Campaign For Liberty: HonestyinMedicine
| Emily Harding HonestyinMedicine  Local CoordinatorLocation: Charleston, SC Last login: 10/16/10  RSS feedFor almost 20 years I've been an advocate for truth and full disclosure when it comes to medical care in this country. For FAR TOO LONG we've been fed propganda that western medicine is the be-all-end-all when it comes to medical care-- when in fact natural madicine is much safer and far more effective when it comes to treating chronic and degenerative diseases and for prevention. Modern western medicine is best used only for ACUTE life or death situations only. As an independent health insurance broker I've taken thousands of health insurance applications and seen with my own eyes the toll taking meds for years and years takes on people's health. I've also seen the vibrance and youthfulness of those with clean medical histories that avoid drugs and use natural medicine when they can. I've done extensive research on health care expenditures of developed countries and have seen the statistics that show we spend the most per capita on medical care and have the least healthy geriatric population of ALL developed nations. Universal healthcare where MORE western medicine is forced on us will just be MORE DANGEROUS to our health. In fact, I've also researched statistics taken from medical journals that can be viewed in a report at the Life Extension Foundation that shows that western medicine is the leading cause of death in this country! That is right! Based on only 5 to 20 percent of reported incidents some 800,000 Americans die following their medical doctors advice -- EVERY YEAR. Don't believe me? Go to www.lef.org and search for "Death by Medicine". What's good about healthcare in other countries is that the natural modes of medicine are just as widely available as western medicine is. They aren't shunned, discounted, marginalized and worst of all, people aren't told outright lies that they are unproven or unsafe. Since they ARE available, they are more often used when they should be and as a result, people in Europe and Asia not only spend a lot less on medical care than we do per capita but they as a population are healthier for it. Changing WHO pays for medical care or insurance is not a panacea but making natural medicine WIDELY AVAILABLE , that is best able to maintain or return a person to robust health, (which is also FAR less expensive besides being less invasive) IS the answer. I've also been a volunteer lobbyist for independent health insurance agents in the state of RI and worked with the insurance industry and state legislators to bring about reforms to bring health insurers to the state which were ultimately withdrawn by the sponsor when he detected too much resistance from the Attorney General. What a discouragement that was after setting aside my career for years to "give back" and end the Rhode Island health care crisis for 7 years. I initially got involved thinking that this was a non-partisan issue and once legislators understood why carriers left, they'd want to quickly fix the problem and get them back. I wrote an Op-ed in the state-wide paper, "The Providence Journal" which led to talk radio interviews and an offer from a state Senator Marc Cote to sponsor legislation. I then formed the first Rhode Island Chapter of the National Association of Health Underwriters of which I had been an at-large member previously, with a few dozen other concerned health insurance agents so we could utilize the knowledge base on health insurance legislation at the National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU). I was the liason between Senator Cote; the carriers compliance departments and NAHU's legislative staff and coordinated the creation of three bills that would have fixed the onerous and overly strict health insurance laws in Rhode Island and returned carriers to the state. I also lept the public informed through Op-eds in the area and state wide papers and continued to be asked on News Talk radio shows on WPRO and WHJJ over the years. I soon discovered that this was NOT the non-partisan issue I thought it was. Even after meeting with Governor Carcieri and getting his blessing , certain legislators were obviously against this effort as the only bills we were able to get passed the first year were study commission bills (which I was unhappy about but was told by Senator Cote not to be discouraged). Unfortunately one of the issues to be "studied" by a new "health insurance commissioner" appointed by the Governor (who I'm sure was totally unaware his appointee had ideas for health insurance in the state that were 180 degrees apart from his) was the concept of a high risk insurance pool which protects carriers from having to accept as brand new applicants. Instead these people obtain their insurance from the health insurance pool. This enables the carriers to offer the vast majority of people low affordable rates.The risk pool to be studied was New Hampshire's, which at the time was the most successful in the country. Yet, although this wouldn't seem even POSSIBLE, the new health insurance commissioner managed to give a NEGATIVE report to the members of the Permanent Joint Committee on Healthcare Oversight. I was in the room listening and squirming in my seat and couldn't believe the untruths that this person Governor Carcieri thought was so wonderful was telling these ignorant legislators. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to rebut or answer any of the committee members' questions. I had however, sent every one of them a book called DESTROYING INSURANCE MARKETS: HOW GUARANTEED ISSUE AND COMMUNITY RATING DESTROYED THE INDIVIDUAL HEALTH INSURANCE MARKET IN EIGHT STATES by Conrad Meier published by the Council for Affordable Health Insurance and The Hearland Institute. I could tell by the questions, nobody had cracked the book. ONLY IN RHODE ISLAND do things you think could never possibly happen, actually happen. I told Senator Cote what I'd heard at the presentation which was discouraging at best because if a high risk insurance pool was not established, the carriers would not return. It was a deal breaker. So he (then anyway) wanted to continue to forge ahead. He thought just he and I should meet again with the Governor but then we learned that this new Health Insurance Commissioner had gotten the Governor to agree to not have any health care related meetings without him being included. If we were going to point out to the Governor the mistakes and misrepresenations made at the high risk pool presenation to the PJCOHCO by the health insurance commissioner, would make it very difficult, with the health insurance commissioner sitting right there. This made our work all the MORE difficult since all direct private communications with the Governor on this issue was no longer possible. We did communicate with his aides though and I have numerous emails of conversations discussing the nuances of items in the legislation with aides. Senator Cote still wanted to persist since at this point we had the actual bills needed to bring carriers back along with a commitment from two health insurers to return to the state if all three bills were passed. Even the prospect of doubling the number of health insurers wasn't enough to see it through as the Attorney General said that one of the bills would be like "handing the keys to the state to the health insurance industry". Each time Senator Cote and I tried to meet with his office to urge him to talk with his peers in other states where this same legislation is used and to allay his fears, he would put up a road block. First he said he would not meet with us until I and a NAHU headquarters staff member were registered as lobbyists-- even though neither of us were paid lobbyists. By the time we did that it was too late. He wasn't going to meet on this issue "this year", Atty. Gen'l Lynch told us. So Senator Cote decided that without the support of Attorney General Lynch and Health Insurance Commissioner, Chris Koller, legislators would never support the bills. By this time I'd spent 5 or 6 years on this. I was frustrated to no end. It was time for a change. That is why I moved to SC. Before this I was on the Executive Board of the Newport Tapayers Association and the Executive Secretary for two years from about 1989 to 1991. I helped build our membership from a few hundred to over 700 members by designing a direct mail campaign and coming up with a logo for the association. Additionally I'm an advocate for our Food & Water safety and animal welfare. I've been a volunteer for the following organizations: Friends of Animals
Few realize that the FDA has let the food industry literally get away with slow murder as genetically engineered ingredients are used in 65% of the food products sold in grocery stores without requiring they be labeled as such and they have been proven dangerous to our health. Go to www.truefoodnow.org for your FREE shopping list which tells you wich companies DON'T use GM foods or ingredients and learn how to find SAFE food for yourself and your family. The prospect of The New World Order with Big Corporations literally ruling the world and using and controlling the world population through fear and manipulation and poisening our food and drugging the population is terrifying let alone losing our privacy and other civil rights! (See www.healthfreedomeusa.org). A visit to that site makes me wonder why people are still so blind to the issues and has me wondering why didn't more of us listen to Ron Paul sooner?
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