Healthcare

4 24 20 Letter from a scottsdale Doctor to Gov. Ducey:Letter

Dear Governor Ducey,

I am a family physician practicing in Scottsdale, Arizona. While other physicians and I recognize the immense pressures and responsibilities you have in this COVID19 situation, we feel that some of your current policies need to be reconsidered.

Medical experts in the fields of epidemiology and virology are determining our country's response to COVID19 with the sole purpose of minimizing COVID19 infections and deaths. While their research is essential, our country must keep this pandemic in perspective. In fact, relatively few Americans will die from COVID19, and yet our misguided efforts to save lives are straining our economy, ruining millions of lives, and causing immeasurable harm for the sake of an effectively small impact on our nation's health.

The United States population is 331 million; approximately 2.8 million Americans die annually. More than 1.2 million die from heart disease and cancer alone; another 500,000 die from fatal accidents, chronic lung disease, and cerebrovascular disease (based on 2017 CDC data). Most experts agree that the COVID19 death rate will decline as more testing is available and will likely end up at <1%; most of those deaths will be in older patients with a shortened life expectancy due to pre-existing chronic disease. More than 80% of cases have been categorized as mild, and the vast majority of people who become infected will fully recover and help provide us with "herd immunity."

I am frustrated to see dozens of obese shopper�s don masks and gloves to "protect" their health while they fill their carts with the soda, chips, frozen pizza and processed foods that are far more deadly than the virus. Why do our public health discussions not address these "pandemics" which are far more widespread and take many more lives? Your citizens are following social distancing guidelines put forth by the CDC, but they ignore the abundance of other CDC guidelines regarding exercise, maintaining a healthy weight, cancer screenings, and routine child and adult vaccinations that are proven to prevent disease. Your current policies are so narrowly focused on COVID19 that they neglect the health risks that will kill far more of your citizens. When you post your COVID19 statistics, consider also posting the number of deaths due to chronic disease, accidents and suicides that have occurred during the same time period. That will give people a better perspective, and maybe even help them identify and reduce their greater risks.

Bankrupting our local businesses and shutting in our citizens are not improving their health, only diminishing our resources. My colleague outside of Denver informed me that her hospital is losing $1 million per day and it is having to furlough medical staff. I know the hospital group I am affiliated with here in Scottsdale is well below census because the pandemic model thus far has been grossly inaccurate. But in the meantime, you have forced closure of all fitness and recreation facilities despite multiple medical studies demonstrating moderate exercise, as well as socialization, improves immune function and promotes longevity. You have restricted dentists and periodontists to treat only emergent cases, when in fact there is a proven correlation between oral health and cardiovascular disease. Coronaviruses are here to stay; maybe instead of saving Americans from the pandemic, you should focus your efforts on making them healthy enough to survive it.

Policymakers insist we need to take these extreme measures to protect the vulnerable. But what definition of "vulnerable" are you using? Are you including your citizens who are vulnerable to poverty, substance abuse, neglect, mental illness, domestic violence, child and elder abuse, and suicide? Are you aware that our millennials are expected to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents due to substance abuse and mental illness? COVID19 targets the old and sick, but isolation and loneliness kill indiscriminately. We are embarking on a time when overdoses, assaults, murders, and suicides due to this forced media recession may far outnumber the deaths caused by the virus. Sadly, the U.S. suffers nearly 50,000 suicides annually, a number which will surely increase given the recent unemployment and isolation that has been imposed upon us. My husband was widowed during our last economic recession when an out-of-work architect attempted suicide by running his SUV into his late wife's sedan. My stepson's colleague committed suicide last week, and I personally know of two other suicides in the past two weeks (please note that the two suspected COVID cases I treated during the same timeframe have fully recovered). Daily I am treating patients for pandemic-related anxiety and depression, and no doubt I will soon lose some of those to suicide and substance abuse as well. Would your citizens choose this trade off? I am not sure, but at the very least, educate them as to these realties and let them decide which �vulnerable� population they opt to save.

Finally, in addition to practicing medicine, I am a small business owner who owns a solo private practice. I am infuriated by the disregard for Arizona small businesses and the government's usurpation of control at every level, particularly when I am educated enough to know that COVID19 comprises only a small portion of our overall health crisis.

Furthermore, Arizona is not New York or San Francisco. We are not a vertical city; we do not have their population densities nor their homeless populations. While the benefits of closures in those cities may outweigh the financial losses and economic/social hardships, blanket policies to close Arizona and similar states clearly do not. You are applying irrelevant models to your citizens and gravely harming the majority in the process. I urge you to examine local studies and statistics to make wise, relevant policies for our state.

What policies would I recommend? Evaluate each county individually. Keep the hospitals below census but do not bankrupt them. Discourage unnecessary travel. Advise older patients with pre-existing conditions and patients who are immunocompromised to be cautious and stay home. Incentivize biomedical companies to develop more efficient testing methods and pharmaceutical therapies. Increase production and the discriminatory use of personal protective equipment for our medical providers. Educate the public on basic hand washing and hygiene. Tackle the homeless epidemic where disease runs rampant.

In the meantime, open up businesses, open up the cities! Educate your citizens on how to best fight this virus, how to optimize their immune systems and resiliency, and then allow them to resume their normal lives. Implement policies to help optimize the health- physical, emotional, and economic- of your citizens so that they do not fear COVID19, but instead are strong enough to overcome it. You have your citizens� attention like never before, now use this opportunity to get them healthy so that they can survive not only this pandemic, but also the ones that will undoubtedly follow.

Respectfully, Jennifer Fontius, MD

Dr. Jennifer Jane Fontius

Family medicine

7450 E Pinnacle Peak Rd Ste 156, Scottsdale, AZ 85255

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History Lesson

Insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.

The U.S. Post Service was established in 1775 - they've had 234 years to get it right; it is broke,
and even though heavily subsidized, it can't compete with private sector FedExp and UPS services.

Social Security was established in 1935 - they've had 74 years to get it right; it is broke.

Fannie Mae was established in 1938 - they've had 71 years to get it right; it is broke. Freddie Mac was
established in 1970 - they've had 39 years to get it right; it is broke. Together Fannie and Freddie
have now led the entire world into the worst economic collapse in 80 years.

The War on Poverty was started in 1964 - they've had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our hard earned
money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor"; it hasn't worked.

Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965 - they've had 44 years to get it right; they are both broke;
and now our government dares to mention them as models for all US health care.

AMTRAK was established in 1970 - they've had 39 years to get it right; last year they bailed it out as it
continues to run at a loss!

This year, a trillion dollars was committed in the massive political payoff called the Stimulus Bill of
2009; it shows NO sign of working; it's been used to increase the size of governments across America,
and raise government salaries while the rest of us suffer from economic hardships. It has yet to create
a single new private sector job. Our national debt projections (approaching $10 trillion) have increased
400% in the last six months.

"Cash for Clunkers" was established in 2009 and went broke in 2009 - - after 80% of the cars
purchased turned out to be produced by foreign companies, and dealers nationwide are buried under
bureaucratic paperwork demanded by a government that is not yet paying them what was promised.

So with a perfect 100% failure rate and a record that proves that each and every "service" shoved down
our throats by an over-reaching government turns into disaster, how could any informed American trust
our government to run or even set policies for America's health care system - - 17% of our economy?

Maybe each of us has a personal responsibility to let others in on this brilliant record before 2010, and
then help remove from office those who are voting to destroy capitalism and destroy our grandchildren's
future.

Keep in mind one thing, whoever controls your Health Care will control you and everything you do.
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Obama's health care plan will be written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it, signed by a president who smokes, funded by a treasury chief who did not pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that is nearly broke.

What possibly could go wrong?

OBAMA AS VLAD THE IMPALER for Wed morning Explorer.

by Emil Franzi

There was a great early bit on Saturday Night live where Chevy Chase played Vlad the Impaler's neighbor. He calls on him to complain. Vlad asks him about what? "The Impalings. It's the noise". "What noise - it's just a soft squishy sound" Vlad answers. "I mean the screaming". "Well", saysVlad, "I'm not responsible for that part."

When President Obama repeatedly claims that if you like your current health insurance you can keep it under his plan, he's being as disingenuous as Vlad. If the plan crammed through committee by his party's House leaders with his support stays, many businesses will convert to the cheaper government option and you won't keep your plan. Worse, you won't be able to buy another private one because the bill also prevents you from doing so. Obama is blowing smoke on this and other provisions.

The issue is about to morph into a bigger one. The 2010 election may transcend the current health care debate and be decided by the attitude of those debating.

The left wing of the Democratic Party combined with normal Beltway arrogance and the Chicago mentality of the current administration makes a poisonous brew. Add the moral superiority and failure to attribute to your opponents any decent motivations prevalent in modern liberalism and your talking suicide potion.

The best example is, unfortunately for them, an honest belief that all those tea parties and town hall attendees are "astroturf" and brought in by "paid organizers". This stems partly from projection - when they do a "spontaneous rally" it's always planned. You can tell by the printed signs done in advance, the assigned speakers with pre-set talking points, the union t-shirts and the centralized approach. They can't do a demonstration without paid staff. Therefore neither can
anybody else. Think back on the anti-Bush demonstrators of the past few years. Also recall how nasty they were.

News flash to those claiming "big pharm and insurance" are secretly behind opposition to Obamacare. Obama already sold out to big pharm by banning purchase of Canadian meds and opposing Republican efforts to allow insurance to move over state lines has the insurance lobby watching and waiting. They also kinda like that everybody has to buy it provision.

The other part comes from arrogance and over-reach. A 53% win is NOT a mandate. It's a lot of other things that can go south in a hurry, as the GOP discovered after 2004. Obama needs tograsp that he isn't FDR, who stomped Hoover in 1932. It would also help if he grasped that FDR did not have a daily fireside chat.

Which leaves that batch of Dems called Bluedogs, aptly described by John McCain as dogs who bark but don't bite and end up rolling over and playing dead. Congresswoman Gabby Giffords is one. My wife was surprised - Kathy thought it hard to think of Gabby in terms of solid colors. "Wouldn't she be more like a pastel"?

Gabby is not holding face to face town halls. She gave some Mickey Mouse reason but the real one is she can't take any heat. She's never really had anything but beachballs tossed her by the local media.

Handling unruly crowds used to be a necessary talent for a successful politician. Check question Time in the Brit Parliament as an example. Gabby is no Tony Blair. And certainly no Maggie Thatcher.

Many Democrats are attacking the messengers who are their own constituents. Others like Gabby are avoiding them. Most are into denial about the real problem which is a lousy healthcare bill.

A good medical analogy concerns illness diagnosis. When you hear hoofbeats, don't think zebras.

HEAR EMIL FRANZI AND TOM DANEHY SATURDAYS 1-4PM ON KVOI 1030AM

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Doctor Says Rep's Not Listening to Constituents=Government Run Health Care Not Listening to Patients

Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet

Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. is a womenâ€?s health specialist who received her M.D. degree and internship in Internal Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, then completed specialty training at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She received B.S. and M.Ed. degrees from The College of William and Mary in Virginia. Dr. Vliet is the 2007 recipient of The Voice of Women award from the Arizona Foundation for Women in recognition of her pioneering advocacy for the overlooked hormone connections in womenâ€?s health. Dr. Vliet's books include: Itâ€?s My Ovaries, Stupid!; Screaming To Be Heard: Hormonal Connections Women Suspect-- And Doctors STILL Ignore; Women, Weight and Hormones; The Savvy Woman's Guide to PCOS. Dr. Vliet is a seasoned expert commentator and a passionate fighter against government takeover of health care in the proposed Health Care "Reform" that seeks to eliminate or penalize private options. For more information, Dr. Vliet suggests two independent patient advocate Web sites on healthcare: www.JoinPatientsNow.com, and www.PatientsUnitedNow.com

DISCLAIMER: Dr. Vliet speaks as an independent physician, not as an official spokesperson for any organization. Dr. Vliet has no financial ties to any health care system, pharmaceutical company, or health insurance plan. Her allegiance and advocacy is to and for patients.

To book Dr. Vliet on interviews, or for permission to publish, email Rose Henning rosehenning@herplace.com or call 520-797-9131 (MST).

Doctor Says: Politicians Not Listening to Constituents Equals Government Run Health Care Not Listening to Patients

(For Immediate Release! August 10, 2009)

Spineless legislators refuse to face their constituents to hear average American citizens voice their fears and worries about what may be happening to their healthcare under the current â€?reform? proposals from Washington

Right now, the American public is the patient who deserves to be respectfully listened to and have their concerns heard on the cure for critical health insurance issues.

My own congresswoman in Tucson, Gabrielle Giffords, failed to appear at an event for which she had advertised she would be available, abandoning about 300 people waiting to discuss their concerns. Then in a local newspaper interview, she and her staff labeled these citizens, and voters, manipulative racists.

Another Arizona representative cancelled her public schedule and walked out of her Chat With Ann? session in Holbrook Arizona when a citizen shouted, You don't appreciate our frustration.

I have a simple question for everyone to consider: If our government representatives are too cowardly to face constituents? concerns and questions now, how can we expect our government representatives to listen when we have an appeal about our choice of treatment for a life-threatening medical condition? Demonizing citizens now is an ominous portent for the future if this is how our sole government-run option for healthcare also treats its patients.

For full information, read complete op-ed on this subject below:

Op-ed offering. Word count: 1579. Permission to publish (please let us know). Edit to fit.

Cowardly Donkeys Need to Find The Cowardly Lion's Courage

By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D., Â© August 10, 2009

I am dismayed that recent Town Halls across the country have been curtailed or cancelled as spineless legislators refuse to face their constituents to hear average American citizens voice their fears and worries about what may be happening to their healthcare under the current â€?reformâ€? proposals from Washington.

The founding Dean of my medical school and Professor of Medicine used to teach us:

Listen to the patient. If you listen, your patient will tell you what's wrong. Only then can you develop your plan to help the problem. Right now, the American public is the patient who deserves to be respectfully listened to and have their concerns heard on the cure for critical health insurance issues. Polls show that at least 85% of Americans are satisfied with their healthcare and do not want the best system in the world destroyed to fix health insurance problems we all agree need reform.

A new DNC ad calls citizens at these Town Halls "angry mobs." Other pejorative labels are even worse. My own congresswoman in Tucson, Gabrielle Giffords, failed to appear at an event for which she had advertised she would be available, abandoning about 300 people waiting to discuss their concerns. Then in a local newspaper interview, she and her staff labeled these citizens, and voters, manipulative racists. As a small business owner and taxpayer, who had previously voted for her, I was appalled at being lumped into such despicable labels. Another Arizona representative cancelled her public schedule and walked out of her "Chat With Ann" session in Holbrook Arizona when a citizen shouted, "You don't appreciate our frustration."

In spite of this August recess being a critical time for honest debate, Congresswoman Giffords is refusing to hold any healthcare Town Halls during the recess because people are loud and frustrated and yes, angry. In a newspaper interview, she expressed fear for her life. That seems an extreme fear for Town Halls at which the only violence has been perpetrated on an innocent citizen by menacing looking thugs wearing SEIU shirts. Don't our service men and women, our firefighters, our police, our border patrol agents risk their lives every day to carry out their sworn duties? Certainly our Congressional representatives can buck up and bear a little verbal criticism as part of their sworn duty to their constituents.

Citizens attending town halls and voicing their well-founded fears about government-run healthcare should be listened to attentively, not demonized and dismissed. It is mind-boggling to hear such vociferous criticism of tax-paying citizens. It would be analogous to doctors saying "I am not going to talk with you about your cancer because you are angry and frightened and upset." Members of Congress work for us. In business, when employees fail to listen to their employers, they get fired. Maybe it's time Congress listens to their "bosses," or seeks a new job.

I have a simple question for everyone to consider: If our government representatives are too cowardly to face constituent's concerns and questions now, how can we expect our government representatives to listen when we have an appeal about our choice of treatment for a life-threatening medical condition? Demonizing citizens now is an ominous portent for the future if this is how our sole government-run option for healthcare also treats its patients.

The Democrati c leadership criticizing citizens at town halls is also mind boggling to me as a citizen who has watched violent anti-war protests displayed on television daily for most of my adult life, even when our troops in harms way were clearly endangered by these constant protests. I had friends from high school dying in Vietnam, while the TV screens were filled with protestors daily, and our returning troops were spat upon. My friends who died in Vietnam never had their face on TV. I have watched the same thing happening with today's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while our soldiers are in harms way.

Why is it acceptable for anti-war Democrats to organize protests such as these, plus protests led by ACORN and others at the homes of AIG executives and other business leaders, but it is not OK? for average citizens to speak out and protest current programs proposed in Washington by legislators who don't even read the bills before voting to pass them? People are afraid for what they perceive is a government run amuck, taking control over healthcare and so many other aspects of our daily lives. They also have the right to express their anger "even if in loud voices."

We have legislators who are supposed to be representing us, the taxpayers and voters, yet who are running away from dialogue with us, running away from hearing our concerns, and labeling US the problem. Legislators appear to be giving us a poison pill, while saying it is "Good for us," but then exempting themselves. They are "prescribing" what advances their political agenda, what they think we need, instead of listening to all of us about what we know we want.

From the Wall Street Journal and internet articles, I find that many Democratic legislators across the country have cancelled plans for live Town Halls. They are resorting to "Telephone Town Halls." This one-way, no face-to-face approach defeats the purpose of true debate and discussion. Constituents can only speak if their phone call is accepted. The telephone system is set up to give the politician complete control. Questions are limited and screened to fit the politician's political agenda. Just like the avoidance of the Cowardly Lion.

Telephone Town Halls stifle dissent and stifle the very "transparency" this administration promised so often in the campaign. Not to mention, using the Telephone Town Halls completely eliminates the risk of a "tell all" video making it to You Tube so that others can see and hear what really went on. How would you like your doctor to only agree to talk to you by phone, with limited input from you, and never see you face-to-face?

Instead of an honest debate about what does need to be "fixed" with our current health insurance, we get vitriolic diatribes against citizens. Those in power insist it is "My way or the highway." Even our President threatened at a rally in McLean VA that those of us who disagreed with current proposals should get out of their way, and let only those in power "clean up the mess."

This "blame the victim" attitude is arrogant and despicable. It demeans those politicians who engage in it. It demeans our entire democratic process. What we are seeing on the national political stage this August would be like doctors blaming patients for causing their own cancers. Or, like blaming the rape victim and saying she caused the rape because of what she wore.

During my time in Tucson, Congressman Jim Kolbe represented and listened to the views of all his constituents, even when some were loud or boisterous in their dissent. There were some particularly "rowdy" Town Halls around the Social Security issues. He didnâ€?t run away from those Town Halls, he faced his opposition, and continued to listen. His replacement is a Congresswoman who is doing exactly the opposite. To me, this is a cowardly retreat from honest debate with her constituents. She held one town hall on healthcare earlier this year, primarily a presentation of the Democratic healthcare plan, before many citizens even had access to the actual content of the proposals.

Now that more citizens have actually read the House bills on line, we have people who want a chance to ask their questions and have honest answers. Citizens are not stupid. Those who have taken time to read the bills, unlike most legislators, do not accept Democratic leadership "false assurances" that are the opposite of what is written in bills! That's a huge part of why citizens are angry. They can read. They have taken time to do their homework. They expect their representatives to do the same. People are frustrated when answers are Party talking points that directly contradict what citizens themselves read in the legislation.

The current healthcare proposals set up a fundamental decision we all face: do we remain free and have the power to control our healthcare decisions or do we let government take over these decisions that affect our very right to live? That's the underlying question about which people are justifiably scared, worried, and angry. They deserve to be heard.

If physicians treated patients as callously and dismissively as our elected representatives are doing, or abandoned them during a time of medical crisis, we would be sued or lose our license. For our elected representatives to turn tail and run and refuse to hear their constituents is just as repugnant. Those who will not meet with their constituents during this summer recess should have their "license" to represent hardworking citizens revoked at the next election.

This dialogue is too important for legislators to turn into Cowardly Donkeys turning tail and running away from open healthcare Town Halls. Our elected representatives need to take a lesson from the Cowardly Lion. They need to find Courage.

They also need to follow the Tin Man's quest for a Heart. Instead of heartlessly running away, these Tin Men-Women from Washington need to have a heart for the hardworking, taxpaying, voting citizens of their districts who are expressing genuine and heartfelt concerns, worries, and fears. They need to have a heart for citizens whose only request is for a chance to be heard.

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