathic care because genetically (they have papers to prove it), they can’t? Because if they haven’t, then they are discriminating.
In fact, any time you’re told who you have to see or what you have to take, you’re being discriminated against. It should be your God-given right to do or take whatever medical advice/medications you want.
If I were a public employee in Chicago I would be seriously worried about this upcoming change/movement…
This is more common than you know. I’m being forced to go to a DOCTOR because of our State of CT employee health plan. AND when you go to one of these quacks and they prescribe something (they have my husband on 5 different pills) if you don’t fill the presciption you are fined! We will be fined $2000 if I do not go to an MD every year.My only dr is a naturopath.
I WILL refuse mammo’s and pap smears because I believe the more they touch, invade with instruments, and xray, they endanger your health. I wouldn’t even let them put a thermometer in my mouth at this point. My youngest brother died of Endocarditis six weeks after he had his teeth cleaned at a very big State supported facility in CT, he was 43 and downe syndrome, and Title 19. I believe they gave him the bacteria which destroyed his heart, then let him die because he was retarded. NO ONE will put anything in any orrifice of mine, and I will not be forced. This is not Nazi Germany, and I consider being forced is no better than being raped. All this because a Dictator was elected Governor. BTW, he gave himself and his cronies a big raise after he stole hard earned money back from state employees, took away jobs, and left people destitute. Yet the freebies are still flowing!!! One more year and goodbye CT and it bull!
I am, by the way, 58 and perfectly healthy because I STAY AWAY from MD’s!
Let us know if YOUR state is doing this too!!! Where’s it going to end?
Diane…I am so sorry to hear about your brother and for your loss. How dare doctors decide the value of a human life? Each of us is precious. The pharmaceutical industry is corrupt and has a stronghold on our government, even at the state level. Forcing their drugs goes against our Constitutional Rights. People have forgotten how to think for themselves and are behaving less and less like human beings. What happened to our freedom to chose?
So sorry for your loss.
In regard to R Emanuel giving himself a raise, he doesnt need to. His personal assets are over $16.6 million. As mayor he makes $216,210, this is less than the superintendent of police and the Chicago School CEO.
Doubtless,the wellness plan has flaws. But it seems to be a step in the right direction. This is an effort to get public employees to take responsibility for their health, not neglecting it untill they are suffering from a serious and costly disease, while also saving the city much needed funds to direct into education and infrastructure.
There is surely some fine tuning to be done on this plan, but overall it has merits, considering that 6-8% of the citys workers(many who are smokers and/or seriously overweight) drive 2/3 of the healthcare budget.
Yes, I agree that taking a pro-active and preventative approach to healthcare is extremely important to maintain a well balanced and healthy body. The problem with most healthcare systems method of care, is that they are extremely myopic in nature and far from balanced. There is no such thing as democracy in healthcare…only a capitalistic monopoly that is controlled by “Big Pharma”. I am an Oriental Medicine practitioner. This is a form of healthcare that has been in practice for several thousand years yeilding positive results, with minimal side effects. It is a very cost effective form of healthcare. So why is it treated like the “Rodney Dangerfield” ( Gets no respect ) of the healthcare system? That is because if patients actually were “cured” ( FDA states that Oriental Medicine can’t claim it can cure ) of their ailments, well then they wouldn’t require drugs for their ailments, or the numerous side effects that commonly accompany the drug usage. Allopathic medicine shouldn’t be the only option given to people to address their healthcare needs. If we consider ourselves to be a democracy, than let’s practice it within our own healthcare system. Let’s truly heal this nation. Be well and God Bless America.
No, Shawnee, there’s no amount of tweaking that makes fascism OK. I knew when Rahm went to inflict himself on Chicago that Chicagoans would be hurting even more than Wisconsinites. All the back-stepping Obama is doing was inculcated by Rahm, and one is fearful he can open up his forward stride and overcome it before Rahm runs for Federal office.
I doubt that Rahm Emmanuel even cares about your health. He just wants to control you and take your money. The health insurance companies are the reason why our health care system is broken. His job is to serve the corporations and not the people. His policy violates individual liberty.
i couldn’t agree with you more. on one hand he say you don’ have to participate then on the other hand if you don’t then you’ll pay. how you know if i’m happy with the way i am? you’re making me do something that I may not want to do.
well, if you feel so strongly about the “employees heath” why don’t you use one of those vacant office space in city hall and provide a work out room for them. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.
This all about generating revenue on the backs of working people Rahm does not care about our health! I find the program offensive ! I do not smoke nor drink I take care of myself and have yearly check ups. I do not need city hall dictating my health. The are only using height weight ratio and I weight more that what my height dictates because I am more muscle than fat. Take a page from California they use body fat measurement. Not many people in their 40’s or 50s weight what they weighed in their 20’s or 30’s. Rahm just trying to come up with any reason to raise your health insurance.I truly hope he is only a one TERM mayor.
After losing my mother in law to lung cancer because of heavy smoking, any improvement in the technology to save more lives would be great. Any one that does not have to experience what our family has gone through is doing the world a great service to all.
My sympathy to you n your family. stopping can b very hard to do, for some. my father also died of lung cancer 6 years ago and I know what its like to lose a parent. my dad smoke for over 50 years. stop sometimes and pick it up again even after his heart attack. my mom . still continue to smoke after his heart attack, lung cancer, and she still smokes after having a silent heart attack of her own. at 79 years n 10 months old she is still smoking. this preventiontion may help some but not most. I truly feel its only a reason to get money in the kity to spend only god knows where. this program does not help me at all. it just makes me try and remember to do this crap every month so the 50 dollars wont b deducted from my check to give to someone else. that’s a payment on my light bill and my dollar side salad and my dollar plain chicken sandwhich at mcdonalds.. I really hope this program will help others. for me it just feels like added pressure to stop them from taking my money. he hired all these people, hired hired hired to ALL THESE PEOPLE OUTSIDE OF CHGO. TO SAVE MONEY. R U KIDDING ME.