All we need to is watch the commercials. Lipitor (SP?) for example. The side effects of most drugs that we see on television runs practically as long as the first half of the commercial itself telling us how good it is for us to take! Side effects: Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, etc. Oh, I want that! I try and take natural supplements which many times seem to work better in my opinion and are a heck of a lot cheaper. I envy Canada's health care system. Our does seem to be run more by insurance and pharmaceutical companies than anything else. Profits and more profits. It was a friend of mine in Canada that recommended I do the "Shouldice hernia repair" when he discovered I had one. The method was developed by Doctor Shouldice, thereby named after him, in Toronto Canada. I took his advice doing much online research never having heard about it. NOBODY in Michigan uses this method. They still use the old fashioned traditional method of cutting right through your muscles leaving you pretty much incapacitated for weeks. The Shouldice method does not cut through your muscles. I finally found a doctor over at the http://www.herniasurgeries.com/ Ohio Hernia Center (an 8 hour car ride on way) who was born and raised in Canada, learned it there and then moved here to do this method. I've had hernai repair both ways. The traditional method and the Shouldice method on September 2, 2010. What a difference! No comparison whatsoever!! Why they don't use this method here, is beyond me other than we are back to work sooner, we need less medication, we are in less pain, the healing process is much smoother and much faster. Jer From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of William Truitt Sent: Monday, November 01, 2010 6:14 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Medical costs (OT!) was: billing dilemma with pitch raises To David and all: I have a friend who is a head nurse at our local hospital. She has been telling me recently how few paying patients and how many indigent patients they have – sum total many empty beds. A symptom of our expensive health care combined with this deep recession. Last week she told me of a woman who had been admitted with advanced breast cancer – so far advanced that the diseased breast tissue emitted a very foul smell, making their treatment of her medical needs very unpleasant to accomplish. (Which they are all continuing to do) I don’t mention this to gross anyone out on this forum. This woman had no health insurance, and she and her family had ignored her problem until she was too sick to be at home and finally came to a hospital to die. I know nothing of her circumstances, but it seems likely that they felt they had no options for her care as she became sicker. I cannot think of a worse way to be sick than this. No doubt she endured great pain at home as her illness advanced, and without medication. In essence, she received no medical treatment until it was time to die. At this stage of her disease, the only thing she will gain as her disease continues to advance is pain medication to ease her suffering until she dies, which she is at least receiving now. Of course, she is in intensive care. Now, one of two things will happen: One, her family will be saddled with staggering hospital bills that will put them into financial ruin. The terrible irony will be that, except for the end of life care she is now receiving, she will have had no medical benefit from adding on all this expense her family so feared and wanted to avoid, and yet they will still lose everything. Or two, the hospital will be saddled with these bills that make their financial existence less viable with every passing day. I feel compassion for this woman and her family, yet she is far from alone in her horrible circumstances – not with 50 million uninsured Americans and that number still growing. I don’t feel that the issues of medical care are off topic for this forum. They affect every one of us. As a statistical economic group, we’re not at the top of the food chain. These days, many of us do not have health insurance because we simply cannot afford it, period. Along with so many other Americans. Or we are dramatically underinsured, which is also another path to financial ruin. I do have very strong opinions about the politics of all this, but I am withholding them. I look at the plight of this poor woman and her family and say to myself, “There but for fortune go I.” Will Truitt From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of tnrwim at aol.com Sent: Monday, November 01, 2010 4:43 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Medical costs (OT!) was: billing dilemma with pitch raises We’re on a pretty different page about this and I’m not into the conspiracy theory aspect but it’s not probably meant for this forum. We all operate with the intention of staying out of the hospital. Sadly it doesn’t always work out that way and I have a couple of family members who are a testament to that and the associated costs that they would be saddled with had they not had insurance. And yes, they are now well thanks to doctors and “Big Pharma”. All I can say is good health and good luck but I’m keeping my health insurance. David Love David I think you might be missing the point of Susan's rant. Although Susan didn't have it, we all do need insurance. My wife broke her ankle a year ago, and even though she had some limited insurance, we wound up paying almost $20,000 out of pocket, out of a nearly $40,000 bill. What Susan is right about, however, is that medicine, which used to be basically no-profit, is now become a corporate giant, which only cares about profits, and not the heath of our population. Doctors are forced, by the HMO's they belong to, to order test after test, most of which are unnecessary, not because there might be something wrong with you, but because the HMO is covering their backsides, to protect them against lawsuits. They order the tests because there is money to be made by them, which makes the HMO's bottom line look better. The tests, in turn, are charged to the insurance company which then raises rates to cover the expense. And round and round it goes. Now the government want to get involved, which means our taxes are going up. All because of the greed of the HMO's, Big Pharma, and Insurance companies. Yes, there are some very good thing happening in medicine, but don't get me started about some of the meds that are absolutely useless, and/or dangerous. Just listen to all the "side effects" of some of the med commercials. These aren't "side effects". In most cases, these meds are causing more harm than good. This might not be directly related to piano work, but in a sense, it is related to how much we make tuning pianos. When insurance rates go up, we have to charge more to tune pianos. But when we charge more, customers are reluctant to get their pianos tuned, which reduces our income. This is why it is imperative for us to stay healthy, and vote for the candidates who will work to reduce our health costs. end of rant. Wim -----Original Message----- From: David Love <davidlovepianos at comcast.net> To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Sun, Oct 31, 2010 5:59 pm Subject: Re: [pianotech] Medical costs (OT!) was: billing dilemma with pitch raises We’re on a pretty different page about this and I’m not into the conspiracy theory aspect but it’s not probably meant for this forum. We all operate with the intention of staying out of the hospital. Sadly it doesn’t always work out that way and I have a couple of family members who are a testament to that and the associated costs that they would be saddled with had they not had insurance. And yes, they are now well thanks to doctors and “Big Pharma”. All I can say is good health and good luck but I’m keeping my health insurance. David Love <http://www.davidlovepianos.com/> www.davidlovepianos.com From: <mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org> pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [ <mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org?> mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Susan Kline Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2010 8:42 PM To: <mailto:pianotech at ptg.org> pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Medical costs (OT!) was: billing dilemma with pitch raises On 10/31/2010 7:22 PM, David Love wrote: Health insurance is expensive but getting out of a hospital stay with only a $30,000 bill is cheap. It could easily be in the $100,000s plus. You insure against catastrophe. Warning: RANT in progress: David, this is true, as far as it goes. However, the very act of insuring changes the medical system, and not just the fee structure either. The kind of medicine practiced changes, especially once legal defensibility, peer pressure among doctors, and the pressure of Big Pharma get scaled in. What costs the most is what you end up with. So, not enough "primary care physicians" and more and more specialists. Research only gets funded if it leads to more expensive and more chronic pharmaceutical use. Very useful low cost treatments and protocols have no defenders, because no one will get rich from them. Whoever stands up for them will get bashed about by those who make a lot of money from the lucrative alternatives. In the end (and we're nearly there) society ends up with a system so expensive and dysfunctional that most of the time people would be better off if it didn't even exist. Statins, for instance, a big money maker based on the total myth that cholesterol causes heart disease, which has been disproven for decades. (If one had to pick a single cause of heart disease, it would be FRUCTOSE.) Statins are medically dangerous, ineffective for their announced purpose, and expensive. Lipitor is the #1 prescribed drug in America (if I remember what I read correctly) and it is medically useless and harmful for all but the tiny fraction of the public who have hereditary super-high cholesterol. On the neurology site I found, the one with a very effective "nerve support formula" for myelin problems (which were what I had), a whole section of the testimonial page was filled by people who got neuropathy only from taking statins. They go to neurologists, who only give them painkillers like gabapentin, with a zillion side effects, which do nothing to heal nerves, but the docs leave them on the statins causing their nerve damage. Meanwhile, the website is selling a formula containing benfotiamine (a form of Vitamin B-1 known for lessening the pain of neuropathy), and methyl B12 (a highly absorbable form of Vitamin B-12, also very helpful for myelin.) It really does work. The pain in my hands lessened noticeably within a couple days of starting it. It works by speeding healing, not by covering up pain. So why don't the doctors give it to their patients? The only reason I can imagine is that Big Pharma would be very annoyed. You'd be interfering with their billions in profits. Some of the patients would get away, instead of taking ineffective painkillers (the analgesia wears off with repeated use) the rest of their miserable lives. Well, this is a piano list .... but I was very lucky that I had the money to pay off that bill, and my local hospital is a _good_ hospital, a teaching hospital which is well-run, and non-profit. What going to a bad hospital would be like makes me shudder. In the end, with both insurance and government welfare blunting the feedback on costs, and so many people getting wealthy off the medical system and its associated industries, and government subsidizing high fructose corn syrup which gives millions of people diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and obesity, there is no insuring against catastrophe. There is not money enough on earth to keep this whole ramshackle calamity we call "medical care" from breaking down. I turn 65 next year. I'll do my level best never to give Medicare anything to pay for. I think that doing one's best to avoid needing medical treatment is a social duty, and also a form of self-preservation. It's not like most of the common treatments WORK. My particular treatment (immunoglobulins to stop the advance of Guillain Barre Syndrome) did work, and was needed and appropriate. So I was glad it was there. Susan _____ From: Susan Kline <mailto:skline at peak.org> <skline at peak.org> Sender: <mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org> pianotech-bounces at ptg.org Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 19:00:37 -0700 To: <mailto:pianotech at ptg.org> <pianotech at ptg.org> ReplyTo: <mailto:pianotech at ptg.org> pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] billing dilemma with pitch raises Hi, Jer A friend told me it was as if my life had pressed a great big RESET button. You know how some weeks you get so tired, and say to yourself, "if only I could take six months off!" (Beware what you ask for ...) I now feel lucky it was only five months, and it did do a good number on the chronic fatigue, just staying home. Double vision for five weeks was quite galling. $1,000 a year doesn't even get you in the door when it comes to medical insurance. I investigated it in 1981, when I had come back to the US from Canada. I was appalled. They wanted more for a month of insurance than I expected to pay for normal medical care in several years. I was broke. I just "said no." I'm sure it's only gotten worse since. I don't think I made a conscious decision about "full service" tuning (at least in a minor version.) It just seemed the natural thing to do. I hated seeing something wrong and just LEAVING it. Susan On 10/31/2010 6:30 PM, Gerald Groot wrote: I’m sorry to hear about your crisis. That really sucks. Spending what we do spend on health insurance, you are quite correct when you say you could buy a whole lot of health insurance for that but, on the other hand If we were to spend say about $10,000 a year or so with deductibles or more, in 10 years, that’s an easy $100,000. In that regard, you’re ahead of the game there. Thanks for the conversation. I enjoyed it. I do find the idea of full service quite interesting and have an open mind to it, believe it or not. J Jer From: <mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org> pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [ <mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org> mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Susan Kline Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2010 9:14 PM To: <mailto:pianotech at ptg.org> pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] billing dilemma with pitch raises On 10/31/2010 5:15 PM, Gerald Groot wrote: We have phone’s, insurance, business insurance, health insurance, life insurance, some even carry ear insurance or hand insurance. We would have phones anyway. Not all of us have all that insurance. I, for instance, carry home owners insurance and car insurance, and that's it. I admit people with a family would worry without life insurance, and maybe some kind of disability or health insurance. I think that unless they are very anxious types, most single people are better off without most of those other insurances: the tool insurance, (HAND insurance??), liability insurance (which just makes your pockets deep enough for someone to want to sue you). I went 30 years without health insurance, ever since coming home from Canada. And last spring I became the poster child for what can happen as an uninsured person gets older. Here I am, aged 64, and I had a medical crisis and a hospital stay last May, and found myself with a hospital bill for $30,500 (after negotiations.) Plus other doctor bills. Okay ... my gosh, how could she do without the insurance?? Well, first, if you prorate my hospital bill for thirty years, you end up with about $1,000 per year -- you couldn't buy a whole lot of health insurance for that. Second, these days if you have been a good and faithful customer for years, paying premiums the whole time, and you suddenly have a major medical cost, the companies have whole rooms full of people whose only job is to go through your history with a fine tooth comb, to find an excuse not to pay. Now, there is overhead for you -- pay the insurance (at what I think are exorbitant rates) and THEN pay the medical costs yourself anyway, plus maybe some legal costs trying to collect. To sum up again -- I think a very important skill for a person in business is to keep overhead to the bare minimum. I don't remember Jer mentioning advertising, but that's another one which I think most really good piano techs should do without. Word of mouth does it all so much better, and is scot free. Susan Kline _____ avast! 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