In The News - The Battle Against The Deceit of Socialized Medicine Heats Up Socialized Medicine Is Sicko An antidote to Sicko is Stuart Browning's website www.freemarketcure.com, featuring economic commen-tary as well as short reality-based video clips: The Lemon, Two Women, Brain Surgery, and Uninsured in America. Also view a less-than-glowing review from over there: "What [Moore] hasn't done is lie in a corridor all night at the Royal Free watching his severed toe disintegrate in a plastic cup of melted ice. I have," wrote the reviewer for The Times. (see also : http://www.freemarketcure.com/whynotgovhc.php and www.onthefencefilms.com) Calgary Doctors Leave; Patients Stuck Within the past year, at least 41 physicians have closed their offices in Calgary, Alberta, as costs were rising far faster than their fees. This loss compounds an ongoing doctor shortage that has left some 250,000 patients with-out a regular family physician (Calgary Herald 5/18/07). While Europeans have the right to receive care anywhere in the EU and have it covered, Canadians are stuck with whatever provincial governments choose to provide. The firmly closed Canadian system is a "bureaucrat's dream and a patient's plight," write BL Crowley and J Hjertqvist (National Post 3/1/04). From Speech By David Gratzer, M.D. Canadian physi-cian (October AAPS annual meeting)- “at the rate of one a week, free standing clinics (fee for service) are starting up in Canada.” Why—because government medicine fails and Canadian government knows the smart play is to look the other way knowing people will get care and gov-ernment won’t have to pay. Remind you of anyone’s Vet-eran’s healthcare? Medicare costs 25% than Social Security in 2006. David Walker GAO chairman reports that Medicare is in the red and robbing generations to come. From the Heritage Foundation: The new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline once again underscores the scale of the entitlement spending problem: Medicare spending (including offsetting receipts) ex-

(In the News- Continued on page 2)

CONTENTS OF SEPPIAN

P.1 The Great Debate—Health Reform– March 10th at Duquesne University

P.1 In The News

P.3 Debate—Single Payer Government Run Health-care vs. True American Healthcare March 10, 2008 at Duquesne University

P.2 A Patient Advisory Series

The newsletter of the Society for The Education of Physicians and Patients

Winter—2007-8 Volume 10, Issue 2 DARING TO TELL THE TDARING TO TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT RUTH ABOUT HEALTH CARE HEALTH CARE

Dr. Scott Tyson of Physicians for a National Health Plan and Hans Lessmann—President of SEPP ironing out de-tails for high level debate between PHNP and nationally renowned health policy experts. See Page 3.

Critics of the present state of healthcare will clash in a high profile debate sure to have all on the edge of their seats not only because of clashing ideologies but because of the acute awareness that yet another government takeover of a huge as-pect of our personal lives, our freedom, and the economy threatens us this fall. Both Democrats promise to take full con-trol of the system offering such euphemisms as “affordable healthcare for all”, “change that is meaningful”, “time to rein in the greed of those insurance companies” etc. The attractiveness of the one size fits all notion of universal government run healthcare has already been seen to be a Trojan Horse and poi-son pill from which Canada, France and England are shifting. Michael Moore has dealt naïve Americans yet another diatribe of half-truths posing as reality in his movie Sicko. Do you want your doctor to be a government employee? Dr. Robert Jarvik, pioneer of novel heart replacement technology, recently re-lated a sad story of a British Health System patient who was

(Debate- Continued on page 3)

The Great Debate

Page 2

panded 12 percent in 2006 and will grow 13 percent more in 2007. Combined Medicare and Medicaid spending now exceeds Social Security spending. The Medicare drug entitlement is now projected to cost $822 billion through 2017. It will cost $60 billion per year by 2012 and $119 billion per year by 2017. Its annual expense will continue to increase thereafter. Over the next decade, Medicare and Medicaid costs will surge by nearly 8 percent per year, and Social Security costs by 6 percent annually. These programs will rise from 8.5 percent to 10.7 percent of GDP as the baby boomers begin to retire. Meanwhile, notes the CBO, the federal govern-ment is not suffering from a dearth of revenues. Reve-nues are projected to grow from today's above-average level of 18.6 percent to almost 20 percent in 2012 and then continue at record levels as a percent of GDP. But these 10-year figures actually only hint at the far more serious budget problem – the tsunami wave of entitlement spending that will hit the budget when the Baby Boom generation begins to retire in large numbers. As the CBO's long-term forecast indicates: The combination of the "big three" entitlements – Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid – will dou-ble from the current 8 percent of GDP to 15 percent when today's newborn graduates college, and reach nearly 20 percent of GDP when today's college graduate reaches retirement in 2050. With conservative assumptions, CBO projects that under current law the federal deficit will increase from today's 3.3 percent of GDP to about 20 percent in 2050. As Comptroller General David Walker has pointed out, this entitlement-driven unfunded growth in spending will impose staggering financial burdens on our children and grandchildren: The total present value of unfunded federal obli-gations of the federal government, or fiscal exposure, is now $50.5 trillion ($38.8 trillion of which is due to Medi-care and Social Security). This exposure translates into a financial burden of $440,000 for every household or, put differently, a mortgage of $170,000 placed in the crib of each and every baby born in America. (Source: Heritage Foundation -http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/tst013107a.cfm) An election season is upon us an like Lyndon Johnson and other paternalistic bureaucrats the promise of yet more government intervention to save the day is underway. There is no successful government health sys-tem without rationing and large bureaucracies. Remem-ber Hillary’s 1300 page plan? America should remain proud that it has not yet been duped into believing gov-ernment can manage something as sacred and personal as an individual’s health. But its getting close. Govern-ment healthcare makes healthcare equal for all– that is to say equally bad for all. See Page 3 for details on Debate with Physicians for a National Health Plan to be held on March 10, 2008.

(In the News—Continued from page 1) “Parliamentary Disarray, War Disarray, Healthcare Disarray”

Hans Lessmann, O. D. President of SEPP In 1855 Winthrop Sargent wrote what many historians con-sider the “bible” on a pivotal battle in American history. It was not the civil war for this was not until several years later, nor was it the war of 1812, or even the revolutionary war. Benjamin Franklin was quoted as saying; “This whole transaction gave us Americans the first Suspi-cion, that our exalted Ideas of the Prowess of British Regulars had not been well founded” This battle was considered the second deadliest encounter with Indian warfare in American history. Even Custer’s infamous defeat at Little Big Horn only mustered half the casualties of this great battle. And this battle spawned heroic figures forever etched in American history, Daniel Boone, Horatio Gates, Thomas Gage, and Daniel Morgan to name a few. But most notably this battle reversed the fortunes of a fumbling colonial and simultaneously the direction of a Continent. This struggling British officer was rebuffed at Ft. Le-Boeuf, shot by his own Indian Guides, almost drowned in the Alle-gheny river, and admitted to the assassination of a French General, Jumonville, thus a recorded murderer. In short this colonial loser was none other than General Washington. It was a battle very near to those who reside in the valleys of three great American rivers. The forks that form the mighty Ohio river, a land at the time of abounding opportunity and simultaneously unspeakable danger. On the shores of the Monongahela, across from what is now an historic landmark Kennywood Park, Sargent wrote a complete accounting of a battle 100 years hence. This local battle that changed the world and moved a continent in a direction of greatness is remembered by the loser, “Braddock’s Defeat”. So what, what does this have to with today much less a meeting on healthcare? In Sargent’s chapter less account titled “The History of an Expedition Against Fort Du Quesne in1755”, I select an accounting of an action by the Pennsylvania colony. As Major-General Braddock was charged in defending the colonies and the King’s subjects from a French strategy to choke off the trading routes of the great rivers, he solicited the colony for support and supplies. Wagons, hay, and feed were hard to come by and the parliament had little authority or desire to impose hardship on the inhabitants. So rather than deny the support and be unsupportive, they denied the problem and proclaimed unilater-ally, that the French and Indians were not a threat. Furthermore, the great forks were not a part of Pennsylvania, but of Virginia and there-fore outside their jurisdiction. Today, we are in another battle with Islamic-Fascism, or maybe with ourselves, in the war on terror. In our national halls of parliament we have heard similar denials to those of the 1754 Pennsyl-vania colony. The “illegitimate war”, the “illegal war”, “the unde-clared war”, are common quotes in the media. Participants in this action including the President and generals have been called liars, traitors, and even terrorists themselves as though they are the enemy not the terrorists. Recently, Harry Reid , Senate majority leader, pro-claimed the failure to pass an appropriation for the Afghanistan and Iraq war was unnecessary as the Pentagon had enough money already appropriated in it’s general budget. Parliamentary disarray, if it cannot pass a resolution, deny the problem, same as 252 years ago. In healthcare we are in a battle with what, growing costs, the uninsured, or again maybe ourselves. As government pays for an in-creasing share of healthcare services, problems of access, cost, and rationing emerge. Bureaucratic agencies never admit blame and im-mediately assign scapegoats. First it was greedy hospitals, then doc-tors, and now neglectful unhealthy patients. All of these ploys are for more government involvement, yet such involvement was the exas-peration of such problems in the first place. Parliamentary bodies

(Lessmann—Continued on page 3)

Page 3 All are invited to :

The Healthcare Reform Debate Enhanced Medicare For All

(Advocating Single Payer System run by government) Or

Freedom of Choice For All (Advocating Individual Freedom and

true Free Market Solutions) ~~~~~~~~~~~ Sponsored By

SEPP– The Society For The Education of Physicians & Patients (www.sepp-online.com)

and Physicians For A National Health Plan (www.pnhp.org)

and HEALTHCARE4ALLPA ~~~~~~~~~~~

Moderated By Jerry Bowyer with expert speakers: Nadeem Esmail of The Fraser Institute in Canada

and Sue Blevins- Institute for Health Freedom—

Debating Physicians for A National Health Plan

Where: Duquesne University Power Center Ballroom When: Monday, March 10, 2008 Registration-6:30 PM Debate-7PM-9PM

More details at www.sepp-online.com Reservations: email : cmiller@sepp-online.com phone : 724-872-2236

Members SEPP Healthcare Debate Committee Dennis Gabos, M.D., Hans Lessman, Robert Carroll, M.D.,

Al Fulton, Maria Pepper,

successfully treated with an implanted artificial heart, suf-fered a complication that would have been stabilized by dialysis (had he been in the U.S.) but was denied in the British system as legislators had determined that anyone older than 65 years old would not receive dialysis– the patient died needlessly. In America a huge portion of pa-tients on dialysis are not only older than 65 but older than 75. So what is the solution? The answer is the suc-cessful formula that American started moving away from over 60 years ago in health care. Unfortunately, we em-powered an elite class of purchasers of health insurance– the employer—in 1943 and once someone else could buy your healthcare with tax exemption historical momentum took over. The expectation that someone else should pay and the distortion that it would happen all through one’s working life left the question of retirement. Enter Lyndon Johnson and more Great Society Socialism buoyed by the tragic death of John Kennedy and Medicare became the answer to retirement coverage. Medicare is bleeding red by the government’s own admission. (See Page 1). The an-swer is what this country’s political philosophy was grounded in 200 years ago. Empower individuals to pursue life, liberty, and happiness and in economic terms this means an honest and robust free market. For those who argue healthcare does not lend itself to market process they endorse the notion that someone else should control the well being of your own mind and body. The fact is that freedom has not been tried in healthcare. We must em-power Americans with tax breaks to own portable insur-ance detached from the employer. This will result in high quality and lower cost. It will immediately cut by 50% the inflated issue of the uninsured. As always there are those who at some time can’t participate in which The American People through their government support them. One size fits all has failed everywhere and will here. Take back con-trol of your healthcare by voting against a government takeover.— SEPPIAN Editorial Staff

( Debate—Continued from page 1)

involved in healthcare governance can and do make some odd and dis-connected conclusions from the realities surrounding them. Often these are to appease internal hidden agendas. Such unaccountable and unpre-dictable power is unhealthy. We are now in a presidential campaign season and along with the war on terror, healthcare is a pivotal issue. Like Washington we are a struggling organization with few resources, many failures, and small local networks. Yet we have dedicated patriots faithful to their cause like our founding fathers, a cause for freedom, freedom in healthcare. Our cause is the restoration of the doctor as sole advocate for his or her patient, without the interference, manipulation, and constriction of an insecure, unaccountable, and uncaring third party or governmental agency. We believe patients citizens should own their healthcare and directly pay their doctors as they own their cars and directly pay their mechanics. We believe our personal health, privacy, and well being fun-damental to our freedom as citizens. If we were to forfeit such freedom for the false hope of cost savings, access for all, and the uninsured all rights may be subservient. Property rights, freedom of assembly, gun rights, freedom of the press, etc., may all be questioned if we are willing to waive rights so deeply personal as our health. For if we can forfeit our health, why not our property? As the founders struggled with freedom risking their honor, fortune, and lives, it was deeply personal. So do we now, as many of our finest, including my own daughter, fight in a foreign land, Iraq risking their honor, lives and fortunes for freedom, again deeply personal. Yet, here at home may we unilaterally forfeit our own personal health free-dom without a fight, here again deeply personal. As the actions in the “Mon Valley” 252 years ago stirred a continent to independence, freedom, and greatness, may actions in the same valley spur rejuvenation in that same passion for freedom, a free-dom in healthcare and continued greatness. ~~~~~~~

(Lessmann—Continued from page 2)

SEPP www.sepp-online.com

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SOCIETY FOR THE EDUCATION OF PHYSICIANS AND PATIENTS

The mission of The Society For The Education of Physicians and Patients is to promote the education of patients and

health care professionals in order to facilitate unencumbered participation in a healthcare system that respects and nurtures patients' and physicians' freedoms, rights, and responsibilities.

The Society focuses on the responsibility of the physician as patient advocate and promotes quality medical care by supporting policies that encourage freedom, choice, enhancement of the patient-physician relationship,

and fiscal responsibility.

S.E.P.P.-Society for the Education of Physicians & Patients

A Health Care Professional and Patient Advocacy Organization

Protecting and preserving patients and

health care professional’s Rights, Freedoms, and Responsibilities

http://www.sepp-online.com

The Great Healthcare Debate Monday, March 10, 2008

Moderated By Jerry Bowyer with expert speakers: Nadeem Esmail of The Fraser Institute

in Canada and

Sue Blevins- Institute for Health Freedom Debating Physicians for A National Health Plan Where: Duquesne University-Forbes Ballroom A When: Monday, March 10, 2008

Registration 6:30 PM Debate 7PM –9PM E-mail : cmiller@sepp-online.com phone : 724-872-2236