Events on 10/20 and 10/2. Obamacare w/ Doctor & the Legislator

Here are more two chances to meet the Senator who is standing between the special interests and their goal of more control over medical care in Arizona!Saturday, October 20, 2012, 10am – noonObamacare w/ Doctor & the Legislator
Senator Antenori and AAPS Exec. Director Jane M. Orient, MD
Atria Bell Court Gardens, 6653 E. Carondelet Drive, Tucson, AZSunday, October 21, 2012, 1-3pm

Obamacare w/ Doctor & the Legislator
Senator Antenori and Lee Vliet, MD

Kirk Bear Canyon Library, 8959 E Tanque Verde, Tucson, AZ Continue reading

Here Comes de Tax, Order in the Court Now Here Come de Taxes

By Dr. Ada M. Fisher

The Supreme Court decision of June 28, 2012 did exactly as I’ve tried to warn folks, which is to view the 2010 Affordable Care Act = ObamaCare as a tax. Justice John Roberts in writing for the thin majority did not rule on the validity of the bill but rather sought to uphold the constitutionality of the ability of Congress to tax despite the protestations of Obama that this bill was not a tax. Hidden in the public discourse was the belief that this case would change the relationship of the citizenry and its government which would force them to do things they might not want to do. Continue reading

Two Years of ObamaCare False Promises, Worse Harm to Come

By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.,

Two years ago, on March 23, 2010, the new healthcare law was signed into being so that “we could all see what is in the bill,” as Nancy Pelosi promised. Other promises repeated over and over by its backers and the media: “You can keep your doctor.” “The new law will bend the cost curve downwards.” “Health insurance will be more affordable.” “No one will have to violate his/her conscience.” “The new law will not add to the deficit.”

Two years have given us time to see what’s in the bill. It is an ugly picture indeed. The promises all turned out to be empty rhetoric. Worse than just false promises, however, are the actual harms already done, and worse harms on the way.

Since Sir Thomas Sydenham in the 1600s, medicine’s tradition has been “First, do no harm.” If a “treatment” may cause more damage than doing nothing, it is often better to do nothing.

Instead, this bill does more of harmful things. The federal government has been put in charge of every medical decision that exists:

  • type of insurance you must purchase OR pay a penalty,
  • what the insurance must pay for,
  • what insurance can cost,
  • what medical specialists will be reimbursed and at what rates,
  • what treatments are allowed, and for whom, at what age,
  • what medical screening tests are approved or not approved,
  • who may or may not own hospitals,
  • what taxes are imposed on individuals, businesses, medical device makers, and pharmaceutical companies.

Some harms have already happened:

  • Health insurance premiums up 9% in 2010, another 9% in 2011, and more increases ahead;
  • Loss of patients’ privacy and control of their personal medical records, when the Secretary of Health and Human Services ruled in October 2011 that all private medical insurance companies must send all patient data to Washington’s central database—without the patient’s permission;
  • Jobs lost and new ones not created because employers cannot afford higher premiums to pay for all of the “free” services the government now requires;
  • Medicare facing cuts of $500 billion to pay for medical care for younger people in Medicaid;
  • Loss of medical specialists in many fields due to fee cuts;
  • Higher taxes on medical devices, which in turn are passed on to consumers;
  • A massive increase in the projected deficit as the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now has doubled the estimate of cost it gave before the bill was passed.

The “Affordable Care Act” is not affordable at all: it is now estimated to cost $1.76 trillion over the next decade, adding markedly to the U.S. debt.

More harms are still to come. Doctors will be driven out of business by costly new rules. Insurance companies will close because they can’t cover the new mandates. Private options for medical care and health insurance won’t exist. New drugs and treatments will not be developed because of more taxes and regulations. Rationing of care will begin as costs rise, budgets are depleted, and fewer doctors are there to see patients.

In the ultimate hypocrisy, the President, who has forbidden Catholics and others to exercise their own right of conscience in choosing the insurance they provide, is now, according to the New York Times, using taxpayer dollars for “an aggressive campaign…to build support for the new healthcare law…(with) a prayer vigil…outside the Supreme Court…beginning March 26.”

Government-controlled medicine is a singular threat to Americans’ liberty and tradition of religious and medical freedom. Currently, about 49 percent of Americans depend on some type of federal government benefit. With the new healthcare law, it will be 100 percent of Americans dependent on the government.

The 2010 healthcare law is a massive power grab to control your money, your medical treatment options, your businesses, your liberty, and ultimately your life. If government-controlled healthcare is allowed to stand, it is the end of freedom in America.

It is time for the new law to die before it kills American medicine, American patients, American liberty, and the American economy. Instead, we need true reform that puts the power and freedom back into the hands of patients and their physicians.


Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. is a preventive and climacteric medicine specialist with medical practices in Tucson AZ and Dallas TX that take an integrated approach to evaluation and treatment of women and men with complex medical and hormonal problems. Dr. Vliet is also President of International Health Strategies, Ltd., whose mission is twofold: liberty and privacy in treatment options and preservation of the Oath of Hippocrates focus on the individual patient. Dr. Vliet is the 2007 recipient of the Voice of Women award from the Arizona Foundation for Women for her pioneering advocacy for the overlooked hormone connections in women’s health. Dr. Vliet received her M.D. degree and internship in Internal Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, then completed specialty training at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Vliet is a Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Vliet has appeared on FOX NEWS, Cavuto, Stuart Varney Show, Fox and Friends and syndicated radio shows across the country addressing the economic and medical impact of the new healthcare bill. Dr. Vliet’s books include: It’s My Ovaries, Stupid!; Screaming To Be Heard: Hormonal Connections Women Suspect– And Doctors STILL Ignore; Women, Weight and Hormones; The Savvy Woman’s Guide to PCOS, The Savvy Woman’s Guide to Testosterone. Dr. Vliet’s medical and educational website is http://www.HerPlace.com.

Electronic Medical Records in the Age of Government Controlled Internet Kill Switches

Color PortraitBy Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. 

Egypt’s crisis has raised alarms about national security and economic impact for Americans if regime change leads to an anti-US government controlling a strong ally in the Middle East. This crisis raises another more personal concern for Americans that has been overlooked by the national media: the security and availability of your electronic medical records in the event of a government-imposed “kill switch” for the Internet.

Many Americans still do not know that hidden in the February 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, known as the “Stimulus” bill, was a provision that by 2014, physicians, hospitals, and other medical settings are to implement electronic medical records keeping systems. In 2015, penalties will be levied against physicians and health care facilities that do not implement use of electronic medical records.

The government’s plan is that medical information from physician consults and other medical visits will be sent to the Federal Health Information Technology (HIT) bureau in Washington, D.C. to provide individual medical data for the federally run Comparative Effectiveness Research coordinating panel of experts. According to a provision also hidden in the “Stimulus” bill, this panel of government-appointed experts is designated with deciding what treatment is allowed for individuals, based on government criteria for both cost and effectiveness.

Why do the events happening in Egypt raise concerns about these provisions in the 2009 Stimulus Bill? Think about it. The authoritarian government in power in Egypt quickly realized that communication via the Internet was furthering the spread of the protest movement. Without warning, the Egyptian government suddenly shut down the Internet to stop protesters’ ability to organize rallies.

Of course, protesters’ communication was not the only communication that was interrupted with this draconian “kill switch.” Financial systems, such as on-line banking, ATMs, and wire transfers, were affected, along with hundreds of other businesses that could no longer communicate with other offices around the world.

Medical communication via the Internet also came to a halt. Suppose your local doctor or hospital Emergency Room must obtain your electronic medical record via the Internet from the Health Czar’s cyberspace “cloud,” with access controlled by Washington elites.

What happens to your ability to get rapid medical treatment if you find yourself in a medical emergency that occurs in the middle of a political crisis and the government has shut down the Internet? At that point, you will appreciate first hand the true tyranny of ObamaCzarCare.

The President already has the authority under the Emergency Powers Act to do just this, so it isn’t hard to take the next step and imagine what can happen to patients if we physicians only have access via the Internet to people’s electronic records.

I prefer the old fashioned paper medical records that are available to me and my patients 24/7 – even when monsoon storms knock out electricity and the computer is out, or we are hit with a high-altitude detonation of a nuclear device that generates an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) which knocks out all electronic systems, or our own government decides suddenly to implement an emergency internet “kill switch.”

Any of these scenarios could be life-threatening if you have a medical emergency and all your information is tied up in computer systems that are no longer accessible.

Paper has a purpose. Paper medical records also serve valuable functions, even in the computer and Internet age. I have grave concern about moving totally to electronic medical records as I watch the problems that occur with disruptions to Internet access – whatever the cause – and the problems that occur with breach of computer systems security to steal confidential information.

Remember the hacking of Pentagon and NASDAQ computer systems? Remember the massive Wikileaks confidential data dump on the web? How do you feel about this type of leak of your personal private medical information? David Blumenthal, M.D., the President’s former “health information czar,” acknowledged “No infrastructure exists in most areas of the country for secure health information exchange among providers and between providers and consumers.”

Medical privacy? Apparently it is more important, according to this administration’s health czars to achieve the government’s efficiency goals than to insure your personal medical information is kept between you and your physicians.

Many of us who work with patients every day are very worried about the potential for harm to patients under a system in which medical information is controlled by government-appointed central planners. Physicians need immediate access to critical information, and we also realize the sacred responsibility we have to keep our patients medical information private – both of these functions are potentially seriously harmed by government control of our health information.

Have the Obama Administration central planners really thought about the many potentially serious ramifications to having all our medical records concentrated in one place and accessible only via the Internet? Or, is that the unstated purpose of our new “ObamaCzarCare:” government-controlled health services and control of medical information?

By limiting your freedom to get the care you need, when you need it, and with whom you choose…and by infringing on your medical privacy, the government has ever-increasing control of your life.

Americans face many dangers that lie in government control of electronic medical records coupled with government control of access to communication via the Internet.

Just thinking about a government-controlled kill switch can make you ill.

©Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.

DISCLAIMER: Dr. Vliet speaks as an independent physician, not as an official spokesperson for any organization. Dr. Vliet has no financial ties to any health care system, pharmaceutical company, or health insurance plan. Her allegiance and advocacy is to and for patients.

AAPS – The Voice for YOU, Not The Government!


Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. is a preventive and climacteric medicine specialist with medical practices in Tucson AZ and Dallas TX that take an integrated approach to evaluation and treatment of women and men with complex medical and hormonal problems. Dr. Vliet is also President of International Health Strategies, Ltd., a global healthcare and education service company whose mission is twofold: liberty and privacy in treatment options and preservation of the Oath of Hippocrates focus on the individual patient.

Dr. Vliet is the 2007 recipient of the Voice of Women award from the Arizona Foundation for Women for her pioneering advocacy for the overlooked hormone connections in women’s health. Dr. Vliet received her M.D. degree and internship in Internal Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, then completed specialty training at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Vliet is a Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

Dr. Vliet has appeared on FOX NEWS, Cavuto, Stuart Varney Show, Fox and Friends and syndicated radio shows across the country addressing the economic and medical impact of the new healthcare bill.

Dr. Vliet’s books include: It’s My Ovaries, Stupid!; Screaming To Be Heard: Hormonal Connections Women Suspect– And Doctors STILL Ignore; Women, Weight and Hormones; The Savvy Woman’s Guide to PCOS, The Savvy Woman’s Guide to Testosterone.