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Beyond Progressive Malpractice: Taking Down Big Pharma
Progressive Malpractice [noun]: ignoring the fundamental economic and political roots of a crisis; taking a single-issue, band-aid approach in hopes of gaining mainstream support.
Libertarian Narcissism [noun]: promoting individual solutions for collective problems; believing that market pressure alone can bring out-of-control corporations under control; ignoring the plight of the poor; pretending major problems can be solved without serious grassroots organizing and government reform.
* * *
Welcome to Sicko Nation: Swimming in a toxic soup of 100,000 synthetic chemicals-carcinogens, neurotoxins, hormone disruptors, immune suppressors, excitotoxins. Worn down by corporate junk food, tainted consumer products, air and water pollution, incessant advertising, infectious disease, synthetic drugs, cigarette smoke, and alcohol. Zapped 24/7 with electromagnetic radiation. Stressed out by poverty and economic insecurity, fear of crime, rampant consumerism, and a murderous work pace. A growing corps of Americans is chronically sick and dispirited.
Aiding and abetting this massive assault, mainstream medical practitioners, the corporate media, and elected public officials ignore or cover-up the toxic roots of Sicko Nation. Money-grubbing politicians offer band-aid solutions, and then proceed to collect their rewards in the form of campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical industry and HMOs (Health Maintenance Organizations). Big Pharma spends more on lobbying-$855 million between 1998 and 2006- than any other industry in the United States, according to the Center for Public Integrity. In addition Big Pharma feeds the insatiable appetite of the mainstream media, spending more than $70 billion dollars a year on advertising. Last but not least, U.S. doctors make more money than any other medical practitioners in the world, though they typically pay a steep price in terms of a 70-hour workweek, skyrocketing malpractice insurance, and indentured servitude to HMOs and giant hospitals. The Emperor of ill health has no clothes, but very few of our so-called leaders are talking seriously about what to do about it.
American consumers and employers will spend over two trillion dollars this year on health insurance, pharmaceutical drugs, and medical bills, yet we will remain-mentally and physically- among the unhealthiest people on Earth. Forty-eight percent of U.S. men and 38% of women can now look forward to getting cancer. Eight percent of our children suffer from serious food allergies, 17% are diagnosed with learning or behavior disabilities, and a third of low-income preschool kids are already overweight or obese. Heart disease, diabetes, mental illness, cancer, and obesity are spiraling out-of-control among all sectors of the population.
The fundamental causes of most of our chronic health problems are not genetic or inherited, but rather derive from couch potato/commuter lifestyles; over consumption of highly processed, high-cholesterol, nutritionally deficient, and contaminated industrialized foods; and an increasingly polluted, stressful, and toxic environment. These, of course, are problems that even the most expensive prescription drugs and high-tech medical procedures cannot cure. Unfortunately the worst is yet to come. Within eight years, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, America's health care costs will soar to $4.1 trillion annually, bankrupting Medicare and millions of American families and businesses. Unless we quickly change our priorities from "maintaining" our Sicko Nation to universally preventing disease and promoting overall wellness-including cleaning up our food supply and environment-America's health crisis will become terminal. This means we must put an end to tunnel vision, single-issue health care politics and roll up our sleeves to take on the real culprits: out-of-control corporations, politicians, and technology.
With millions of Americans mentally or physically debilitated, permanently hooked on the world's most expensive prescription drugs, Big Pharma, HMOs, and insurance tycoons rake in billions. According to Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, in 2002, "The combined profits for the ten drug companies in the Fortune 500 ($35.9 billion) were more than the profits for all the other 490 businesses put together ($33.7 billion). Over the past two decades the pharmaceutical industry has [become] a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit, [using] its wealth and power to co-opt every institution that might stand in its way, including the US Congress, the FDA, academic medical centers, and the medical profession itself."
To put it bluntly we must put the "fear of the grassroots" into the minds of Congress and the nation's 172,000 elected public officials. But we will only be able to accomplish this if can move beyond progressive malpractice and libertarian narcissism. The critics of corporate health care and Big Pharma must stop quibbling, close ranks, and mobilize a massive united front of the progressive single-payer health care movement, representing the 100 million Americans with no or inadequate health insurance; reinforced by an army of radicals and libertarians, the 50 million alternative heath consumers who have rejected Big Pharma's trillion-dollar drug and heath maintenance scam altogether. Unless we bring together liberals, radicals, and libertarians, and mobilize this new majority, we will fail.
The toxic side effects of Sicko Nation are poisoning the body politic. With much of the population fixated on their health and psychological problems, worried about losing their jobs or their health coverage, doped up on prescription drugs or alcohol, and, for many, compensating for their alienating jobs with rampant consumerism, politicians and corporations run amuck. National and global mega-crises-climate change, peak oil, and endless war-steadily grow worse. Outgunned and out-maneuvered, public interest organizations have defensively barricaded themselves in their respective single-issue silos-competing rather than cooperating, seldom if ever making the crucial links between food, environment, lifestyle, work, tax policy, military spending, and health. Intimidated and/or bought off by Big Pharma and the medical industrial complex, few of the nation's elected public officials-and none of the major Presidential candidates-dare talk about the obvious solution to our national health crisis: universal health care with a preventive and holistic focus.
We need universal, publicly funded health care because millions of sick and disadvantaged Americans are suffering and dying. We need universal health care because Big Pharma, HMOs, and insurance companies are gouging consumers for two trillion dollars a year, profitably "maintaining" their illnesses, rather than curing them, steadily moving the nation along a trajectory that, combined with out-of-control military spending and corporate tax evasion, will eventually bankrupt the economy.
In every industrialized country in the world, except for the United States, medical care is considered a basic human right, alongside food and shelter, which a civilized society must provide for all. Of course it's very difficult for a corporate-indentured government like the U.S. to afford universal health care, if big pharmaceutical companies and HMOs are allowed to jack up their profit margins at will, while the rich and the corporations are allowed to evade taxes. Health care reform in the U.S. must be coupled with price controls on drugs and medical costs, as well as tax reform, whereby the corporations and the wealthy are forced to pay their fair share of federal taxes. In the U.S. corporations paid almost 40% of all federal taxes in 1943. Now they pay less than 10%. In 1960, millionaires were taxed at the rate of 90%. Now the top rate for millionaires and billionaires is 35%. Putting an end to this institutionalized tax evasion is a prerequisite for being able to afford publicly funded universal health care-without raising taxes for the middle class and the poor.
* * * The Cure: Disease Prevention & Complimentary Medicine
But government funded universal health care (exemplified by John Conyers' currently stalled bill in the House, HR 676 ("Non-Profit Medicare for All") is not enough. We need non-profit universal health care that promotes wellness and prevents people from getting sick-before they end up in the hospital or become permanently addicted to expensive prescription drugs with dangerous side effects. Simply giving everyone access to Big Pharma's overpriced drugs, and corporate hospitals' profit-at-any-cost tests and treatment, will result in little more than soaring health care costs, with uninsured and insured alike remaining sick or becoming even sicker.
To cure Sicko Nation and revitalize the body politic, we will need to build up a comprehensive not-for-profit public health system that not only guarantees everyone access to health care, but makes the life or death connections between food, diet, and health; exercise and health; exposure to toxics and health; stress reduction and health; and poverty and health.
As fifty million organic consumers and alternative health consumers can attest, complimentary and preventive medicine, utilizing natural herbs, minerals, food based supplements, organic whole foods, lifestyle changes, and holistic healing practices is safe, affordable and effective. Preventive health care, natural medicine, and proper nutrition have been linked to a broad range of health and social benefits, including disease reduction, increased academic performance, and lower health care costs. Unfortunately, a large percentage of the U.S. population lacks access to health care, complimentary medicine, and healthy foods. The only solution to this unacceptable situation is to shift to a single-payer, publicly financed, prevention-based, universal health care system. The $350 billion in savings that will occur by eliminating the profit motive and moving to a single-payer system will allow us to insure and promote the health and wellness of our entire population.
In addition, scientific evidence is mounting that Americans' daily exposure to 100,000 different synthetic chemicals (less than 10% of which have ever been safety tested) in our food, water, medicines, body care products, cosmetics, toys, home environments, etc. are undermining our health and fueling an epidemic of debilitating and deadly diseases including cancer, heart disease, asthma, allergies, obesity, and chemical sensitivities.
Of course we still need conventional medicine and practitioners: hospitals, diagnostic tests, surgeons, and specialists, as well as preventive and holistic healers. I am a vocal advocate for organic food and integrative medicine, but if I suffer a heart attack, break my leg, or get shot in an anti-war demonstration, I want to be taken to a well-equipped and staffed hospital, not to a health food store or my local acupuncturist. But after my hospital treatment I don't want to become a prescription drug junky or be driven into bankruptcy court by a $100,000+ hospital bill.
To restore public health and bring Big Pharma to heel will require, as a minimum first step, that we organize a broad united front between the nation's 100 million supporters of single-payer health insurance (many of whom have an outdated or conservative belief system regarding the relative effectiveness of conventional versus alternative medicine), and the more radical, often libertarian, 50 million alternative health consumers and practitioners--who typically hate Big Pharma and the entire medical industrial complex with a passion.
This united front will require us to move beyond current "progressive malpractice," whereby single-payer health care activists work in isolation from alternative health consumers, often dismissing complimentary medicine and its advocates as "snake oil salesmen." Similarly "libertarian narcissism" is just as counter-productive: alternative health enthusiasts who basically say "to hell with all government programs" and "socialized medicine," in effect ignoring the plight of 50 million poor and low-income Americans who have little or no access to healthy food, nutrition and health information, or access to quality health care. Beyond uniting liberal, radical, and libertarian critics of Big Pharma and the medical industrial complex, the entire activist rainbow, including environmentalists, trade unionists, tax reformers, peace activists, and other progressives will have work hand in hand to treat and cure our profoundly sick nation.
Forty-seven million Americans currently have no health insurance, while 50 million more of us are woefully underinsured. Unfortunately, being able to afford conventional health insurance yourself or getting it through your employer may not help you very much, since Big Pharma and profit-obsessed HMOs and hospitals are focused mainly on selling you overpriced (often hazardous) prescription drugs ($300 billion a year), running expensive tests, and basically keeping you on permanent health maintenance, rather than preventing and/or curing our most common ailments such as cancer, hypertension, heart disease, lung problems, diabetes, obesity, stroke, and mental illness. Rampant medical malpractice and the failure of conventional medicine to address our serious ailments is the primary reason that 50 million alternative health consumers are taking matters into their own hands and paying $30 billion dollars a year out of their own pockets for complimentary medical supplements and practitioners.
Even worse than just expensively maintaining-rather than curing-chronic illnesses, the collateral damage of Big Pharma's business as usual can only be described as catastrophic. As an AMA (American Medical Association) publication admitted a decade ago, drug related "problems" kill. 198,815 people, put 8.8 million in hospitals, and account for up to 28% of hospital admissions." Over the past decade this carnage has increased. Newsweek magazine, among others, has reported that side effects from prescription drugs are now the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. As medical analyst Gary Null warns: "A definitive review and close reading of medical peer-review journals, and government health statistics shows that. the number of people having in-hospital, adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million .the number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections is 20 million. The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million. The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million.
The problem is clear. The solution is obvious. The trillion-dollar life or death question is whether we can overcome our sectarian divisions and mobilize the grassroots power of the 150 million Americans who are sick and tired of living in a Sicko Nation. Can we heal the perennial split between proponents of conventional medicine and the alternative health consumer movement? Can progressives and libertarians reach out to the economically disadvantaged and stressed-out majority to create a massive grassroots pressure that will literally force the politicians to "do the right thing?"
The time for action is now. To begin the long overdue process of "pressing the politicians" please join thousands of other consumers and taxpayers and go to www.grassrootsnetroots.org where you can click a button to send a comprehensive Universal Health Care Candidate Survey to your state and federal elected public officials and candidates running for office in 2008. Once you've "pressed the politicians," an on-line organizer from the Grassroots Netroots Alliance will contact you.
Ronnie Cummins is the Organic Consumers Association's National Director.
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24 Comments so far
Show AllSo much of the problem you outline, and so much of the solution you suggest sounds to me like the thinking and direction of Dennis Kucinich, the one politician whom I admire for integrity. Pity that when he attempted to propose this message, the major media shut him out.
The single most important thing any citizen can do this year for American health and health care is to vote for Obama and Democratic congressional candidates. It does not matter, by the way, what you think of the specifics of Obama's health plan articulated for the Campaign, because the real health solution---single-payer---can only be discussed after you get the liberal politicians who would enact it actually seated there. The campaign rhetoric is for the campaign. Elect first---then invite those one hundred million citizens who favor single payer to weigh in.
(Hint though: If you don't actually get the liberals first, the ones who do weasel into office won't give a darn about what either you or the 100,000,000 others think.)
And if you don't believe me about "elect first" with respect to single payer, consider Dennis Kucinich. For telling the truth on this and other issues, he was relegated to unelectable in the minds of too many. Elect first. THEN demand. The other way around has not been working for decades now.
re 12:23pm
"elect first. then demand."
and then get tasered, clubbed, handcuffed and jailed.
heckuva job, dems.
Daniel David,
what part of GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATION you didn't get? Obama is not a liberal, neither are any Democrats (except Kucinich or Gravel). I would like to see you for once having the decency to mention at least one of them in your posts, or how your beloved Dem party assasinated them politically.
Ok, you mentioned Kucinich, sorry about that one
ladybug,
I have always liked Dennis Kucinich and would love to see him be president. But I don't think he can get there, and I don't think anyone who tells the truth in the campaign as much as Dennis did can ever get there. That's the problem.
As for Obama, I think he is trying to get there without the inevitable self-foot-shoot of admitting just how liberal he really is. I believe he is plenty, plenty far left and that that is why Rush Limbaugh prefers Hillary on air. Barack is attempting a very very delicate dance and some of the far right folks are sniffing the scent and balking. Our job is to get him elected while we have a pretty good shot at it.
Daniel David: You missed your calling. You should be writing fiction. You have a great imagination.
Have you checked Obama's voting record in the Senate? Virtually identical to Clinton's. His advisers? Ditto. So what, aside from a vivid imagination, makes you think he's "plenty, plenty far left."? The 2-million dollar house?
The same things were said of Bill Clinton. You do remember Bubba, don't you? He drove me out of the Democratic Party. He's a Republican, and so's his wife. So why is her record so similar to Obama's?
And why on Earth would they listen to us "in the streets" when we've already proved we're suckers? When they already have what they want? There is no recall on the national level, DD! What, exactly, are you going to do to them to get them to follow those imaginary lefty leanings of theirs?
Correction: not "their", "his". Barack's. You really don't think he's signed that contract in blood to get where he is? (Hey, if you can have a vivid imagination, so can I.)
And why on Earth do we have only a "pretty good shot" at electing a Democrat? We've had 7 years of the worst President in history, he's just delivered the kiss of death to the Rethug nominee, the polls favor Democrats 50%-35%, an unprecedented margin, and we have "a pretty good shot"?
Maybe it's because the Democrats we have refuse to offer a real alternative to Life in Hell. Maybe it's because the voters aren't really that dumb, and they can see that they're being offered more of the same.
You been drinkin' the Kool-Aid, DD. Just don't ask us to drink it with you.
Sorry, everybody, I got distracted by Daniel David's flight of fantasy.
Cummins has posted an extremely important article here. The notion that we could respond rationally to it by voting for someone who advocates the exact opposite (i.e., massive subsidies for the INSURANCE INDUSTRY) just made me go ballistic.
Going back to politics and how we might actually address health care and our toxic lives, I can only suggest that there is a better option: Cynthia McKinney will be running for the Greens, on a platform of real sustainability and real public health-care. If you really want to do something constructive about promoting an organic life, you can work and vote for her (she isn't nominated yet, but she will be.)
She "can't be elected"? Well, that's ultimately up to us, isn't it? She certainly can't if you don't work and vote for her.
(While you're at it, get some face time with your county elections clerk. They're the ones that buy the voting machines, design the ballots, and administer and COUNT elections. If you don't like what you hear, talk to your elected county officials. They want to hear from you, and as many other potential voters as you can round up.)
I believe most of us can and have recognized the pieces to the puzzle, but due to the frenzied pace of existing these days, our own issues of the moment, and the endless onslaught of media, we haven't had the time to put the pieces together. Mr Cummins has.
Certainly it is more complicated that Mr. Cummins has indicated in his piece, BUT he has put the major pieces together providing a better understanding for all that read and heed. Now it is time to ACT!
"There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."
Edith Wharton
Hey Danial David,
Are any of these Democrats going to fight to legalize real cures such as hemp and stevia or are they going to let BIG GOVERNMENT fuckers such as the DEA and FDA keep bowing to the corporate interests ? Are we going to get some real healthcare reform or the same old attempts at pro-privatized-healthcare known as Hillarycare ? Either the party is going to shut the fuck up and actually fight for the working class after 28 years of goofing off and caving in to the GOP or we're gonna PUNISH the party the same way Paul Kersey of the Death Wish movie series PUNISHED the muggers.
Btw: Clinton or Obama, they're all the same as Mccain. Their controversies and triangulation will be exposed and much as I hate to see Mccain win, I wouldn't be surprised if Mccain won as many as 50 states come November 4, 2008 !
Daniel David - I agree with your "fantasy." From reading the other posts here, it's pretty obvious though what'll sink us in November.
I like Kucinich to. Was really hoping for a Richardson/Kuchinich ticket in November, and while I'd love to see a woman president, I know if Hillary gets the nomination, McCain will win, so I'll be voting for Obama - that is if we even have an election.
McCain, a 70-something tortured old hard ass, will win, I bet you 10 cents, which is all I will have left after 8 years of bush.
Daniel David
Obama is not going to solve the health care crisis. He is going the disolve the last remaining healthcare for the indigent into the corporate mainstream. Lose/Lose
INTEGRITY lost is the word for USA
eat better exercise close down the dope dealing doctors and big Pharma
but it is fault of stupid pill popping usa 'sheeples'
Perhaps those condemned to death by big pharma and insurance companies will take out a CEO. I don't advocate it, but I am surprised it hasn't happened.
Who has a realistic chance to be elected, if not Obama. Better him then Mccain. Not my first choice, but thinking of another Bush for another 4-8 years is just too much.
We need to stop worrying about all these small problems we have in this country. Just elect Paul, Gravel, Kucinich, or Nader and everything will be fine in a short time.
If none of these front-runners please you, go for Ohbama and he will fix everything just like he says and unite everyone.
Do not under any circumstances support the WarMonster or the WarMonger as they are identical in every way and will cause the Rapture before we get all of the oil.
"We need universal, publicly funded health care because millions of sick and disadvantaged Americans are suffering and dying"
The powers that be are neo-malthusians. Thats what they want, especially those between the ages of 50-65 who are most likely to be out of work and an age when illness is likely to strike but who are without the social umbrella of medicare or insurance. Helps reduce the number of people eligible for social security.
A better argument, or at least more convincing for those on the right, is that national health care would help our corporations who are at a competitive disadvantage with corporations in other countries where the health care burden is much lower. GM has been moving production to Canada for this reason, despite Canadas higher tax rates.
And wait till Big Pharma merges with Agri-Business Giants, and drugs are grown on farms with GMO seeds. You ain't seen nothing yet.
Great article Ronnie C. I have been into holistic foods, vegetarianism, natural living, mild exercise (yoga, swimming, walking, etc.) since my hippy days in the late 60's.
I'm also an anti-war person and progressive but am often frustrated by some of my comrades in this latter area because they think every problem is outside of themselves and take no personnel responsibility for their own inner health and well being. It is very difficult to be a true radical if your totally swept away by the mia (illusion) of corporate and societal programing and consumption..... as I always say don't drink the koolaide.... but do try the organic carrot juice.
Thanks again Ronnie C. I'll be emailing this article around, maybe even to my three doctor in-law's.
Dennis was also the FIRST Congressperson yesterday to sign and honor STOP-CONGRESS the petition demanding the Congress not take vacation until every soldier and every 'Contracter' be withdrawn and brought home from Iraq with no one and nothing left there. Big Pharma is a murderer of many. My 83 yr old Mom needs Aricept and Lexapro because of Alzheimers cost = $325/ month it is draining her savings. It disgusts me, I pay most of the time but this asshole Dr she has must have samples of Aricept. I see the Women in Black in his office all the time. I can only hope that many of these toxic peddlers lose their lively hood and suffer as badly as Mom.
In the beginning of this article it said:
"Libertarian Narcissism [noun]: promoting individual solutions for collective problems; believing that market pressure alone can bring out-of-control corporations under control; ignoring the plight of the poor; pretending major problems can be solved without serious grassroots organizing and government reform."
Now, why oh why do progressives keep talking about Ron Paul? That's him in a nut shell. Anyone can oppose the Iraq War... doesn't mean they'll be any better on providing health care or promoting equality.
My sentiments exactly! I've nicknamed it The "Job/TV/Mall" Syndrome. Don't wanna wait to get off the treadmill? You have the power to stop using drugs or, at least, the retail drug of shopping, when you wish. Good luck! I live very well on nearly no money (I run a small non-profit), because I refuse to buy retail (except underwear and necessities). After all, there's already plenty of what you need available out there, just look harder (craigslist, garage sales, thrift shops) AND you get the extra added joy of hand-delivering your cash to those who really need it, your neighbors! Try it, you'll like it.
I have been on an ultra-low fat diet since I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis over 13 years ago. I have never used any steroids or disease modifying drugs (which now cost about $20,000 a year) for this condition. As a result of my diet change (which costs nothing) I have had no further relapses or deterioration, and I have never been hospitalized or missed any work due to illness since my diagnosis.
I have read that this dietary change was first discovered in Germany during the early 1940's. It was further studied by Dr. Roy Swank starting around 1950, with his patients having a greater than 90% reduction in relapses.
Swank's work is not recognized by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society because it is not "scientific". They take the traditional definition of "scientific", which means basically repeatable in multiple studies, and substitute the definition "shown to have a 95% probability of being more effective than a placebo in a randomized double blind trial." Double blind means that neither the patient nor the observer know what treatment the patient was using until the trial is over. Double blind trials are useful only for testing drugs; it is practically impossible to test a diet (which takes over 6 months to start helping) without the patient knowing what he is eating. A Catch-22. Did Galileo perform a double blind trial when he determined that the earth moves around the sun? Was a double blind trial used to show that cigarette smoking is dangerous?
Two other trials have also shown the benefit of a low-fat diet, one by Nordvik around 2000, and one by Weinstock-Guttman about 2 years ago. No trials have been performed which show that a diet low in saturated and trans fat is not beneficial.
The NMSS is basically saying that it will only study and recommend drugs as treatment for MS. The board members of the NMSS frequently, if not always, have financial ties to the drug industry. All of the articles I have read my NMSS board members over the past 3 to 5 years have listed that they receive drug company funding. It is possible that some of them do not take drug company money, but I have seen no examples of this.
I was formerly strongly against national health insurance. Now I feel that it would be a minimal amount of punishment for the drug and insurance industries for knowing about an effective treatment for MS and keeping it hidden for over 50 years. If knowledge of this coverup could be conveyed to the American public, I suspect that public anger would be strong enough to bring on a single payer system.
(A story on All Things Considered in October 2007 featured Ann Romney mentioning the kinds of food she ate, which were all low in fat. In an interview with Larry King 12 months ago she mentioned that her symptoms of MS had mostly resolved, and that she was no longer using drugs.)
I agree that the posters here should refuse to take all prescription medication. Unfortunately the result will likely kick in after you have reproduced. There are lots of factors that we can control in our lives to prevent sickness, but the fact is that we live longer today than any time in history because of safer food and advanced medical care. There is no disagreement about this among epidemiologists (scientists that study diseases in populations). We have these medications as a result of corporate profits which fund research. Our free market for these products is what allows this. The plight of the poor is a serious issue which needs to be solved, but putting less money into private research is not the answer. Since when is the government more efficient than a free and competitive private sector effort? Frivolous malpractice lawsuits and big payouts however hurt us all. If a doctor is found the be incompetent, then he should be prevented from practicing medicine. We should not all have to fund a lottery winning by the victims. Of course they should be compensated for their losses (past and future), but should we make them millionars to punish the doctor? If you want to punish the doctor, take that money and help fund healthcare for the poor.