Frist Spouting Off Again!

I was riding the bike last night and watching CNN (the gym occasionally puts on MSNBC) and they had Frist, Dr. Weil, a doctor from the Cleveland Clinic and somebody else, along with the de riguer conservative blonde in some type of animal print top (maybe it was geometrics, who cares). Thye were discussing health care. Senator Frist tried to come off as the middle-of-the-road, easy-to-love Republican; spouting I know health care is broken, we need to fix this and that in the insurance industry and make sure all 10,000,000 who don't have insurance get government insurance. Truly a well-respected and well-mannered villager. Dr. Weil and the doctor from the Cleveland Clinic went on a tear! Apparently Cleveland Clinic among their own employees were able to drop their health care costs 50-75% by starting wellness care. Dieticians to help you lose weight, workouts, drinking classes (to give you alternatives to stress relief), meditation, yoga, quit smoking help. They paid for it all and their costs dropped significantly. Then he went on about acid reflux. Change your diet, take supplements, why prilosec? which was developed as a short term fix until a patient can change his diet, etc. That did not go over well with Frist. Cutting meds, what? Dr. Weil then chimed in and said preventative care, good. and insurance needs to cover supplements and alternative healing modailities.

Frist then went on a ramble. We can't make people be healthy if they don't want to be. We can't make them chnage their habits. We can't legislate that! If they want to smoke and drink and eat fast foos, we can't help that...and we can't legislate helping people be healthy, we can't make them wear seat belts. He was well-modulated in voice. The utmost in respectability and reasoableness. No one metioned the seat belt inclusion. Thanks, Wolf! Of course we can and did legislate seat belts and it was a great success.

Remember he was the guy who could tell from video that Terry Sciavo's brain was functioning and her eyes were tracking lights, even though her brain was seen to be no more than guava jelly later. Also, he owns a hospital corporation worth $15-$45 million annually and had to pay $1,700,000,000 (yes, that is BILLION) for criminal penalties for defrauding Medicare. Yes, defrauding the government and we let him speak. Great. What a reasonbable voice for the villagers.

He doesn't want people to get well or try alternative healing modalities because he can't BILL for them.

rojo