Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.Carl Jung

May 2019

  • Drug Companies’ Payments to Doctors

     There’s a database just about everyone should know about. It lists the name of a given doctor, and it will tell you how much the doctor has received from drug companies. It includes all doctors including dentists and it says that if your doctor’s name isn’t listed it is because either you have misspelled the name or the doctor has not received anything. Preliminary to the data base which is listed by state, which you have to enter, is a list of the doctors who have received the most: Stephen Burkhart, an orthopedic surgeon, $65.3 million,  or those who have received payments most frequently, Ana Stankovic, an internist $3,623. There is also a list of all the companies who have received those payments. The database is from August 2013 to December 2016 and includes payments made to doctors and companies from drug companies and device makers. It is compiled by ProPublica, a non-profit investigative journalism site as part of a series called “Dollars for Docs” about the amount of money in the health care industry paid to various entities. Other articles for example, address “Opioid Makers, Blamed for Overdose Epidemic, Cut Back Marketing Payments to Doctors.” I was gratified that my primary care physician, is listed as having received $57, a nominal sum which may be reflective of being caught in a system rather than participating in it, and one that does not diminish my esteem or trust. It’s an instructive tool and you may choose to use it.

  • Abortion and Religious Rights

    There have been a spate of new laws restricting or banning certain kinds of abortion in several states and more are undoubtedly coming. The rationale behind these laws as far as I can understand them is that according to the laws’ sponsors abortion is murder. It is murder because their understanding of the Bible informs them it is. Abortion kills life. These interpretations of the Bible are usually associated with what we loosely call the Religious Right, that is people who view the Bible as the word of God and who believe that it is their duty to make the society conform to their beliefs.  The Religious Right are also people who have been instrumental in implementing  what they call religious freedom laws, for example, laws that mean that a health care practitioner should not be required to perform any action not consistent with their religious beliefs.  Personally I do not object to anyone who holds those beliefs, to anyone who believes that abortion is murder. It is the advantage of living in a country where religious freedom still means something. But I do object of having the religious beliefs of some imposed upon me. What about the religious (or perhaps quasi-religious) freedom of people like me who do not share those beliefs? The body being formed in the womb is the vessel for life, not life itself. I believe that abortion kills the form that contains life—a huge difference, the implication being that that life would have to remain intact. Do these stringent new laws prevent me from the exercise of my own beliefs? The current law allowing abortion does not preclude anyone from exercising their beliefs. No one will have to have an abortion if they believe it to be murder. But the changes now in place in several states infringe upon the rights and beliefs of those of us who like me have a totally different view about abortion.

  • Access To Justice

    About two thirds of the world’s population, 5.1 billion do not have access to justice. Of these, 1.5 billion or one in five, have been left with justice issues they are not able to solve. That could be a land dispute, being the victim of a crime or a consumer debt.  These figures come from a new report issued by The Task Force on Justice. The report indicates that 253 million people live with extreme injustice and are deprived of legal protections. They comprise 40 million modern day slaves, 12 million stateless, 200 million who live in countries which are so insecure seeking any kind of justice is not possible. The report points out not only the advantages of providing justice but also the fact that as a human right along with education and health care, it is actually cheaper. In low income countries, where most of the lack to access to justice exists, it costs $20 per person, universal primary and secondary education $41 and healthcare at least $76.  These figures would certainly increase for the developed world, but the message that providing justice to those who need it is cheaper than we think remains.

    It’s so easy to forget that providing justice is part of the infrastructure of security in any country, and that infrastructure is necessary for prosperity, a prosperity which in turn provides citizens with a modicum of quality of life.

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