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  1. Erin Hollen

    In respect to "Freedom to birth under the circumstances we see fit":
    We spent $86 billion on maternity care last year, more than any other nation, and yet we rank among the poorest for maternity and infant mortality. We spend more money than any other country and yet continue to have substandard outcomes. We have an epidemic of unnecessary cesareans, premature births, birth injuries to mothers and infants, past partem depression, and post traumatic stress disorders related to birth. Maternity care in our country is in horrible need of reform so as to put the health of mothers and infants first.
    My suggestions for solving this problem:
    1. Make midwifery care (either nurse midwives or certified professional midwives) the gold standard for low risk mothers by mandating that all insurance companies reimburse these providers for the care they give regardless of setting.
    2. Encourage insurance companies to deny payment for practices not supported by research and are infact shown to be harmful to physiologic birth. These include inductions for non justifiable medical reasons, high does pitocins administration, continuous electronic fetal monitoring of low risk labors. Also encourage insurance companies to reimburse for low tech practices shown to safely facilitate physiologic birth and pain control such as laboring in water, using doulas, and allowing mothers to eat and drink while in labor.
    3. Provide grants and funding for the start up of birth centers run by midwives so that expensive hospital births can be reserved for the high risk women who need them. This will also allow access to low intervention/low risk care for mothers who desire normal physiologic birth thereby increasing and facilitating patient freedom of choice.
    4. PRovide assistance for the cost of educating, training, and licensing midwives so that more midwives can be available to provide such care. This would also free up the physicians who are bogged down with a hodge podge of both low and high risk women. They are overworked and overstressed and their impatience has negative consequences on the women for whom they provide care. If midwives were available and supported to take the low risk births then the doctors could focus on the high risk emergent cases with care and consideration for the mother instead of their own schedules and malpractice risks.
    5. Amend malpractice insurance laws so that doctors and midwives can make decisions based on what's best for their clients instead of how best to avoid litigation.
    6. Amend medical practice laws to enforce and practice FULLY informed consent for all medical interventions indicated during birth thereby allowing women to make informed choices regarding their care. ALso to amend the laws to allow women the freedom to give birth where and how they so choose wether that be by elective cesarean or water birth at home.

    Suggested by Erin Hollen on 02/05/2009 @ 06:09PM PT

  2. michael newman

    This is a very broad area that will need a specific list to help everyone understand all the various topics we are interested in seeing discussed and changed.
    My main concern is to see our health system become integrated with the current "fringe" disciplines. I want to be able to go somewhere and have a staff of chiropractor, naturopath, holistic nurse, accupuncturist, physical therapist, reiki, reflexologist, doctors and any number of other practioners all supporting each other in diagnosing and assisting the patient - without surgery or pills.
    Secondly I want to choose my own alternative medical choices and I want my medical plan to offer me incentives for visiting message therapists. reflexologists and chiropractors in order to stay healthy (I do this already and have not been to a doctor in years because I am stay healthy). 
    Thirdly I want to break the grip the current system has on preventing doctors from recommending alternative solutions for fear of losing their license.
    Fourthly we need to see a radical change to the way doctors are encouraged to prescribe pills with massive side affects when the initial problem was minor and could have been solved with a cheap natural solution (like eating cherries as my mom did in one case) or understanding the patients current pill situation. It is criminal to see people on multiple drugs with clashing affects because each doctor is prescribing a pill and not looking at the cumulative affect.
    I believe that the goverment is going to have to get involved to force these changes since the current system is fat dumb and happy and does not want to change or perhaps does not know how to change.
    There are role models that need to be examined. I have a German friend who told me that they have integrated facilities and that it is all covered with their taxes when you need to go there.

    Suggested by michael newman on 02/05/2009 @ 05:03PM PT

  3. Robin Krop

    Health Freedom to me means our freedom to keep our health and to know if it has been threatened or denied.

    Currently, the lack of awareness and education about the current and alarming spread of Lyme disease and coinfections (babesia, bartonella and ehrlichia) is causing millions to become infected and sick, many without knowing what has happened to them, and going years before they find out, and by then, having become very sick, suffering greatly, losing jobs, income, housing, friends, family, etc. 

    Many have died and are dying from these diseases, which can masquerade as 320 other health conditions, as the Lyme bacteria invades soft tissue and nerves, causing multi-systemic symptoms.

    Conditions that are often called fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, lupus, various forms of arthritis, autism, multiple sclerosis, parkinson's, ALS, alzheimer's, inflammation in any part of the body, etc.

    I would like to see a national educational campaign about how ticks, insects and human transmission can spread these diseases, what are the warning signs, what are the best tests to do, the best treatments, and most important, how to protect from getting them in the first place.

    Like tick repellent on us and on any indoor/outdoor pet. Like walk in the middle of the path without touching vegetation, where ticks can be. Like do frequent tick checks after being outside. Etc.

    Good information can be found at www.lymenet.org  www.lymediseaseassociation.org   www.lymedisease.org  www.ILADS.org   www.IGeneX.com

    Suggested by Robin Krop on 02/05/2009 @ 02:14AM PT

  4. Jean Keller

    I suggest that the money in the stimulus bill for the bird flu pandemic be investigated as to the necessity of it. We don't HAVE a pandemic, it sounds like fear, and more fear. Thousands of people are killed every day by automobiles, not bird flu. One would have to sleep with sick chickens in unsanitary conditions to get bird flu, but someone wants to get a vaccine for something that may not exist.

    J. Keller

    Suggested by Jean Keller on 02/04/2009 @ 05:21PM PT

  5. Van Lewis

    "Freedom from:  
    ...
    - Coerced/mandatory surgical or other procedures such as infant circumcision ..."
    Boys killed by circumcising them are just as dead as girls killed by it. We need a gender-neutral genital protection act to replace the current sexist, discriminatory, unconstitutional federal Anti-Female Genital Mutilation Act. Boys and intersex children have the human and constitutional rights to equal protection of the law. Support the genital integrity act now before Congress and many state legislatures from MGMbill.org. 

    Suggested by Van Lewis on 02/04/2009 @ 04:33PM PT

  6. Dustin Sammann

    One more thing... when I say abolish the FDA, I mean abolish it and replace with NOTHING!  Nothing but good ole American Freedom!  To eat, grow and run a business however we see fit, as long as we do not harm anyone else in the process.  Another government agency will only bring less freedom down the road.

    Suggested by Dustin Sammann on 02/04/2009 @ 01:42PM PT

  7. Dustin Sammann

    Abolish the department of Agriculture completely.  If we are ever to gain true health freedom we must get the government out of the way.  Less regulation and more freedoom to the individual.  If there should be a Department of Agriculture at all, it should only be at the state level.  If we want to be "be local, buy local, eat local", then we must have local government and not big federal government that doesn't understand the issues facing local farmers! 

    Suggested by Dustin Sammann on 02/04/2009 @ 01:40PM PT

  8. C C

    Link the new Universal Health-care program with the Voter's Registration Card.  This would benefit citizens rights and also promote the responsibility of voting. Also is a good check against voting fraud

    Suggested by C C on 02/04/2009 @ 10:51AM PT

  9. M Scho

    Most folks here seem to agree that access to  real, unadulterated food is a key foundation for good health.  However, many do not realize how difficult it is for small farmers to start-up and compete in the current regulatory environment.  One way to read more about that can be found in the article  "Everything I want to do is illegal" by J. Salatin. See it here:
    http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/2003/Everything-Is-Illegal1esp03.htm

    If people want good food, the first step is to produce it. We must  increase public awareness about the dire need  to restore our nations small farms, and create incentives for organic production.  This will  make  healthful food more readily available.  It will also create competition for  frankenfood manufacturers. End their monopolies over food production and they will no longer be able to turn a deaf ear to public outcry. 

    In order to strike a balance between the overbearing nannystate and a anarchistic free for all,  a citizen's right to "informed consent" should be the boundary where government's mission to
    protect the public ends.

    Proceed with President Obama's plan to dismantle the buraucracies that do not work. FDA and USDA should be first.
    The agencies that replace them should not be charged with conflicting missions, such as both the promotion and regulation of an industry.  The authority and power of the replacement  agencies needs to be curtailed.  Read about the USDA's outrageous tactics in attempting to create the NAIS to see an example of why this is so necessary.

    Create laws at the federal level to trump any attempt by states to
    curtail our right to raise food and eat it - such as the recent ruling in NYS in the Meadowsweet Dairy case -  where Judge Egan ruled that the state can require a license and/or pasteurization,  even when the cow owner is using the milk for his/her own personal consumption.

    Regards to all,
    M





     

    Suggested by M Scho on 02/04/2009 @ 08:19AM PT

  10. Patricia Stewart

    We need to encourage and enable farmers and consumers to work together without government intervention. The current trends toward fresh milk directly from the farm, CSA's and other farm to consumer programs are in danger because of the USDA's current attitude toward the National Animal Identification System, or NAIS. This program would require every farm or premises where livestock visits, to be registered with the government, allowing them to visit the farm at their whim. The NAIS then involves tagging every individual animal with a unique, permanent ID, preferable (according to the USDA) an RFID tag. Then, when fully enacted, every time the animal goes off farm, loses a tag, a new baby is born, an animal escapes, or an animal meets an animal from another farm, the farmer must report that movement to the USDA. Though the USDA has repeatedly stated publicly that this would be a voluntary program, it is now moving to mandate it for cattle, sheep and goats, through existing disease monitoring programs. Other species, including horses, alpacas and llamas, which are not food species in this country, along with several other species are targeted, but not fully involved with the mandatory level, yet. It doesn't matter that tags don't work for all animals. They might not have ears, or they might be orally fixated and chew on anything at mouth height. (Lamancha goats have both traits.) It doesn't matter that the tags aren't available for all species. It doesn't matter why the farm has animals, how many animals they have, or how they sell, NAIS applies to everyone. Everyone, except the industrial pork and poultry producers, who helped invent the program for the USDA. They do not have to tag and track individuals, but only track lots of animals, as in groups of thousands, because that is how they treat their livestock.The USDA doesn't care that NAIS won't protect against disease, only chase it. It doesn't care that NAIS may very well deter farmers from asking for help when they need it, because the vet becomes the agent of enforcement. NAIS does nothing to protect food supply, because it stops at the processing door. The vast majority of food borne contamination happens inside the processor/slaughterhouse, not on the farm. NAIS won't stop Mad Cow or Bird Flu, rather it will chase it, and encourage animals to live in industrial feed lots  and systems that create stress and lower animal's immunity. 

    NAIS will put many small farmers out of business. This will limit the availability of the highest quality of food for consumers. 

    There is a Federal Registry Comment Period open right now. 
    Please visit http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocketDetail&d=APHIS-2007-0096 and comment on Docket Number APHIS-2007-0096. Tell them to stop NAIS. 

    For more information about NAIS and who's trying to stop it, visit http://www.libertyark.net or http://www.ftcldf.org
     

    Suggested by Patricia Stewart on 02/04/2009 @ 07:51AM PT

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