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.

Your Check-up – at the DMV

The line of people at the registration desk snaked passed the originally allocated, roped-off area, way into the lane between the wooden benches filled with hundreds of seated people holding their clinquant place-ticket while looking up anxiously at the numbers above that identify the lucky next. 

This is the new DMV, in a modern building, with instructed-to-be-friendly and by-the-book helpful personnel, a modern, electronic-line-system to move the vehicle-operating multitudes as efficiently as possible through registration, licensing and renewal.

This is a much better version of the DMV than when I registered my first car some 25 years ago. Back then you would have to allocate your entire day to the smoke filled dungeon, the lines were long, employees sat behind caged, bullet-proof windows and took pleasure in finding something wrong with your paperwork.

My 16 year old son had to go for his permit, and I found myself back in the midst of an eclectic assembly of humanity you could never find in virtually any other forum. There were a group of Jews in their black, matching outfits. Muslims wearing head scarfs and trying to restrain their children. A hip-hopper with tattoos on his neck. A tall black couple in designer clothes. Jamaican ladies trying to prove a point in that “Welcome to Jamaica” accent. Two girls who must have been entry level models. A friendly truck driver sharing his life-story peppered with colorful epithets, and me. 

I was waiting for my son to get his picture taken for his license. He was still wearing his running clothes from track-practice earlier in the day, there was no time to go home and change, shave those persistent whiskers or comb his hair. Luckily the next renewal is in only eight years, and he can take a picture that doesn’t look like a celebrity mug shot, then.

With the passing of HR3590 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the government will become heavily involved in my health, and your health. Now our system of care will be another efficient agency run by the government, like the fire department, Social Security, FDA and the DMV.

My congratulations to Michael Moore, “the people” are now running health care, just like in Cuba.

Ok, so although I’m getting close to resolving myself to the fact that we will now have “free” health care, I still find it difficult to believe that America took this turn, willingly. In Russia, it took Lenin and a revolution, in China it was Mao and the blood of millions, Pol Pot in Cambodia killed G-d first and then ruthlessly murdered those unwilling to conform, so as to live in peace, equality and with free public health care for all. 

Fortunately, we’re much more civilized and gave way to the inevitable future like a promiscuous groupie to a rock star. But what will this future look like exactly? The ‘right wing nuts’ are saying that our taxes are going to go up, but the President promises a savings of 130 billion dollars over 10 years. Some folks are saying that care will be rationed, but the administration is promising to cover the 46 million uninsured while at the same time providing preventive care for all.

Well, I don’t know what to believe, but I thought since we now have to have a government agency distribute health care, it would be interesting if the DMV, being one of the more efficient public agencies, was put in charge of that lofty goal. Luckily there is one near my house, about a 15 minute drive, and although my registration is renewed every 2 years, usually by mail, and my driver’s license every 8 years, still the building is fairly packed with people at all times of the day, with a line forming outside an hour before it opens. 

Health care on the other hand is something people need more often, if there are no problems, at least you would want a check-up once a year not every 8, and you can’t do it by mail. So you, along with some of your 300 million American neighbors would get on the information line, receive your waiting place-ticket, when called you would limp over to the window, trying to get circulation flowing back in your legs from sitting on the wooden bench, say hello to the friendly practitioner, trained in the most advanced health care techniques, taught by the ‘Public Medical College of America’. 

They would pull up your records easily, because the government has them all electronically and securely stored at the Pentagon. He / She / Transgender would ask you how you’re feeling, maybe listen to your heart, place a wooden tongue depressor gently in your mouth and instruct you to say aaah as they check your throat. All vaccines, are now compulsory for those wishing to retain employment, thanks to the drug companies relentless commitment to educating our officials on the dangers of going without, so you get a flu shot, meningitis, AIDS, one from heart disease and TB, as well as Polio and Alzheimer’s … and they’re all free! A certificate of immunization, post your mandatory annual exam, will be made available at the Quarantine Department of the DMV. 

As a side note, Thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative used in most vaccines, and implicated in neurotoxicity resulting in autism, autoimmune diseases and death, has been reduced to trace amounts.

The American Medical Association (AMA), an organization that all doctors are now mandated to join, is in charge of all codes that coincide with the authorized modality (i.e. G0102 digital rectal exam $227.33), this version of the Workers Compensation Schedule reminds of the yellow pages, just a bit thicker with smaller text. Of course any approach outside those approved by a new agency that oversees the market-place called Quack Watch, have been eliminated, placing particular emphasis on all services that feed on the public’s fears, and profit on their misfortune. So chiropractic, naturopaths, nutritionists, holistic doctors, sound and energy healers are now disbanded and illegal in all states except Texas, who continue threatening to secede.

The new food pyramid introduced by the government is now the most advanced and virtually perfect, influenced by some of the brightest minds from industry leaders like Monsanto, Kellogg, Wonder, Coke, Bayer and Perdue. Trans fat, hard liquor, bagels and smoking are taxed at 98%, because these substances cause complications that place unnecessary demands on what is a well functioning system of care, while aspirin is now added to our tap water, since a number of studies by completely independent third party labs have proven beyond a doubt, that it will reduce heart attacks by 23.7%, the biggest preventable killer in America. By a unanimous vote, all supplements are now available by prescription-only and are monitored and carefully dispensed by the Vioxx Safety Commission (VSC), under jurisdiction of the FDA. The same agency found “Organic” to be technologically inferior to genetically modified products, and an unnecessary expense to the household budget of the American public.

This is a wonderful time for us The People, I think that we’ve finally hit some version of an Ed Kennedy nirvana, that place where everything is at the pinnacle of excellence, the people are happy, healthy and don’t have to give virtually any thought to the financial stresses plaguing Europe and some of the developing countries in North America bordering our great nation.

I for one have had a fungus in my right toe nail for over 10 years, I went to the doctor a couple of times, they prescribed a medication that promptly did nothing, so I kind of gave up on it. It’s just the corner of the nail, and it doesn’t seem to be getting worse. I also have arthritic-psoriasis that I’ve been trying to heal without evidenced based medicine, mostly using unproven techniques like nutrition, exercise, supplementation, detoxification, stress management, and some teas used by generations of gullible natives whose only benefit had to be from the placebo effect. Like millions of Americans, I was forced into this system because of the unfair co-payment structure of the greedy insurance companies, making the best that real medicine has to offer, inaccessible. 

Thankfully those days are behind us. Now that all medicine is free, like in Canada, I will go see every doctor listed in the new Pelosi National Medical Directory, until my problems are solved, and while there I’ll also get an HIV vaccination, can you believe I never got one.

Alex Lubarsky

Health Media Group, Inc.

www.healthmedia.us

Universal Health Care is a Dog!

The munificent governor of California is proposing to cover the health expenses of the entire West Coast contingent, including such eclectic services as the counseling of a certified cleric. Perhaps many of you living in proximity to the Statue of Liberty are also salivating at the thought of FREE MEDICINE given to us by our selfless political leadership.

Having grown up in Moscow Russia, during the heyday of the Universal/ Socialist Society Mother Ship, inhabited by the something for nothing dogs, on the leash of their own parsimonious mentality, permit me a word or two on both the peril and opportunity, as we seek to redesign our model of health care.

On a resent trip back to St. Petersburg, Moscow and Rostov, I was struck by how thin most people who live there are, although now as in the United States, the fast food restaurants are ubiquitous throughout Russia. At first you had to stand on line for hours before you’d sink your teeth into one of those Big McButt Makers, but today as the lines subside, and the industry becomes more aggressive, the balance will begin to shift and the shift is going to hit the fan.

Here is the problem. For the last forty or so years in America, the snack non-food industry, fast-artery-clogging-food industry, sugar (or Lord help us, its substitutes), dead white flour products, sedentary entertainment industries, and that guy who makes the donuts … have been spending billions of dollars, each and every year, enticing our TV watching society to indulge. On the other hand, the entire health care system has been almost exclusively set up to catch us as we fall off the cliff of this insidious, hypno-induced, self inflicted lifestyle choice.

In addition, because our government has virtually eliminated the entrepreneurial, wellness oriented health practitioner, as our leaders continually infringe on the copy righted Universal Healthcare ideas of the German dictator Otto von Bismarck and Vladimir Ilych Lenin the founder of Communism, there is virtually no voice on the other side of the spectrum looking to balance out this disastrous equation.

By itself, the exercise industry is virtually impotent, that’s one reason the last six guys in America whose abs you can still see, are all infomercial super stars, peddling mechanical stairs that go nowhere and irritate the rest of us “normal people”, as we recline the La-Z-Boy a little further, and crack open a fresh box of Entenmann's!

I suppose we should be grateful that the government hasn’t started manufacturing their own cars (the Clinton Prius, the Bush SUV or the Lewinsky Vanquish), and then give them away for free to the poor folk who must unfairly endure public transportation. That however, is exactly what they’ve done with health care. Perhaps that’s why from year to year the cars are becoming safer, faster, more comfortable, more dependable and when compared to the inflation adjusted car prices of similar vehicles made 30 years ago … cheaper. Our health care, as you know, is not yet enjoying such progress.

Isn’t it interesting that we have been taught to maintain our cars yet neglect our health, build nice homes and destroy our bodies, buy the best and latest cell phone on the market yet choose the cheapest doctor on the block. That’s because, the transportation industry, real estate industry and wireless industries all operate in the aerodynamic market driven system of American Capitalism, while our health care is a limping dog pulling the kingly sled of the ever so plump Comrade Carl Marx.

I don’t believe you can imagine what your health can look like, and just how affordable health care can become when you allow the market, another words you and I, to design it.

When I pull a fist full of that green, and most powerful of all voting ballots out of my pocket, I the consumer can design a health care system, that will not focus 99% of its resources into the futile attempts of trying to ransom folks out of hospice, but invest our finite resources in cutting-edge technology, ideas and people that will give us strong, vibrant, aesthetic health, well into our 100’s.

Welcome to the future of Market Driven Health Care.

Alex Lubarsky, CEO
Health Media Group, Inc.
Post Office Box 40
Cedarhurst, NY 11516
www.HealthMedia.us