Skip Your Annual Physical says an ObamaCare "Architect"

Well here's some good "advice" from one the premier Obama.Care "Architects" and Obama adviser Ezekiel J. Emanuel.

Ezekiel is a University professor and former White House Adviser and Brother of Chicago Mayor (former White House Chief of Staff) Rahm Emanuel.

Zeke says it is good to just skip your annual physical because those really don't mean anything and it will save money.

Hmmm.

But yet the annual physical is one of those "minimum essential coverages" touted hard in the ACA debate.

Not to even consider if you discover a medical condition 2 or 3 years from now and they tell you it was treatable when discovered early, it could mean curtains.

Oh well.

I wonder what Zeke's real "hidden" message is here?

WE all make resolutions and promises to live healthier and better lives, to make the world a better place. Not having my annual physical is one small way I can help reduce health care costs — and save myself time, worry and a worthless exam.

Around 45 million Americans are likely to have a routine physical this year — just as they have for many years running. A poke here, a listen there, a few tubes of blood, maybe an X-ray, a few reassuring words about diet, exercise and not smoking from the doctor, all just to be sure everything is in good working order. Most think of it as the human equivalent of a 15,000-mile checkup and fluid change, which can uncover hidden problems and ensure longer engine life.

There is only one problem: From a health perspective, the annual physical exam is basically worthless.


Skip It

You Have to Test for It

to Find Out If You Have It

Meanwhile, thousands of people develop cancer, heart disease or some other silent condition and won't know til it's too late.

The message is: "Kill yourself inadvertently, or at least save us money!"

Very flippant tone from mister Zeke there.

If your car is running fine do you just skip the inspection? Probably not. Will you find something wrong with the vehicle you didn't know needed fixing? Good possibility.

I can't stress how important yearly blood tests are especially, but the other facets of the exam can be equally so. Things can change in a heartbeat and even if you are healthy as a hog, make sure to save your bacon!

For many years I was very anti prescriptions/doctors/hospitals and you had to pin me down to get me to take an aspirin. Then I went to the Dr for the first time since childhood with a horrible case of whooping cough, where they discovered I had plenty of other stuff that needed fixing.

Go to your exams. They're important.

As a non US citizen I have always been sceptical of Anual health checks, in the UK unless you have a medical condition you visit your GP if you feel unwell or are concerned about a possible ailment.

If you are over 40 they advise you visit your GP for a health check every 5 years some stats here on the life savings from this. Link

Given that the US health indutry is financially motivated I have always assumed that it is in the industies interest to book you in as often as possible, find as many things wrong with you and charge you as much as possible.

a reply to: xuenchen

We aren't seeing rationing yet, but the closest thing.
I said before the ACA passed that the only way it would work would be with rationing and price increases.

I've never liked the idea of getting a physical. Health be damned, it's to personal for me to deal with. Once, when I was sixteen or so, I went to the doctor for a required physical. After the nurse did some general check up stuff she asked me to wait for the doctor to come give me the physical. After a few minutes went by the doctor came in. He said everything on my physical exam checked out and I could go home. Except, I never "turned my head to cough". In other words I never had the full physical I was supposed to have. Yet here was this doc telling me I had, and that everything checked out. I didn't argue with him.

Some years later I broke down and went to get my packaged checked out by the USP- er the doctor. Ofc it was super embarrassing because I have an extreme irrational fear of doctors (well I guess it's not the doctors but the "what ifs") so of course everything shrunk in and pulled itself as close to my body as it could to hide. Eh who cares though. Not like I'm looking to impress old white men.

That trip was bs because after fondling my package for a minute or two he said he wasn't a specialist and wasn't in a position to make any educated diagnoses or guesses as to whether or not anything was wrong with me. Thanks for telling me that after the fact. That was about fifteen years ago. I've never been to the doctors since.

I don't give a flying pig what the government tells me to do in relation to visiting the doctor or signing up for their bs "affordable" care act. I prefer my irrational fear over anything TPTB want to push on me. I'll go broke and die before I sign up for ACA "Obama-Care".

originally posted by: nonspecific
Given that the US health indutry is financially motivated I have always assumed that it is in the industies interest to book you in as often as possible, find as many things wrong with you and charge you as much as possible.

Exactly. Most, if not all of my mothers problems were CAUSED by this industry. This is one of the reasons I hate it with a passion and will do nothing to support it in any way.

When I was younger, my dad screwed around with my moms best friend. Needless to say this was a big deal, especially emotionally, to my mother. All the drama surrounding these things put her in a deep depression. A doctor prescribed her with a particular drug, the name of which escapes me at the moment. However it is one that is only supposed to be used for one to two weeks maximum, because of all the nasty side effects it causes with long term use. Ofc, for years, every stinking p.o.s. brainwashed doctor told her she couldn't get off of it and had her taking it for YEARS. It has screwed with her in so many ways it isn't funny. And it not only effects her but the people around her.

See, this is the kind of thing you can't quit cold turkey or you risk your brain freaking out and shutting down and straight up killing you. She joined a support group online and my god man, the horror stories. This is the kind of drug you have to slowly wean yourself off of. My mom is lucky (that's right, is, because even after five or so years of weaning off this stuff she still has to take a small amount) getting off the stuff isn't as hard for her as it is for others. There are people weaning themselves off this "medication" that have to do it in the most miniscule amounts you can imagine, over epic periods of time. And some are never successful.

Oh and getting off this thing puts people in stressful, depressed, anxious moods.. Which effects not only them but everyone around them. They get brain tremors and other weird crap.. Ugh. I'm just gonna stop before I go on a huge rant!

The medical industrial complex is about money and nothing else.

Absolutely nothing else.

Keep people sick and on pharmaceuticals. With fifty thousand trips to the doctor to "find out what's wrong" and charge hundreds of dollars to blast people with small amounts of radiation to see their bones and brains etc.

For the record though, I know that there are good well meaning people in the health care industry and I ofc have no beef with them. They didn't create the system, they were only educated and trained by it. And ofc it's not as if people are never helped by this industry either. I myself was saved from death as a young boy when my appendix erupted and brought me near death.

a reply to: xuenchen
I'm in the UK so I'm not really savvy with this obamacare thing. Is it a medical insurance?

If a person skips their annual check up, will this then be used against that person by refusing their claim for medical costs if they become ill afterwards, all because they skipped their check up?

I don't trust insurance companies, they're all too quick to take your cash then do their utmost to wriggle out of paying out.

a reply to: xuenchen

That is ridiculous advice. And he is wrong. From a health care cost analysis perspective, preventive medicine is cheaper than fixing problems when it is too late to. And that means going to your physical.

a reply to: xuenchen

I have to preface my comment by saying that doctors have almost killed me three times, and I'm only alive today because of my own efforts... and natural medicine. So my view is just a little skewed. Having said that...

As I understand it from medical professionals, for the most part, annual physicals are defensive medicine at best, and simply a profit machine for the docs at worst... and little is accomplished that a person could not do themselves -- and better! -- if given the knowledge and tools.

Today, many (most?) doctors and hospitals use diagnostic software to evaluate patients. There's absolutely no reason why people cannot do the same for themselves. The software could be written specifically for patient use, as opposed to medical personnel, including the red flags that would indicate that a visit to the doctor for further testing and evaluation is needed.

I firmly believe that Obamacare was nothing more than an effort to prop up a failing healthcare system, meant to lock us in to a corporate model that benefits the corporate interests -- NOT the patients. As conventional medicine failed more and more people, these people turned to alternative medicine and found that conventional medicine was an inferior product, and our corporate masters just couldn't have that.

Of course, I don't believe Zeke cares one fig about our health. This is about profit, not health.

a reply to: xuenchen

So, what they are really saying is Obamacare is starting to run deeper in the red, and if you skip an annual check up, it will help the program. It's not really a big deal, unless you miss something that was really important.

If nobody heeds this advice, is this and maybe a few other items they decide aren't necessary, a backdoor way to bankrupt the program? That's probably not the best course, but maybe a start? Too simple I guess.

originally posted by: retiredTxn
a reply to: xuenchen

So, what they are really saying is Obamacare is starting to run deeper in the red, and if you skip an annual check up, it will help the program. It's not really a big deal, unless you miss something that was really important.

If nobody heeds this advice, is this and maybe a few other items they decide aren't necessary, a backdoor way to bankrupt the program? That's probably not the best course, but maybe a start? Too simple I guess.

Wait until it really starts to fail and they tell you that your burst appendix will have to wait.

originally posted by: darkbake
a reply to: xuenchen

That is ridiculous advice. And he is wrong. From a health care cost analysis perspective, preventive medicine is cheaper than fixing problems when it is too late to. And that means going to your physical.

I agree with you.
He is looking at it from a cost perspective using bureaucratic vision.... the cost is what will kill the ACA..... if it doesn't kill us first. If people die in order to keep costs down, it is a win for Obamacare. First it is screenings, then it annual physical exams, then limiting access to MRI and CAT scan machines.
We need to repeal the law and replace it with something that might actually help.

I think it is in some peoples best interest if most of us died soon after retiring,think of all the money that would be saved.

since they can`t make it illegal for people to seek medical care the next best thing is to convince people that they don`t need it,so that they will voluntarily not seek it and have a greater risk of dying sooner.
people who don`t seek health care won`t buy insurance so they had to institute mandatory health insurance first, so that insurance companies can still make money, before they start telling people that they don`t need preventative medical care.

Young people can usually get by just fine without preventative health care, it`s the older people (I.E. retired people) who benefit the most from preventative health care.
I remember when HMOs first came into being the main goal of HMOs was preventative medicine to save the insurance companies money. The idea was that regular check-ups would catch any potential problems that could be treated in the early stages and prevent larger (more expensive) problems later on.
It seems that the pendulum has swung back the other way I guess preventative health care worked too well and people started living longer and putting a strain on insurance companies resources.

How are we supposed to find a cure for new diseases, and current ones if we continue to stop researching its origin?

While I agree with his observations on statistical data for the positive side of things, I completely disagree with his rationale for the other half.

What he is trying to say is we are wasting time for a small percentage of research, when we should be focusing on the larger percentive of people already affected. The problem is we already have a wealth of information on the later stages of diseases, but not enough info exists in the earlier stages to help prevent it.

In order to really cure some of the terminal illnesses we need to completely understand its origins. And we don't have enough information on origins because people only see a doctor when they absolutely need to for a prescription, or for a cast.

Maybe the reason why annual exams may not be catching things early is because it is an ongoing practice that needs refinement.

The evolution of the annual exam has actually gone through many changes. And if we can discover something as it begins to grow then we have a better change of stopping it.

To me this person seems to be vastly concerned with money just like everyone else, and at the same time crafting a perception of this practice in a negative light.

originally posted by: WakeUpBeer
I'll go broke and die before I sign up for ACA "Obama-Care".

B-b-b-ut, if you don't have insurance or sign up for ObamaCare, you are going to be TAXED. Remember, it is a tax and you are required to pay it.

So let me get this straight ... my aunt who found her throat cancer extremely early and is going to survive (we think, all signs point to it) should have just ignored it because ... no biggie? Who needs those physicals.

originally posted by: queenofswords

originally posted by: WakeUpBeer
I'll go broke and die before I sign up for ACA "Obama-Care".

B-b-b-ut, if you don't have insurance or sign up for ObamaCare, you are going to be TAXED. Remember, it is a tax and you are required to pay it.

Yes and if you have it and don't use it to "save" costs, it's also a tax.

You get it!

Remember a couple of years ago, after decades of urging women to get yearly mammograms, they suddenly---just before ObamaCare kicked in fully --- told women yearly exams were no longer necessary. Every two or three years was fine.

Yes, go ahead and miss your annual examine.

By missing that examine your health care provider is give a reason to raise your premium.

So why would Ezekiel Emanuel (an Obamacare "Architect") tell you to skip your examine? He gets a bigger kickback from the health care providers for all those people that will pay a higher premium.

That's what I'm seeing.

I think Zeke is also engaged in a "pre-butter you up" program.

A program that will empower the I.P.A.B. death panel.

Read very close between the lines with Zeke's writing style.