I have been nominated to be part of the Trump administration in regards to healthcare and MAHA

@everyone

https://discourse.nomineesforthepeople.com/t/steve-ariens/36342

 

Your support and votes are appreciated – see link above

Here is a video of a Federal attorney that elaborates how they use normally “innocent statements” from prescribers and pharmacist and daisy chain various otherwise “innocent activities” into violations of the Controlled Substance Act and the number of charges against the healthcare professionals start to stack up. US Attorney Admits that He was Directed to Target Doctors Who had NO criminal intent ( » US Attorney Admits that He was Directed to Target Doctors Who had NO criminal intent )
Here is an article from FIVE SENATORS Elizabeth Warren Advocates to Formalize Barriers for Pain Patients » Elizabeth Warren Advocates to Formalize Barriers for Pain Patients calling for the DEA to increase the DENIAL of pain medications to chronic pain patients. Here is a video on how the PBM industry now operates https://youtu.be/jp1_6SDfxlE?si=GCegamZsrAjGSmOV
Here is Senator Eliz Warren’s interaction with the CEO of United Health and all the control that they have over our healthcare system and all the profits they are taking out of our healthcare budgets, that should be devoted to pt care. If this group is hoping to improve pt’s QOL while controlling medical costs. It is going to need someone that understands where are the $$ are being sucked out of the system and to the bottom lines of many medical middlemen. I may be one of but a few people who can related to all those involved from the medical practitioner perspective and the pt’s perspective. I am retired and have no allegiance to any corporation and I have a wife that has been a intractable chronic pain pt for 3+ decades.

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Happy veteran’s day

Should we share the hell out of this?

I know that many of you are not happy in how the election turned out, but if you want to continue to put your personal political opinions over what is the best for the chronic pain community. You can stop reading right here ! Just go ahead and shoot yourself in the foot or HEAD!

There is a new sheriff in town and he is bringing along a lot of deputies that are claiming that they are making a change to how things are done.

Trump has admitted that some of the people recommended to him in his first term were not the appropriate people for the tasks they were given.  Perhaps many were covert members of “the swamp” that he was trying to drain.

I don’t think that Elon Musk,  Robert F. Kennedy Jr and whoever the new Attorney General will be of the previous SWAMP!

Musk claims he is going to focus on cutting costs – maybe he should look at all those 100 of millions of dollars being spent on Epidural Spinal Injection. That are not recommended by the FDA and the pharma that makes the corticosteroid most often used in ESIs. In reality those ESIs at best provide the pt some minor/temporary pain relief, but in the long run will cause more deterioration in the spine.

Those pain docs that are telling pts that they must be subjected to ESI to get some oral opioids, may be violating a federal law that is part of the Sherman Antitrust Act calling Tying Commerce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce) and providing those ESIs that are not really medically necessity, some consider it insurance fraud and if Medicare/Medicaid are involved then it could be considered federal fraud.

I read where – on average – TWO DOZEN – veterans commit SUICIDE EVERY DAY, because the VA system is refusing to treat those veteran who have come home with painful “broken bodies” and the VA system is just electing to ignore their pain.

Kennedy is suppose to be focusing on improving our health.  Could working with our new Attorney General to get the DEA to focus on getting much of the ILLEGAL FENTANYL off our streets and causing all those poisoning/ODs.

IMO, the only thing that may stand in the way of the community making some progress is to DO NOTHING! That will guarantee that the community will GET NOTHING! There is nearly 11,000 post on my blogs and I have pulled some that I consider very appropriate to work with the new administration.

https://www.pharmaciststeve.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/harmfrompain.jpg

 

Breaking: Supreme Court Rules ‘Red Flag’ Gun Laws Unconstitutional – should RED FLAGS used by DEA be UNCONSTITUTIONAL ?

US Attorney Admits that He was Directed to Target Doctors Who had NO criminal intent

Another reaction to the SCOTUS overturning the Chevron Doctrine

Is how the DEA enforces the CSA… in violation of this federal law ?

https://www.pharmaciststeve.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/kaiser.pdf

Could this be why no one can get a law firm to sue medical care deniers

Pain Refugees: Collateral Damage of the War on Drugs

SCOTUS Petition Takes Aim at Ambiguous Federal Opioid RX Laws Aug 5 Written By Ronald Chapman II Lubetsky v. United States

How opioid prescriptions are tracked and monitored by law enforcement and health care providers

 

 

Relax: Nothing is under control

Pin en El animal

Lauren Conrad Quote: “Sometimes, you just have to take a step back and ...

I have been writing/sharing on my blog for 13-14 yrs. I have seen many people who would come into the community the with attitude that they can “get ‘er done”.  They stay/hang around for a few months, maybe even a few years, and then they realize that the task is something that they can’t tackle, and they are GONE!

I have seen a lot of in-fighting within the multitude of “support groups’, even seen some support groups disband and then some of the fragments of those groups create another group or two and the cycle keep repeating.

I complained to Barb once many months ago, about all the infighting,  I married a very wise woman… she told me that I would never understand… because I never a girl/female in Jr/Sr High School.

Reading what those two attorney posted on the web over the last few weeks, it is posted below. I don’t think that the community will ever fine enough money to hire an attorney/law firm that has enough balls to address the problems with practitioners being able to  treat chronic pain and other subjective diseases, with the appropriate controlled medications.

Barb just had an appt with our PCP, who we have been seeing since last 1969 – early 1970. He is like a “Dr Marcus Welby” – if you don’t know the reference – do a web search. He is pulling back on his office hrs. He lost a adult kid to COVID-19 during the epidemic and he recently had some health issues where he was out of the office for a few weeks.

Years ago, he told the that  -God willing- he was going to be practice till he was 75 y/o.  But now he is about 70 y/o. I have an appt with him the first week of Feb, 2025. I will find out what his plans are.

We may be looking for a new PCP soon, but I know a number of the local prescribers and being a decent advocate, I think that we can hopefully transition over  to a new practitioner without missing a beat. Only time will tell.

IMO, the community has fragmented itself into many pieces or “tribes”, each with at least one Face Book page. Last week, I was not feeling very well one day and I just turned my phone off and shut my computer down.  The next morning, I found over 100 emails and I can’t count the number of FB posts – many of them repeats of people re-posting them in hopes that someone would read them. Then there was all the texts.

I have made nearly 11,000 posts on my blog over the years and it is approaching THREE MILLION PAGE VIEWS. I am approaching the end of my EIGHTH DECADE ON THIS PLANT.

Barb and I tend on aging in place, but I have not been able to find a “handyman” to do much of the maintenance around the house. I have the experience and the tools to do most all of the work, but my energy and endurance isn’t what it use to be.

Within the next few weeks, I will be pulling back from reading any of the Face Book pages and responding on those pages. I am still going to be around, and I can be reached via the links listed below. Chronic pain pts are still going to continue to get their pain meds taken away and they are still going to have to take a stand to get some of them back.

The path that the community may be on, may take longer than the number of years that I have left to try to change directions.  It looks like I may have other personal battles that I may have to deal with, and family comes first.

 

https://www.facebook.com/pharmaciststeve/

https://x.com/Pharmaciststeve

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


“Red Flag” Prosecutions against physicians continue. In United States v. Campbell, the Government used its unenumerated list of “red flags” to support a smoke-fire prosecution absent actual evidence. Tune into my 6th Circuit Oral Argument this Wednesday.


Could this be why no one can get a law firm to sue medical care deniers


November is Diabetes Awareness Month

Oxygen Company Too Big to Ban?

Oxygen Company Too Big to Ban?

We expanded our independent pharmacy into providing Home Medical Equipment (HME) in the early 1980’s. Providing home Oxygen and other respiratory services turned out to be a large part of our HME business. After a decade in the business, with annual inflation being in the 3%-4% range, Medicare never gave HME vendors a increase in what we were paid. As we approached the middle of the 90’s decade, there were rumors stirring that Medicare was going to CUT REIMBURSEMENTS. I knew that we could not take care patient properly after not getting any increase in payments for a decade and then having to deal with a cut in payments. I sold the pharmacy and HME business in late 1996 and 2 yr later Medicare cut reimbursement by about 40% of what we had been paid for abt 15 yrs.  Abt another 15 yrs, Medicare cut reimbursement again and was only paying abt 22% of what we were being paid in the early 1980s. Adjusting for inflation, Medicare was paying about 10% of what they were paying in early 1980 and they add many mandatory services without any reimbursements.  As is stated in this article: Lincare customers aren’t pleased with the services they receive; it only has a 1.3 out of 5 on the Better Business Bureau site.

It would seem that Medicare & Lincare are at a standoff. Taking care of home oxygen/respiratory pts is both labor and equipment intensive and Medicare has ran so many small vendors out of the market place that no small/independent vendor would enter into providing HME services/products to respiratory pts with what Medicare is offering as payment. Medicare apparently found it acceptable for pts to deal with POOR SERVICE, than to pay what the service is worth.

Oxygen Company Too Big to Ban?

https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/features/113015

Despite decades of misbehavior — from overbilling to violating kickback laws — Medicare has never banned Lincare, the largest distributor of home oxygen equipment in the U.S., ProPublica revealed

In 2023, HHS placed Lincare on probation — a “corporate integrity agreement” with a “death penalty” provision. Yet Lincare was already under that form of probation and had been on and off it for years. The company regularly violated the terms of probation with little punishment, according to ProPublica.

Part of the reason Lincare has gotten away with this for so long is because Medicare fraud is so rampant that a lot of bad behavior gets through. Plus, the company has a near-monopoly, begging the question whether it’s too big to ban, the article stated.

In addition, paying multimillion-dollar legal settlements has been affordable to the company. “As long as that [settlement] check is less than the amount you stole, it’s a good business proposition,” Lewis Morris, former chief counsel to HHS’ Office of Inspector General, told ProPublica.

Lincare customers aren’t pleased with the services they receive; it only has a 1.3 out of 5 on the Better Business Bureau site, with one reviewer writing that Lincare is “running a scam where they have guaranteed income” and that “the customer can’t do a thing.”

ProPublica’s reporting found “a dismal picture of a company with a sales culture that depends on squeezing infirm and elderly patients and the government for every penny.”

 

Abandoned in Pain: A Family’s Fight Against UCHealth’s Neglect

Abandoned in Pain: A Family’s Fight Against UCHealth’s Neglect

https://www.coloradoswitchblade.com/p/abandoned-in-pain-a-familys-fight?triedRedirect=true

Exposing the Healthcare System’s Betrayal of Chronic Pain Patients—Share to Demand Accountability

This article is an opinion piece based on my personal experiences and interviews. The views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily represent those of any organization or publication.

I remember it was a cold and windy day as I helped my wife out of our beat-up grey Subaru. I got her walker from the trunk, carefully wrapping the blanket around her shoulders before helping her take each labored step toward the side door of our local medical clinic.

She had six broken ribs that day, a result of the life-saving CPR I had given her, along with the paramedics and the robotic Newton machine that continued compressions as they drilled an IV into her shin bones. It was the first time Shilo died in my arms.

We were lucky to get her back, but her survival was tenuous. For weeks, she hovered between life and death in a medically induced coma, her body battling cascading organ failure. The doctors told us to say goodbye. Those conversations with my daughters remain among the hardest of my life—second only to the next time Shilo died in my arms, this time for good.

Shilo had spent her life battling chronic pain caused by atypical Crohn’s disease and deep adhesion scarring throughout her abdomen. Her condition was so severe that even drinking water caused excruciating pain. For decades, doctors successfully managed her condition, giving her a semblance of normalcy that allowed us to build a life, raise our daughters, and hold onto hope.

Then everything changed. The very doctors and institutions that had cared for her abandoned her, citing fears of regulatory scrutiny and rigid opioid guidelines implemented by the CDC in 2016. When they stopped treating her pain, Shilo turned to alcohol for relief. I understood why—she was trying to numb the unrelenting agony—but I couldn’t allow it around our daughters. I found her an apartment close by, and though we were separated, we remained as close as ever.

After I was able to nurse Shilo back to health and convince her doctor to prescribe pain medication again, her recovery was remarkable. She moved back in, reconnected with our daughters in profound and meaningful ways, and grew closer to me than ever before. Those two years were truly a blessing to our family—two of the best years of my life.

The night she passed for the final time had started as a good day. We celebrated her birthday that weekend, cooked dinner together, and watched a movie. But later that evening, Shilo had her final seizure—the one she couldn’t wake up from.

That night, after the paramedics told me there was nothing more we could have done, I felt her spirit lift from her body. For the first time in decades, she was free from pain. I told her, “It’s okay. You can go. I’ll take care of the girls. You go, experience the universe without pain. I’ll see you when my own time is through.”


A Systemic Crisis

Shilo’s story is not unique. Thousands of chronic pain patients across the country face the same fate, abandoned by the healthcare system meant to protect them. This weekend, I was reminded of this cruel reality when my friend and pain management physician, Dr. Mark Ibsen, reached out with an urgent plea for help.

He told me about Monique Barela, a patient whose story mirrored my wife’s. Monique has been abandoned by her doctors despite her chronic pain being fully documented and protected under Colorado law.

“Monique doesn’t want to die,” her mother told me. “But she can’t live like this anymore.”

Monique’s desperation is not an isolated incident—it’s the result of a systemic failure to provide compassionate and competent care to chronic pain patients.


Monique Barela’s Fight for Survival

Monique’s battle with chronic pain began when she was just eight years old. A bacterial infection from a gym class injury led to years of surgeries, misdiagnoses, and escalating health complications. By her twenties, she was living with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), osteoporosis, and severe arthritis.

For a time, Monique managed her pain with carefully calibrated doses of oxycodone and oxycontin. With her pain under control, she was able to work two jobs and attend school. But in 2016, her providers began tapering her medication, not because her condition had improved, but in response to vague opioid-prescribing guidelines.

“They made me sign a taper form,” Monique explained. “They said if I didn’t, they wouldn’t prescribe anything at all. What choice did I have?”

Her once-stable life unraveled. Malnourished and in unbearable pain, Monique dropped to 87 pounds and was hospitalized. Even then, doctors dismissed her suffering. “They told me to try Tylenol or meditation,” she said, her voice trembling.


Abandoned by the System

Despite Colorado’s SB23-144—legislation explicitly prohibiting forced tapering and mandating individualized treatment plans for chronic pain patients—Monique’s cries for help have been ignored.

“I showed a doctor the law—SB23-144—to prove they wouldn’t get in trouble for treating me,” she recounted. “He refused to even look at it. He just walked out of the room.”

Even when Monique has found doctors still willing to help her, pharmacies have refused to fill her prescriptions, citing vague “red flag” policies. “I’ve driven hours to find a pharmacy that would give me what I need,” Monique said. “And most of the time, they still say no.”


The Insurance Ping-Pong Game

Adding insult to injury, many chronic pain patients are subjected to a cruel cycle of referrals and appointments with specialists who know they won’t provide treatment.

“Doctors know from the start that they’re not going to treat the patient’s pain,” Dr. Ibsen said. “Instead, they refer them to another specialist or clinic. It’s a cycle of false hope and wasted resources.”

Monique has lived this nightmare. “I’ve been sent to so many different clinics, and none of them ever actually treated me,” she said. “Meanwhile, my insurance gets billed for every appointment, every test, and I’m still left in pain.”

This practice raises serious legal and ethical questions. By repeatedly billing insurance for services that don’t address the patient’s needs, healthcare providers exploit the system while patients suffer.


A Call to Action

UCHealth has a choice: to honor the law and provide compassionate care or to perpetuate a system that abandons those who need it most.

To my readers: Speak out. Share Monique’s story. Demand accountability from UCHealth and other providers. Contact your legislators and insist they enforce SB23-144.

If this is an issue you or a loved one are facing, I urge you to contact Governor Jared Polis himself. He signed this law into effect, and it is failing our fellow Coloradans. Plead with him to demand accountability and ensure this legislation is upheld.

No family should endure what mine has. Shilo deserved better. Monique deserves better. Chronic pain patients deserve better.

Read the full text of SB23-144 here.


Shilo’s story, along with our family’s harrowing journey through the medical system as she faced chronic pain—her triumphs, setbacks, and ultimate sacrifice—will form the backbone of my next non-fiction book, currently titled Shilo’s Story. This memoir will explore our unconventional life together as creatives, artists, and writers while shedding light on our healthcare system’s systemic failures. It will highlight the resilience of those the system abandons and honor the enduring legacy of a woman whose courage continues to inspire. Stay connected for updates on this deeply personal and important project.

Major insurance companies focus on HEALTHY BOTTOM LINES!


Using a COLA calculator, a SINGLE DOLLAR in 2003 is $1.66 in 2023 dollars. These charts indicate that the major insurance companies have increased their profits and spending on lobbying by 5- 10 times what was done over two decades.  Does it seem that these insurance companies primary focus was on “healthy profits”?

The cost of HIGHER EDUCATION… is quite a BIT HIGHER!

To prove Pres Trump’s “facts”, I recently applied a COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) to what my last year’s tuition at Butler U – my Alma Mater – was and the calculation was abt $6,000/semester in today’s dollars. My interest is because our only Grandson is headed off to college this time next year.

This year Butler U’s tuition is in the mid $25K/semester, and Pharmacy majors at Butler U – their tuition is HIGHER the last year of the 6 yr program.

Our only Daughter graduated from Butler U in 1993 – I think! As I Remember that her first year – Fall of 1989 .. total cost was abt $12,000 and her final year 1992-1993 was pushing $20,000 total.

Back in 1970, by working my ass off and pinching pennies, I was able to graduate with $500 in debt, which was about three weeks net pay that I got once I got my Pharmacist license. Today, it is not unusual for a newly minted pharmacist to leave college with a student loan debt approaching $200,000. Which is about THREE YEARS net pay once they get licensed.

How many Executive Orders can the Biden Admin sign into law before Jan 20th?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Does the World Health Organization work in our best interests?

EITHER YOU WILL CONTROL YOUR GOVERNMENT OR THE GOVERNMENT WILL CONTROL YOU

 

Ronald Reagan quote: Either you will control your government, or government will control you.