What Your Doctor Can Learn From my Shoe-Shine Man. – By Alex Lubarsky

“There’s no shortage of dirty shoes, you just have to figure out how to get em’ in the chair.” – Don Ward (NY’s favorite shoe-shine man corner 47^th Street and 6^th Avenue NYC)

‘Hey Mister, your shoes need shining!’ – The man who had set up a shoe-shine stand on a New York street corner said to me as I was waiting to cross Sixth Avenue with my teenage daughter. I looked down at my feet, and did not feel an immediate need to sit down on one of the two office chairs, my innocuous accoster jury-rigged onto a wooden platform. ‘I’m good’ - I answered. Without skipping a beat, now focusing his smiling gaze at my 14 year old daughter, ‘Miss, your boots need a shine!’ One more time I looked down, now at the boots that were recently a prized possession of my wife. This time he hit the nail on the head. Those boots were in desperate need of exactly his kind of attention.

With a technique for shining shoes Don perfected over the last 20 years, he went to work with all the joy, speed and pride in his work of a true professional. As he was shining the boots, he continued making comments at the scruffy shoes of the people passing by, explaining the psychology of those who turned him down ‘those are trust babies, they did not like being called out on a perceived imperfection’, and at the same time sharing his own surprising story with me.

‘I was a pastry chef, then I lost my job and was jobless for over three years, before that I was an accountant working in a cubical.’ Smiling at my daughter, he whispered as if sharing a secret ‘that was boring, don’t do that!’ Quickly returning to his story, he said ‘I had Johnny Carson in this Chair, I told Ted Turner of CNN his shoes need shining … he did not have time for a shine but gave me a $20.’

There are lots of things to love about Don, he is a free spirit, he did not settle for a government handout or a system that was, as he put it, referencing a Seinfeld episode ‘killing independent George’, he is a marketing machine, and he is good, very good at his work.

It’s just not the same with most people who are good at their chosen craft, be they doctor, chef, lawyer or auto-mechanic, few are able to market themselves effectively and many believe that if they just do a good job, word-of-mouth will take over and eventually they will be very successful. Maybe, but that may just take two lifetimes.

Understanding marketing is crucial. If educating the public about your service is not incorporated into the cost of doing business, if it is something that comes as an afterthought rather then top-of-mind, true success will always be just around the corner French-kissing your competition. You will either learn to embrace marketing or you will always be at the mercy of those who do.

Maybe that is why our system of health care is run by third-party shysters that have virtually nothing to do with it while the doctor is relegated to cabin-boy status on the lowest deck of his own ship. 

With what is the ultimate insult to the health care industry, by a self-perpetuating bureaucracy, all controls of the helm will be placed in the hands of a few ‘selfless’ politicians. Most doctors will capitulate to the virtual subjugation by an emboldened, oppressive system that will have them working in the proverbial cubical, as third-party bureaucrats slowly kill independent George.

It’s not about money. It’s about freedom, and it’s about practicing medicine that touches your soul, makes you excited to go to work, and doing it on your own terms, not to mention, makes some kind of an impact in the sobbingly-sad and epidemically-deadly health statistics of generation Y and her children.

The only chance for the future of health care, indeed for the future of our country, is for doctors to identify what their passion is, cultivate a message, dump all the insurance companies, say no to government intervention and begin marketing themselves, just like they pay the rent in their office, i.e. consistently and for as long as they wish to be in business.

There is no shortage of un-well people, you just have to figure out how to get em’ in the chair.

For the last ten years, I’ve ended each of our weekly radio programs with a wish and a prayer, and it is with that thought that I’d like to begin our partnership:“May G-d give us the wisdom to protect our health from the drug-pushers, the mangled-care monopolies and the compulsory medical Marxist, may the health care provider unify and take back the health care industry, and may it happen within this decade.” www.HealthMedia.us 

Andy Griffith Stands up for the PP Act: The Peril’s of Compulsory Medical Care

By alex lubarsky

In a recent commercial espousing the benefits of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (or the PP Act), the late Andy Griffith put his credibility, and hopeful-enthusiasm behind this little piece of legislation designed to help ‘fundamentally transform’ the United States of America.

“Nineteen Sixty Five”, Andy began, “la’da good things happened that year” he said in his friendly, cowboy-English twang, “like Medicare”, he continued with the confidence, fluid delivery, and sincerity as that of a paid actor. “Free check-ups, lower prescription costs and better ways to protect Medicare and us from fraud”, he promised, while pointing his authoritative finger at the viewer.  I did not know Andy and never saw any of his shows, because growing up in the 70’s my TV watching was limited to 3 channels of state-controlled news with ‘grandpa’ Brezhnev espousing the benefits of our Lenin-style social utopia. It was kind of like your version of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, but different.

The first time I came across an example of a warped-reality inflicted by media misinformation, I worked in an auto repair shop. After years of seeing the insides of engines, I clearly noticed the difference between one that used quality, high-octane fuel, and those that used cheap gasoline. I mentioned to a customer that the rumbling and pinging was the result of residue build-up on the valves and spark plugs because the cheaper, low octane gasoline did not burn as well, or as clean. The expression on the face of this ‘mass-media intellectual’ changed noticeably, as he began to explain to me why what I was saying was clearly ignorant, mendacious and wrong.

The PP Act is not a new idea. It’s not kinder or more progressive. It’s not cheaper or more efficient. It does not take better care of the elderly or the young and it is not somewhere for us to get to but an ideology for us to get away from. But don’t ask me, just talk to many of my Russian-speaking doctor friends who actually practiced medicine in a government-run system of care, eerily similar to the one that you are about to embrace. Talk to their patients, read the countless books on the topic, and perhaps you'll see what I see. Although sadly, to get the feel of this medieval whip on your naked back, you’ll probably have to experience it for yourself.

Back in 1949, in his book “Compulsory Medical Care and the Welfare State” Melchior Palyi wrote that “In democracies the Welfare State is the beginning and the Police State the end. The two merge sooner or later, in all experience, and for obvious reasons … all modern dictators have at least one thing in common. They all believe in Social Security, especially in coercing people into governmentalized medicine.”

If it wasn’t so tragic, perhaps I could say it was paradoxical that Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini were history’s biggest proponents of socialized, free, single-payer, universal, government-controlled, (or whatever sobriquet you would like to assign this menace) public health care. Clearly these men did not have the health of their subjects in mind, when they pumped their fist and rhythmically rhapsodized the benefits of putting their party in charge of your health. Captivating the enchanted, fawning masses, and like the Pied Piper leading the gullible crowds to a future that they could not possibly want or imagine.

Please don’t misunderstand, I think it’s important that we as individuals help others who are in need of our help. I don’t think my family would have survived a year, when we first immigrated to the United States in 1979, if not for the generosity, kindness and proactive empathy of the American people. There are indeed many examples of this kind of munificence throughout this country by those who have made and gave away great fortunes: Andrew Carnegie, J. Paul Getty, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates to name a few. Of course those who made lesser fortunes, yet gave no less generously every day of their lives are people you can easily find in your immediate circles, perhaps in your own home, or mirror.

My warning, more to affirm my own beliefs than to try and change anyone’s mind, is that the more power we place in the hands of third-party systems and self-perpetuating bureaucracies, the less health we will ultimately enjoy. And since our freedom to live life on our own terms is in direct correlation with whether we can think clearly, move fluidly, and have the strength and energy to pursue our dreams, we must become vigilant to the veiled treats to our independence, and cognizant to the structures of wellness and the roads to optimal health.

A society that embraces wellness, allowing it to permeate its culture can only be created by a free-market system that educates people, inspires them and ‘sells’ them on the benefits of a lifestyle that circumvents many of the chronic diseases that have become the norm. We don’t even question it anymore, we’re just sitting there, sipping and bathing in the toxic swamp of modern chemicals that unravel our DNA strands, hoping against hope that someone will come up with another chemical that will reverse that insidious process before it’s too late.

You and I are smarter than that, we set our own course, we examine the facts, vet our allies and seek out the knowledge with which to build the foundations for optimal wellbeing, lasting beauty, fabulous fitness and inspiring longevity. I think Andy would like that.

Alex Lubarsky is the founder of Health Media Group, Inc., host of the weekly Health Media Live radio program, and one of the organizers of the NAVEL Expo. He was born in Moscow, Russia, during the reign of the former USSR. His passion is to inspire personal responsibility and the freedom that it fosters.

Conservative Case for Socialized Medicine in America

Conservative Case for Socialized Medicine in America

By Alex Lubarsky

When my son was about eight, he and some of his friends decided to have a little fun by sliding down the roof of our house, luckily the crew of daredevils did not get hurt. When my wife found out about it from a neighbor, she promptly punished the boy for a month, essentially taking away his freedom and what little independence he had once enjoyed.

Similarly, when we behave in a self-destructive manner, someone, in this case our government, will want to step in to save us from ourselves. Do you think healthcare would be on the minds of our politicians if the country was mostly well? They are not, for example, looking to take over fine watch manufacturers, because all of our watches work without skipping a beat, so no one gives it any thought. Our health as a nation, on the other hand, is in emergency care. It’s a highway catastrophe, with the patient sprawled on the ground, bleeding and gasping for air. So emergency crews are rushing to the scene to try and rescue the victim. Obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease are a rampant; it is a modern version of the Black Plague, infecting the adult population as it slithers towards the youngest among us. In fact, the fastest growing contingent of obese people in the United States is made up of six-month-old babies.

Now that we have this unprecedented demand on our system of care, everyone who is not well, and that is most of our population, demands to have unlimited access to a personal entourage of highly trained medical professionals, and…they think someone else should be paying for it.

Before I go any further, let me just say that I hate socialized anything. I think anyone who can entertain these ideas has not lived under that kind of soul-stealing, everything-for-everyone-yet-nothing-for-anyone system and perhaps has to experience it firsthand before the reality of its dangers slowly begins to unveil. So, in that regard, maybe socialized medicine in the United States is just the toxic medicine that the doctor ordered.

The other point I would like to make, as I lay out my case for the government’s takeover of our healthcare system, is that the loss of freedom is usually in direct correlation with apathy. When we stop caring about something, we create a vacuum for some opportunistic entity to take over. If we stop caring about our garden, for example, weeds will take over the garden. If we stop caring about our freedom, there are plenty of sinister groups ready to subjugate us and take away everything we hold dear. And if we stop caring about our health, the government will look to impose something like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

So if we, as a nation, have neglected our well-being for so long that the situation has become dangerous to the future of our survival, maybe we no longer deserve to be in charge of our own healthcare. Maybe the government will do a better job taking care of you then you. Clearly, they can’t do any worse.

I hope you are at least a little angry, for having me suggest that you, an American citizen, a smart, independent thinker, and one responsible for building the most advanced and prosperous country in the history of mankind, is not capable of making decisions about your own life, and that you would be better off with Big Brother looking after you. Perhaps now we can examine this situation from something of a different perspective. If, let’s say, you don’t care about your health, and if on a daily basis you do a hundred things to undermine it, yet nothing to improve it, then you don’t deserve to live in freedom. Even if this government attempt to take over healthcare fails, which it will, it does not leave us any better off. We are all so sick that we can’t afford to maintain our self- imposed lifestyle diseases indefinitely as this current system of care is designed to do.

In my mind, the answer is twofold. First and foremost, we must take responsibility for our own health and well-being; we must understand its value in relation to our life and everything we consider important. We must begin educating ourselves on the fundamentals of a lifestyle that fosters vibrant health, and we must reverse this dangerous trajectory of homicide via self-inflicted wounds, if not for ourselves then for the future generation, for our children.

Second, we must shift the teeter-totter of the current model of care from a focus on disease to that of prevention and wellness. Today we’re spending almost 3 trillion dollars per year handing out band-aids at the proverbial highway pile up, one that is still going on, growing and picking up momentum, with a new crop of victims every day that will need attention and more emergency care from our government. So really, our politicians are simply trying to do what they have been asked, indirectly, by the people they serve. We asked them to protect us, to save us in an emergency, and this ‘Three Stooges Tango’ is their laughable attempt.

The future of this nation is threatened by the trajectory of the health of its citizens, and we are looking to the wrong institutions to save us. The fire department is awesome when there is a fire, but virtually useless if you keep setting yourself on fire. Government is wonderful, especially the one in the United States, for the purposes it was designed, but clumsy and almost comical when you ask it, through your actions, to run your life.

Make no mistake, the situation is dire, but the answer to our national health problems, and the fate of our freedom as individuals to make decisions about our life, is dependent on whether or not we choose to get off the roof and start living like responsible adults.

Alex Lubarsky is the founder of Health Media Group, Inc., host of the weekly Health Media LIVE radio program, and one of the organizers of the NAVEL Expo. He was born in Moscow, Russia, during the reign of the former USSR. His passion is to inspire personal responsibility and the freedom that it fosters.