Readers can view the interview or a part of it. Norwegian readers might find the Ozempic® drug discussion informative since the allegation is made that a Norwegian drug company anticipates gouging the federal treasury via Medicaid obesity treatment aimed at the ultra-expensive drug used to slim down fat poor people at taxpayer expense. Obesity is a problem worldwide, and the citizens of the U.S. should benefit from European prices, at least, and lower price than Germany pays would be great. Not price gouging where the Big Pharma player from Norway would like to set practice and pricing.
For all I know that latest Big Pharma looting may have already been lobbied into law, but if not, this nominee has ideas about things. Crabgrass thinks it's a better nomination than Kennedy, but that says little with Kennedy off the rails.
However, readers can and should view the item and judge for themselves.
Likely, if appointed, the nominee would be positioned where the pricing would be at the administrative level, not set by legislation. Hence, Surgeon General matters, and with Kennedy now entrenched, the position might have greater impact than normally (Kennedy in place being abnormal and a loose cannon).
The nominee comes across as several steps above Kennedy's understanding, even with that setting a low bar.
If looking for an advocacy tag, the nominee is a holistic medicine advocate. Holding a doctorate from Stanford and having walked from a highly specialization surgical training the nominee is not dumb. View and form your own opinion.
The nominee did the bulk of a residency but walked from it unfinished and does not have an independent practice background nor a license to practice.
She seems to be opposed to overly specialized medical practice and pill-pushing instead of looking at diet and environmental health considerations and causation of situations rather than being treatment centric.
Kook or not, you decide.
Crabgrass has expectations, including Senate approval being guessed as likely.
There is cred to having walked from the main way "medical practice" has evolved. She invested much time but left on the table the riches available to her if walking that traditional walk.
Importantly, "guideline" promulgation is discussed in the video. Not mentioned there, "guidelines" are liked by clinical practictioners, besides making practice more rote and less varied, in malpractice litigation following the prevailing medical norms of practice in the jurisdiction as a defense is a physician-friendly safe harbor. Holding to the guidelines without deviation offers a way out of liability - that whole dimension of why the industry likes pill pushing practice and incentives Big Pharma has to buy doctors into pill pushing as a way to medicate a nation. CYA in how you practice encourages do the guidelines and the gov and insurers will be happier while the Pharma interest gets served by ongoing pharma-centric care.
We live in interesting times. Crabgrass is not on any meds, and feeling healthy at 80 except that there's a foot problem that's taken a boatload of ongoing attention, with topical steroids used. Likely in accordance with a derm guideline.
Crabgrass has not been recruited into life long pill pushing from having not had insurance over much of the life. In a way that could have been beneficial. Protected financially from being put into the loop, now Medicare is helping greatly on the derm consultations. May the treating physician avoid burnout as the ongoing foot saga unfolds, and otherwise. A good physician, in the system, is the case and the attitude of Crabgrass is appreciative of Medicare and the treating dermatologist.
From that perspective, and firmly believing in Medicare for All, price gouging is of course a compelling worry as the Medicare hawks are aloft to seize the chance to screw me over so Elon's taxes are lowered. Elon's bought his way into being governmentally a more effective citizen-advocate for his interests than Crabgrass ever could, in that multi-million bribes via PAC election money are beyond Crabgrass means. Enough on that brief diversion.
Early in the interview the nominee did emphasize that the fastest and biggest growing segment of the federal budget is healthcare, even above defense, and as a percentage of the GNP its BIG. Money always is touched as a topic in discussions of healthcare and national health policy. Prevention vs treatment perspectives at the outset can lead to differing policy - to what gets paid for.
The interview IS Tucker Carlson, so be warned, and he's looking as if he's put on some weight to where the Ozempic® drug and the hype may touch him personally.
At pricing of $1500 a month, the figure is obviously rapacious and Crabgrass expects Medicaid hawks will push against it unless bribed. Big Pharma sucks, but has money to spread around and Cargill likes Big Ag, so diet and Industrial Ag practices, as they now are, are the rule of the day. That's something the interview touches w/o mention of Cardgill's place in Big Ag; i.e., the discussion is a trash-talk of ultra processed foods, without looking at the ground-up, other than pesticides, etc., and more oriented at the firms that give you foods made from the commodities vs organic nuts and berries and such. Added sugar got trashed. But listen on your own, see how you react. It is good the interview was available, given the pending nomination.
Again, Big Ag to the dinner table involves intermediaries, and the nominee during the interview looked at the tail end - processed foods industry profiting and then onto the dinner table via consumer choices given all the soil to table norms now applicable. Watch, and if able try also to see how hearings on the nomination evolve. As likely as not politician speechifying will happen, and some politicians get Big Ag money, processed food money, "guidelines" practice money, and the hearings will be biased toward why rock the boat, status quo works so why change?
That is to foresee hearings less helpful than the interview, politicians wanting to score points and do gotcha stuff, but expect the hearings to be less controversial than not. And the nomination should go through with Repubicans' respect for Trump's vindictiveness being front and center as a concern next election.
All for now, and the first draft as first published was revised and extended to be what you read now. Same general themes, some additions and corrections.
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With worldwide commerce, is it better to build a car equipped with devices to prevent accidents, or one more easily reparable? Don't get obese and you don't need expensive monthly jabs. Eating smart is not difficult. Eating less is about will and discipline as well as diet choices. If you don't properly service the auto you will not get the best lifetime mileage. Remember when U.S. car makers and the union were in cahoots to build crappy overweight cars that crapped out short of 100,000 miles? When oil passages clogged with sludge?
Just-buy-a-new-one doesn't work with personal healthcare, and a better paradigm replaced Detroit's build junk and advertise. And that paradigm did grow.
Is that relevant to healthcare? Media advertising of Big Pharma solutions seems on the rise, something the interview touched. It's easy, it works the message?
Remember Bardahl, an oil additive sold to you, alleged to make cars last longer, run better? Add it every so often to your engine oil? An auto "Pharma" type thing that sank into history when the Japanese built better autos and shifted a paradigm.
Is trim-the-fat monthly injection healthcare the "Bardahl solution" to an obesity crisis? Go figure. The analogy is strained, but not irrelevant.
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