COVID-19, Current Events, Featured, Media & Press, Op-eds, Politics, What's New

The Graveyard of COVID-19 Missed Information

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The British social hierarchy of the Middle Ages and beyond was divided into “three estates of the realm”: the king, the clergy, and the commoners. More modern times brought the fourth estate, the non-establishment, independent journalists. Our founders knew that for a successful democratic republic, the press had to be a watchdog. Journalists now have become morticians who embalm and bury stories at the bidding of their puppet masters. 

In many cases, the government with its media accomplices quietly plucked from the public square information that is not to their liking, irrespective of its factual accuracy. COVID-19 has brought the practice out of the shadows. With our health at stake, it is imperative that all sides of the science are available. Let the people decide. 

Welcome to the cemetery. The PCR test used to diagnose an infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was found to have as high as 97 percent of false positives for infectiousness because the test was so sensitive that it measured dead viruses that could not cause disease. Even the inscrutable Dr. Fauci agreed with that assessment.  After the distribution of the vaccines that were going to bring us back to the old normal, the CDC set strict rules for testing of vaccine “breakthrough” cases. It wanted “only specimens” that were collected with a PCR test that was much less sensitive. Was this done to make the vaccines look more effective?

It’s unlikely anyone saw that the CDC will soon abandon the PCR test. What a coincidence that a consortium backed by Bill Gates bought out Mologic, a company with a yet-to-be-approved COVID test. 

Then there’s a CDC analysis of infections and mask-wearing. “In the 14 days before illness onset, 71 percent of case-patients and 74 percent of control participants reported always using cloth face coverings or other mask types when in public.” Only 4 percent of the case-patients “never” wore a mask. The explanation was that the masked case-patients frequented restaurants and got infected when they removed their masks to eat.

The mainstream reporting of COVID-19 deaths is sensationalism at its worst. The newscasts implied any infected person would surely be on death’s door at some point. Again, the CDC’s own analysis of COVID hospitalizations showed that the risk of death while hospitalized was 0.3% for patients with no comorbidities. The analysis showed that the strongest risk factors were obesity, diabetes with a complication, and anxiety disorders. Yet we did not hear that we should lose weight and exercise. (How unfortunate that the gyms were closed.) Our mental health was tested by lockdowns and lack of socialization. 

Even French virologist and Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier was ghosted when he posited that mass vaccination against the SARS-CoV-2 virus during the pandemic was creating variants. His science appears to have been borne out. The CDC reported an outbreak in Massachusetts where 90 percent of SARS-CoV-2 infections were identified as the Delta variant. Moreover, 74 percent of the infected were fully vaccinated. There are similar findings in the United Kingdom and Israel. In another instance, 75 to 80 percent of recently infected staff members at two University of California San Francisco hospitals were fully vaccinated. 

The most devastating missed information is the effectiveness of early treatment of COVID-19. Since February 2020, clinicians had successfully treated patients early in the disease process with hydroxychloroquine. A campaign to discredit these successes followed. When Dr. Fauci’s pet drug, Remdesivir was found to be ineffective, the media buried the study. Despite studies showing its benefit, ivermectin was given the hydroxychloroquine smear treatment. Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are fully FDA-approved, have a long record of safety, and remain on the World Health Organization list of essential medicines. What’s the problem? They are very inexpensive and generic.

With early treatment sidelined, the experimental vaccines became the panacea. But why are we expected to ignore the RNA vaccines’ role in encouraging variants and serious side effects such as heart inflammation, paralysis, and death? Could money be a motivator? Pfizer reports that will have $33.5 billion in Covid-19 vaccine sales in 2021, with even more revenue anticipated from the booster shots. Was the drug and health product manufacturers’ $171 million to lobbyists in the last 6 months intended to ensure the government’s cooperation? Are the pharmaceutical companies the Fifth Estate?

The politicians’ hypocrisy says it all. In their personal lives, Nancy Pelosi and her nephew, California’s Governor Newsom flout their own directives, with mask-less haircuts, fancy dinners, and children’s summer camps, to name a few. More galling is the “let them eat cake” attitude in their political lives. Newsom demands that all state workers—except the powerful prison guard union—get vaccinated or submit to continuous COVID tests. Pelosi commands her subjects, aka congresspersons to don masks subject to fines and arrest for noncompliance. But her majesty removes her mask for a photo op. How can anyone trust anything these soulless grifters have to say?

Do some digging. The truth is out there. 

Culture & Society, Current Events, Guest Column, Politics, What's New

Off the Record with Dr. Adams

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Coopting Language

The coopting of language is a subtle, and sometimes less subtle, tactic that infiltrates the vernacular and insidiously infiltrates the mind. When someone (or someones) want to change a storyline or direct a thought process, language coopting is a very effective tool.

Here is an insidious example: We used to call people who lived on the street bums, and hobos. Generally, they were drunks, drug addicts and/or people with severe mental problems.  Now, thanks to the coopting of language, we call them “homeless.”  

Think about the difference. A bum or a hobo has made a choice, they are responsible for their own actions. Drinking, drug abuse, whatever, but for the most part their own behaviors have placed them in their unfortunate situations. Referring to them as ‘homeless” completely removes their personal responsibility. It implies that they are victims of something out of their control. It sounds like their homes were taken from them rather than that they themselves created the situation they are in now. It suggests that society, or some part thereof, has done them wrong. This change in terminology is subtle, but effective. It changes our perception of them and therefore steers us down a path of solution seeking that won’t provide solutions at all, because it addresses a problem that is not the actual problem.

Now we have a new word, courtesy of the tech titans who wish to steer our understanding of the world around us away from the truth and towards what they prefer us to think. That word is “misinformation.” What ever happened to the word “lies”? In order to direct us towards their desired mindset they can’t come straight out and call things lies. That’s too harsh. Especially when they are not lies. We need to be prodded more subtly away from information that the powers don’t want us to absorb, so we won’t feel the virtual cattle prod on our skin. 

We can’t be told that truth, or even other perspectives are lies, because very often they are not, and our ears might prick up at the word, and we might wake up to the ploy if a word as strong as “lies” is employed. No, we will be lulled and more easily “guided” to the desired outcome if we are enwrapped in words that don’t make alarm bells go off in our heads. 

Misinformation.  What exactly is that? It’s still information, right? Is it a lie, or is it something truthful but irrelevant? We aren’t supposed to know. That’s the beauty of it. Or the evil.

“Reimagine.” There’s a new one, too. There is a whole lot of talk about “reimagining” the police. What does it mean to “reimagine” the police? I don’t recall ever imagining the police in the first place. Does it mean change their uniforms, change their name, change their numbers? What does it mean? And more importantly what does it mean to the imaginers of the word “reimagine”? It’s purposefully vague and meaningless. Is it supposed to ease us minions into the next phase where the police are shut down completely? What does reimagine mean? It actually means nothing but it is a gateway to meaning anything. Even something nefarious. And that is the point.

September 25, 2020

COVID-19, Elections, Guest Column, Politics, What's New

Off the Record with Dr. Adams

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Rhinoceros Logic

When the mind is locked in, logic means very little. No matter how many pieces of information and no matter how much evidence is presented that contradicts the party line, the indoctrinated populace laps up all the convoluted explanations and excuses that make no sense, simply because it keeps dissonance from seeping into their heads. Logic dictates that if something looks like a horse, smells like a horse, and eats hay, a clear thinker would generally conclude that it is a horse. But not if you have been convinced that it is a rhinoceros. And not if you want to believe that it is a rhinoceros, because somehow you have been convinced that rhinoceros belief makes you a better person—no matter how many pieces of solid evidence are presented that the thing is actually a horse. If you’re desperate to believe it’s a rhinoceros you just shut reason out.

Statistics came out last week from the heretofore worshipped CDC explaining that only 4-6% of the previously considered Covid deaths were actually caused by Covid and Covid alone. This should be cause for massive celebration! This is by far the biggest news since the outbreak began. Yet, not only was this monster story underreported, but it was convolutedly denied by the powers who stand to gain the most by maintaining the rhinoceros theory. 

Shouldn’t this have been a headline splashed across the world—that fewer people in the United States have died from Covid alone than have died from being hit by a car? And that the number of Covid only deaths in the U.S. are about the same as the number of Americans who die from foodborne illnesses every year. By this new rhinoceros logic ALL FOOD should be banned until there’s a cure for food poisoning.

Why on earth should such a moment to rejoice be kept so quiet and so well hidden? We know why. It’s because it is a whole lot harder to maintain lemming status amongst a population when the people aren’t terrified that they will die from breathing. So, the most excellent news we could possibly hope for has been swept under the rug. And there will be no mask-free dancing in the streets for some time (if ever?) Maybe we should rename this the rhinoceros virus. Or, more aptly, the November 3 virus.

September 10, 2020

COVID-19, Current Events, Guest Column, Health Policy, Politics, What's New

Dr. Jane’s Pearls

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Sep 8, 2020

COVID-19: What Do the CDC’s “Death with COVID” Statistics Mean?

Now that we are told that only a small fraction of COVID deaths were from COVID only, will you throw away your mask?

It is true that most death certificates have additional conditions listed. Also, there is a financial incentive to code for a COVID death whenever possible, say if there is a positive COVID test in a motorcycle crash victim.

Many COVID deaths are in elderly people who are at the upper limit of life expectancy, with many comorbidities. Their diabetes or lung disease or hypertension might have killed them. Was COVID just incidental, something that tipped them over the edge a month sooner, or the main reason they died now rather than two years from now?

One can’t figure this out without a look at each individual case. The ultimate answer is found at autopsy—rarely done these days. From a small series that was done in Germany, a surprising finding was that more than half had probably died from blood clots, small or large. Was this caused by the virus, or by the body’s response to the virus? It certainly showed the need to consider anticoagulation.

Lacking autopsies or even careful case reviews, we really do not know how many people died “with” COVID or “from” COVID.

The other huge unknown is the meaning of a positive test. Many labs in Florida reported an impossibly high rate (98–100 percent) of positive tests. But let’s assume we have competent, honest labs. More than 800,000 tests are being done every day. If we define every positive test as a “case,” massive numbers of new “cases” are guaranteed—most of whom will never get sick. The test may have picked up a fragment of a long-dead cold virus.

Given the heavy politicization, the corruption, and the unknowns in the constant barrage of statistics, the only reliable figure is the number of deaths. These are constantly decreasing (see graph below).

How about waiting for a vaccine? In 1957, the Asian flu, deadlier than the coronavirus, did not shut the country down. The late arrival of a scarce, 60% effective vaccine had no appreciable effect.

It is time to return to sanity. A National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper shows that once a region reaches 25 total COVID deaths, the growth rate in deaths per day falls to approximately zero within a month—no matter what interventions such as lockdowns and mask mandates a country imposes.

For further information: “A Perspective on SARS-CoV-2, the Most Dangerous Virus in History”

COVID-19, Featured, Media & Press, Op-eds, Politics, What's New

The New Population Control: Fear and Isolation

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Planet of the Humans, a Michael Moore vehicle, came and went with little fanfare. Perhaps it was the message that our feeble attempts at halting climate change were just that: feeble and useless. Solar panels, wind turbines, electric cars and the like were criticized as mere “band-aids” and corporate moneymakers that leave a larger human footprint on Gaia. In truth, the sole savior of the Earth is controlling the root of energy consumption: our population. 

Mother Earth aside, Margaret Sanger and her eugenicist friends tried to control population by cruel design in the early 1900s. She opposed philanthropy as it perpetuated “human waste.” To achieve world peace, Sanger proposed that “the whole dysgenic population [including epileptics, feeble-minded, prostitutes] would have its choice of segregation or sterilization.” 

Government-sponsored forced sterilizations became too much for civilized society to bear and ceased in 1981. Margaret Sanger’s legacy soldiers on, conducting “God’s work” at Planned Parenthood abortion clinics disproportionately located in minority neighborhoods. Taking it up a notch, pediatrician Governor Ralph Northam (D-Va.), who while in medical school wore either black face or a KKK hood—he doesn’t remember which—grotesquely believes it’s OK to kill babies who are born alive.

The new standard bearer for the current brand of population control is fear. Dressed as the Angel of Death, he appears on CNN as an ever-present sidebar flashing numbers of COVID-19 “cases,” rarely making the distinction between those who are ill and those who simply had a positive test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. 

We are never told that 81 percent of cases are mild. Nor are we told that well over 99 percent of Americans have recovered. We were never told that the military ships dispatched to accept patients served a handful of patients. We were not told that the death statistics include people with “presumed” COVID-19 or who died of other causes but coincidentally had a positive test. Never are we told that sadly 42 percent of American deaths were nursing home residents who make up only 0.6 percent of our population. Nor are we told that 90 percent of hospitalized patients have underlying health conditions and 80 percent of deaths are in those over 65 years. Most importantly, we are not told that deaths and hospitalizations are decreasing. 

Meanwhile, in an attempt to undermine our rays of hope, politicians are rewriting history. The woman who plans to be President irresponsibly asserted that Obama-Biden deftly handled the “Ebola pandemic.” Pandemic? Unlike the highly contagious COVID-19, Ebola virus disease was an outbreak centered in West Africa caused by a virus that was only spread through exchange of bodily fluids. The U.S. had 11 Ebola cases, 9 of whom were evacuees from, or contracted Ebola in other countries. The 2 people who contracted Ebola in the U.S. were the Ebola patients’ nurses—both of whom recovered. And at the time, infection control experts criticized the “lax” federal Ebola guidelines.

The misery campaign worked. In a few short months we have gone from level-headed folks dealing with the vagaries of life to house arrestees acquiescing to ever-changing restrictions, privacy intrusions, and punishments for noncompliance. Isolation has consequences. Verifiable domestic violence has doubled. Forty-one percent of thousands of adults surveyed by the CDC in June 2020 reported an “adverse mental or behavioral health condition,” including 10.7 percent seriously considering suicide. One study predicted 34,000 U.S. cancer deaths due to delayed diagnosis. Unscientific lockdowns are on pace to kill more people than the Devil’s spawn, COVID-19. 

The suggestion that we accept this stygian existence until a vaccine is available is magical thinking. Recently, genomic researchers reported 73 variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Variants and mutations could present a challenge for developing an effective vaccine. 

Viruses will always be part of our environment. Exploring all possible treatment options, including building our general immunity, is crucial to saving lives. Hydroxychloroquine is one such option that is effective in many patients if given early. Yet the pot-smoking President wannabe labelled our teetotaling President a “drug pusher” for speaking positively about hydroxychloroquine. And the infectious disease expert and cardiologist Bill Gates claims its side effects are severe. The President is in good company with Yale Professor Harvey Risch, MD, physician researchers, and well-respected clinicians regarding hydroxychloroquine’s overall and cardiac safety.

Our scientists and physicians are working hard to preserve our population. If we are allowed out of our cocoons, enough people might develop permanent population (“herd”) immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and the transmission of the virus could burn out. 

Fear and agenda-driven political manipulation are drowning out the facts. We may look back and find that the media-political complex is the prime method of population control. 

As Malcom X said, “you been misled. You been had. You been took.” 

Culture & Society, Law, Media & Press, Op-eds, Politics

Russia, Racists, and Ridiculousness

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By Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD

Now that the Russia collusion story has lost its glow, the left’s narrative du jour is that anyone expressing a contrary opinion is a racist. It is so exhausting! What is a racist, anyway? A racist believes that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. Tethering a rival to racism is designed to be a career-ender. Thus, some presidential hopefuls profess embarrassment and remorse because they are Caucasian while others believe themselves to be morally superior because they are not. 

The political pot-stirrers wail that our country is racist, despite the fact that we elected the son of a black African and a white American to be our leader. At about 12 percent of the population, the “black vote” could not have unilaterally pulled this off. Obama captured the white vote even after his pre-election unity speech publicly shamed his beloved white grandmother for her “cringe[worthy]” comments involving racial stereotypes. All to atone for supporting a pastor whose “incendiary language” expressed hatred toward white folks. Because they shifted their political allegiance, the same 2008 Obama voters are now racists.

We have arrived at a place so vitriolic and demented that Ivanka Trump was called a racist because she bought a little white puppy for her child. By that “logic” the Obamas are racist because they bought a pure-bred black dog—and not a shelter dog as they promised to adopt. So of course, they likely harbor ill will against the homeless.

By today’s standard, President Clinton is a racist because his ill-fated Waco tank attack in 1993 killed some 40 ethnic minority persons. And who is the racist? Eric Holder’s Justice Department refused to allow a North Carolina town to hold nonpartisan local elections on the grounds that removing the partisan cue (Democrat) in municipal elections would likely eliminate the single factor that allows black candidates to be elected to office.

Is black filmmaker Spike Lee a racist for making the movie, Chi-raq highlighting Chicago’s violence and black on black murders? Is Baltimore’s black former mayor Catherine Pugh a racist for saying she could smell the dead animals while touring her city’s impoverished neighborhoods? No. They were stating facts that in today’s brave new world white persons are forbidden from uttering. Of course, the light shed on Baltimore inspired many “racists” to help clean up distressed neighborhoods.

And recall the CNN radio host’s stunning response to a black man after he expressed his belief in the merits of responsibility and hard work: “by virtue of being a white male you have white privilege.” Talk about racial stereotyping! How could a black person possibly believe that individuals, not the government, hold the key to success?

Many black workers knew that government is not always their friend. In the 1930s, many referred to Franklin Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration (NRA) as the Negro Removal Act, the Negroes Ruined Again, or Negroes Robbed Again.

The new minimum wage regulations on hiring practices favored the all-white skilled labor unions. Many black workers were unskilled and consequently lost their jobs.

Additionally, the New Deal’s Federal Housing Administration refused to insure mortgages in and near black neighborhoods. Moreover, the FHA subsidized developers who were building whites-only tract homes. But somehow this administration that is advancing opportunity zones to encourage long-term investments in low-income urban and rural communities nationwide is racist.

In a misguided attempt at reparation, the War on Poverty drove children’s fathers out of the home as a condition of financial assistance. Elite colleges admitted unprepared black students with lower SAT scores and GPAs, resulting in a mere 38 percent graduation rate. Worse yet, some of these colleges have blacks-only dormitories. Since when is exclusion and segregation preferable to inclusivity and integration that we so strenuously fought for?

What happened to “why can’t we just all get along?” Jettisoned. The panderers who want to fundamentally transform America need miserable people to swallow their baloney. In truth, most of us do get along. People from California to Mississippi are socializing and working together and marrying each other at a steadily increasing rate. One-in-six U.S. newlyweds were married to a person of a different race or ethnicity in 2015, a fivefold increase since 1967.

Today, given his views on self-determination, the runaway slave Frederick Douglass would be ejected from the tribe. “What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.… What shall we do with the Negro?… Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played mischief with us.… All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs!”

And to those who tar their opponents as racists: if it weren’t for double standards you would have no standards at all.

Bio: Dr. Singleton is a board-certified anesthesiologist. She is President of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). She graduated from Stanford and earned her MD at UCSF Medical School.  Dr. Singleton completed 2 years of Surgery residency at UCSF, then her Anesthesia residency at Harvard’s Beth Israel Hospital. While still working in the operating room, she attended UC Berkeley Law School, focusing on constitutional law and administrative law.  She interned at the National Health Law Project and practiced insurance and health law. She teaches classes in the recognition of elder abuse and constitutional law for non-lawyers. 

Media & Press, Medical Ethics, Medicare, Medicine, Op-eds, Politics

Propaganda, Pandering, and Politics

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By Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD

For the next one and a half years we will have to endure the hyperbole, apocalyptic predictions, fake outrage, half-truths, and frank lies of politicians. Some kind soul should take pity on us and pass out beans to put in our ears.

Of course, we should expose ourselves to many opinions, but we have to be careful about propaganda. Propaganda, an ugly word, is viewed as more than mere opinion but information that is somehow manipulative, misleading, or not telling the whole truth.

Propaganda came to mind during a meeting I attended where well-heeled teenage girls sporting AOC for Congress T-shirts preached to the captive audience about how the government should pay for college tuition, books, and housing for everyone, while extolling the virtues of socialism. Had their parents heeded Vladimir Lenin’s “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted”? Then some adults with vapid smiles admonished us that we should believe the young ladies, not because they provided statistics or pros and cons of the value of college for everyone, but because they are young and our future. This brings out one propaganda tool: it’s for the children.

Why would we willingly give up any of our freedoms and turn over our pocketbooks to the government because some nouveau socialists fed us propaganda? Because it works.

Look at the Social Security Act. No one would turn down the promise of financial security in old age, or as President Roosevelt said, a safeguard “against the hazards and vicissitudes of life.” I question if people think it is a good deal to pay more than 15 percent of your paycheck (including employer’s “contribution” and Medicare tax) to the government, thus taking your future savings out of your control. If you die young you get nothing; your savings go, not to your children, but into the government’s black hole.

Patients and doctors alike have been sucked in by statements of questionable accuracy. In promoting the Affordable Care Act, President Obama on multiple occasions assured us, “if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor, if you like your health plan you can keep your health plan.” The ACA likely would not have gotten traction if he had said, “We don’t know what the insurers will do after the ACA is passed, so good luck.”

Electronic Medical Records (EHRs) were part of the bumpy road to the ACA. President Obama, promised that EHRs would “cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes and help save billions of dollars each year.” The unwary believed the puffery versus the facts.

The promise: EHRs are efficient. Reality: Hundreds of different brands mean that the records cannot be exchanged between physicians, but they can be sent to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

The promise: EHRs save time. Reality: Doctors spend half their time on the computer rather than talking with patients.

The promise: EHRs save lives. Reality: Software problems have memorialized incorrect information. One in 5 people surveyed by Kaiser Family Foundation has found a mistake in their records.

The promise: EHRs are private. Reality: There were more than 2,000 data breaches of 176.4 million patient records between 2010 and 2017.

It sounds so virtuous to insist that “healthcare is a right.” Thus, if you do not believe medical care should be free, you are not a moral person. This technique echoes Aldous Huxley’s view that “the propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that the other set is human.” (Of course, bearing arms is a constitutional right, but guns are not given away for free. Indeed, gunowners are thought by some to be horrible people). Free medical care for all is short, simple, and seductive.

The promise: Medical services are free. Reality: Government may deny the request for prior authorization for your treatment, or ration treatments for older folks, such as hip and knee replacements and cataract surgery. In the government health system 307,000 Veterans might have died waiting for medical care.

The promise: Drugs are free. Reality: The medication your physician thinks is best for you is not on the government’s formulary.

The promise: There are no without out-of-pocket costs. Reality: Private health insurance is abolished, leaving no consumer choice.

The promise: It’s free! Reality: Your taxes will be raised to heights unknown.

“Free” is America’s new verbal Potemkin village of health care, where Susie gets a free birth if she survives her abortion, free medical care for life, and even free food. All Susie has to do for herself is breathe. This is a panderer’s view of America. In fact, we are a country of individuals who want to govern their own lives and of physicians who want the freedom to properly care for their patients.

Dr. Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD is a board-certified anesthesiologist and member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).

Dr. Marilyn Singleton ran for Congress in California’s 13th District in 2012, fighting to give its 700,000 citizens the right to control their own lives.

While still working in the operating room, Dr. Marilyn Singleton attended UC Berkeley Law School, focusing on constitutional law and administrative law. She also interned at the National Health Law Program and has practiced both insurance and health law.

Dr. Marilyn Singleton has taught specialized classes dealing with issues such as the recognition of elder abuse and constitutional law for non-lawyers. She also speaks out about her concerns with Obamacare, the apology law and death panels.

Congressional candidate Dr. Marilyn Singleton presented her views on challenging the political elite to physicians at the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons annual meeting in 2012.

Follow Dr. Marilyn Singleton on Twitter @MSingletonMDJD

More info about Dr. Marilyn Singleton

Culture & Society, Elections, Law, Medicine, Op-eds, Politics

The Real Loser in the Midterms: Individuality

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by Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD

After the election, sappy statements on social media exhort us to bow down in praise that the first minority this or the first woman that was elected and how this means we have catapulted our nation out of the Neanderthal era. Funny how no one mentions Young Kim’s victory – but she is not a Democrat so it does not count. It’s funny how no one cheered women of color when Condoleeza Rice was secretary of state. Instead she was called an Aunt Jemima and a house nigga’ in a nationally syndicated cartoon.

Now it is acceptable to call young conservative black students enjoying their visit with President Trump “N-words in Maggot hats” and ridicule them as “props.”  What racist insults! Undoubtedly, the prominently positioned little black boy at the Affordable Care Act signing just happened to be strolling outside the White House East Room.

These “first” types would rather we forget that we had a black Senator from Mississippi, Hiram Revels in 1870. Or that by 1920 the first black female millionaire, Madame C.J. Walker employed up to 40,000 women and lived in the same neighborhood as John D. Rockefeller.

Yes, the road to acceptance was long and paved by female businesspersons, physicists, pilots, and physicians, among many others. The road is littered with boorish people and men who targeted women for abuse.

There was a time when minorities and women advanced because they were accomplished, assertive, and strong. When Madame Walker was denied a speaking slot at the National Negro Business League convention, she admonished, “Surely you are not going to shut the door in my face. I am a woman that came from the cotton fields of the South.” The next year, she was the keynote speaker. Although only 10 percent of my medical school classmates were women (and a handful of minorities, including myself), the top two students were women. Sure it was a slog, but competence won the day.

Then something politically expedient happened. We lost the grit and pluck that propelled Madame Walker to success. Women became victims who feel they are always being stepped on by others, ignored or abused. And only women could rescue them from their evil white male oppressors. Now being a minority or a woman has become a shield against legitimate criticisms, setting back the struggle to simply be judged by the content of our character. One wonders how the press would report the botched Broward County ballots if Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes were a white male.

Sadly, the focus on victimization has expanded to all Americans. The key to getting votes was to let people know how miserably unfair their lives are. Just like in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the beleaguered seek to improve their lot through rigid exclusionary rules: “Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.” The newly minted pathetic wretches are exhorted to join the morally superior tribe who will protect them from those who disagree with their point of view. After all, they are likely racist sexist homophobes.

The “longshoreman philosopher” Eric Hoffer pointed out in his classic, The True Believer, “people whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident.” Such persons tend to value equality and fraternity more than freedom. Such persons will also more readily accept in their medical care government control, rationing, and paint-by-the numbers treatments (or non-treatments).

Before getting excited about the midterm election results, chew on this. Lying during a political campaign is protected by the First Amendment. Animal Farm’s core commandment, “All animals are equal” devolved into “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Analyze why the uber-rich with $42 million private jets financed the campaigns of the socialist-leaning candidates. Are they thinking, I’ve made it to the top thanks to the capitalistic system of hard work and rewards, but you can take the crumbs and sit on your lazy butts watching me pontificate on TV? How will the Bernie Bros and Single-payer sisters who voted to expand government health insurance with their $1000 iPhones feel when their toys are taxed out of existence? And our modern-day feminists who define themselves by their gender rather than competence have no right to be insulted if a patient says, “I prefer not to have a woman doctor.”

My congratulations go to all the women and men — voters and candidates — who are independent critical thinkers, who display the grit of Madame C.J. Walker, and who follow the words of the abolitionist, William Ellery Channing: “No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence but your own consent.”

Dr. Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD is a board-certified anesthesiologist and member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).

Dr. Marilyn Singleton ran for Congress in California’s 13th District in 2012, fighting to give its 700,000 citizens the right to control their own lives.

While still working in the operating room, Dr. Marilyn Singleton attended UC Berkeley Law School, focusing on constitutional law and administrative law. She also interned at the National Health Law Program and has practiced both insurance and health law.

Dr. Marilyn Singleton has taught specialized classes dealing with issues such as the recognition of elder abuse and constitutional law for non-lawyers. She also speaks out about her concerns with Obamacare, the apology law and death panels.

Congressional candidate Dr. Marilyn Singleton presented her views on challenging the political elite to physicians at the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons annual meeting in 2012.

Follow Dr. Marilyn Singleton on Twitter @MSingletonMDJD

More info about Dr. Marilyn Singleton

Doctors, Elections, Health Policy, Healthcare Reform, Medical Ethics, Medicare, Medicine, Op-eds, Politics

The Dry Tortugas and Being a Deplorably Good Physician

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By Marilyn Singleton, MD, JD

Hillary Clinton recently said that half of Donald Trump supporters belonged in the “basket of deplorables” and were irredeemable. Many believe that Dr. Samuel Mudd, the physician who treated John Wilkes Booth, was deplorable. While some say he was merely being a good doctor, setting a broken leg for a man in pain, others argued that he knew of the conspiracy to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. After a speedy trial, he was sentenced to life imprisonment at Fort Jefferson on the Dry Tortuga Island off the Florida coast.

An 1867 outbreak of yellow fever took the lives of prisoners and the prison doctor. Dr. Mudd took over and saved some 1000 lives. Conspirator, maybe. I’d like to believe he sought redemption and his physician better angel emerged and he did what he was trained to do: take care of patients. After laudatory letters from the prison and continued local advocacy, Dr. Mudd was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in 1869.

Over the last few years we have seen the deplorable consequences of the Affordable Care Act. Most of the newly “insured” are folks placed on Medicaid. There is a reason Clinton calls for “Medicare for all” and not Medicaid for all. Then there’s the lack of choice in insurance policies and the consequent lack of choice of physicians; unaffordable premiums and sky-high deductibles for virtually unusable insurance, and mergers of major insurance companies, further lessening choice.

A new study looking at California hospitals shows that as more hospitals become part of large chains, the prices go up – as much as 25 percent. As more hospitals consolidate, this trend is likely to be replicated across the county. Again, less choice and competition have their consequences.

With regard to medications, competition in stores like Walmart some ten years ago caused cash prices to be much lower than deductibles. But now many pharmacists are barred from discussing the cash price under terms set by contracts between them and the middlemen-insurers.

And as for that doctor that you liked but couldn’t keep, the government has doubled down on the red tape to receive compensation for treating Medicare patients. The 962-page Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) forces your doctor to complete reams of paperwork showing compliance with complex metrics or they will get a downward “adjustment” of their Medicare payments.

Particularly troubling is the “Resource Use,” measurement which begins as 10% of the score and increases to 30% in 5 years. This metric measures the cost per beneficiary based on the government’s review of claims submitted. But this metric does not address the fact that patients have different needs. Some patients may require more visits for the same illness.

Worse yet, the new system spells the demise of our beloved solo practitioner. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated that 87 percent of solo practitioners would be penalized.

Government regulation has reached the tipping point. Even the citizenry of progressive Seattle, Washington had their limit. The city authorized a plan to impose a $1 fine on residents each time their garbage cans were filled with more than 10 percent food, compostable waste and paper products. Trash collectors were forced to snoop through the garbage to ensure compliance. A lawsuit was filed and the ordinance was deemed unconstitutional.

The regulatory escalation confirms that the ACA and its progeny were about control, not improving medical care. As more patients complain about unaffordability and inaccessibility, the answer from the social engineers is to say we have to just make health care free! But experience with human nature shows that paid products carry more value. Physicians want patients to value their health. Physicians want to care for patients, not become paper-pushing robotic “providers.”

There is another answer. Physicians can break out of the third party payer trap. We have learned the hard way that if you take their money, you follow their rules, no matter how restrictive or onerous. The majority of patients would pay for routine care, the cost of which is far less than the current insurance premiums. Remove the ACA’s restrictions on insurance policies for catastrophic illnesses. These policies were inexpensive and available to all. Finally, let physicians get back to delivering unfettered charity care.

Remember, the core of Mrs. Clinton’s 1993 Health Security Act was to “put the common good, the national interest ahead of individuals.” Mrs. Clinton’s plan massively expanded the health care fraud definitions and penalties. Physicians faced $50,000 penalties for rendering care outside of the system or seeking payment for care that did not comply with her National Health Board’s medical necessity standards.

In Clinton’s eyes, if you are a patient seeking individualized care or a private physician, your name is Mudd.

Dr. Singleton is a board-certified anesthesiologist and Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) Board member. She graduated from Stanford and earned her MD at UCSF Medical School. Dr. Singleton completed 2 years of Surgery residency at UCSF, then her Anesthesia residency at Harvard’s Beth Israel Hospital. While still working in the operating room, she attended UC Berkeley Law School, focusing on constitutional law and administrative law. She interned at the National Health Law Project and practiced insurance and health law. She teaches classes in the recognition of elder abuse and constitutional law for non-lawyers.

Culture & Society, Healthcare Reform, Medical Ethics, Politics

A Black Physician Reflects on the 2013 Inaugural Address

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Author/contributor:  Marilyn M. Singleton, M.D., J.D. 

Despite the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday, many of us were too busy seeing patients to hear President Obama’s second inaugural address. It was less painful to read the transcript.

“What binds this nation together is not the color of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names,” he stated. Then let’s end the government’s obsession with African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Asian-Americans (but never European-Americans). We are all Americans. I feel some moral authority and passion on this subject as a black American whose family moved here from England in the 1600s. I am a full-blooded American!

I can’t bear to hear one more person say, “I’m so glad we have an African-American President.” How ironic: Martin Luther King, Jr., urged that we judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

The head of the Congressional Black Caucus admitted that the CBC treats the President with a “deference” not accorded to a white President, and that the CBC is “hesitant” to criticize the current President. “With 14 percent unemployment [versus 6.9 percent for whites], if we had a white president, we’d be marching around the White House.”

This Administration and/or its tools use race as a crutch when facing legitimate criticism, for example Susan Rice’s willful or incompetent misleading of Americans about the Benghazi deaths. Rep. Jim Clyburn said calling Susan Rice “unqualified” to be Secretary of State was a racist “code word.”

Curiously, “unqualified” was not a “code word” when used against Clarence Thomas in his Supreme Court hearings. It was noted that he was particularly unqualified because he had served on the D.C. Circuit for only one year and four months. God forbid we should raise the same question about Elena Kagan or Thurgood Marshall (whom Thomas replaced), who were never judges at all.

And what about the other Rice? Who can forget how a former Secretary of State, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, was maliciously attacked as a “house slave” in the Bush Administration?

We next learned that the “patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few, or the rule of the mob.” I guess President Obama and Nancy Pelosi are not part of the Spirit of ’76 since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA or “ObamaCare”) was rammed through Congress with a five-vote margin, 34 Democrats and all 178 Republicans voting against it.

Obama only had one open discussion session, breaking his campaign promise to have open negotiations on C-SPAN. Instead, Democrats in the White House and Congress made private, multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, other special interests—and each other.

Moreover, said Obama, “Together we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play.” Rules are fine when the President makes them up along the way. ACA waivers come to mind.

“We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care.” Now that we are learning how “reform” will increase costs, it is clear that naming it the Affordable Care Act was a marketing tool. The most bothersome aspect is that we don’t yet know the identity of the “choosers” who will decide whose care to ration or whose bank account to raid. It is very telling that Obama did not proudly extol the virtues of his signature legislation.

“We understand that outworn programs are inadequate to the needs of our time.” Then, Mr. President, encourage Harry Reid to act on congressional legislation that attempts to restructure Medicare and Social Security instead of deriding these efforts as throwing Granny off a cliff.

Sadly, a thread woven throughout the speech was that Obama will liberate us from our autonomous, free, yet nonetheless pathetic, unhappy existence. He asserted several times that only a select few were making it in America, and he was going to do something about that!

We can only hope that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was right: “A lie cannot live.”

Dr. Marilyn SingletonDr. Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD is a board-certified anesthesiologist and member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).

Dr. Marilyn Singleton ran for Congress in California’s 13th District in 2012, fighting to give its 700,000 citizens the right to control their own lives.

While still working in the operating room, Dr. Marilyn Singleton attended UC Berkeley Law School, focusing on constitutional law and administrative law. She also interned at the National Health Law Program and has practiced both insurance and health law.

Dr. Marilyn Singleton has taught specialized classes dealing with issues such as the recognition of elder abuse and constitutional law for non-lawyers. She also speaks out about her concerns with Obamacare, the apology law and death panels.

Congressional candidate Dr. Marilyn Singleton presented her views on challenging the political elite to physicians at the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons annual meeting in 2012.

Follow Dr. Marilyn Singleton on Twitter @MSingletonMDJD

More info about Dr. Marilyn Singleton