Transparency

Hannah eyeing me suspiciously

I've been submitting some of my photos to a stock photo site.  Maybe I will earn enough to buy a cup of coffee

The two artists down the street make life sized animal mosaics

and large clay sculptures

my friend's photo of Ann Arbor

me

If you would have a choice of ordering the same medical  test for $5, $60 , or $2000, which would you choose? Would it make any difference to you if you knew the government would reimburse you for most of the $2000 cost ?

Of course if you had to pay for this out of your own pocket, you'd get the $5 test. The fly in the ointment is if a doctor orders it, you have no choice as to the test provider or any idea of the cost. At best, they will tell you if your insurance will cover it.

I got the $2000 bill for a test yesterday for a test I was told would be covered. As it turned out, the hospital made a mistake and confused what insurance paid with what I owed, which was $40 but this involved phone calls and a ruined day as Steve chose to tell me about it when I was out taking care of a friend.

I am annoyed though with the hospital or the test lab, not sure which one is responsible for the fleecing charging more than 400x the actual cost of goods. Since now I am on Medicare, it is the taxpayers. A small part of why health care is so expensive, hidden costs and absolutely no free market.

And the situation with drugs is so much worse.  I was at my cooking class the other day for cancer survivors. A man keeps trying different drugs in an attempt to stop his cancer complained about the price of the latest stuff they put him on. I am familiar with his drug that has been around for 50 years. And it is cheap and easy to make. More fleecing.

The topic of our class was cooking with vegetable proteins (that aren't lentils or beans) as meat proteins come with meat fats that are linked to some cancers. Ditto for dairy. Also soy protein is out as many of us survivors (not me) are avoiding estrogens. Soy contains estrogen mimics though cultures that eat mainly eat soy protein have low breast cancer rates. As it was, a new person, a very young breast cancer patient closely examined ingredient lists. It turned out that one item was produced in a kitchen that was used to make soy products; useful to know if you have a soy allergy but not enough to produce cancer causing estrogens. And she is a young woman chock full of natural estrogens which are being partially repressed. But the item that really got her angry was seitan which is almost pure gluten. According to her reading, cancer is caused by inflammation. And in her book, nothing is more inflammatory than gluten. Yeah it is if you are one in a hundred with celiac disease, but she thinks everybody is and she is not alone.  Our instructor is a licensed nutrionist who also had two types of breast cancer and keeps up with all science food and cancer related, a good source.  She also objected to the fact that seitan is 'processed' though I pointed out that it is a primitive process, knead a mix of flour to form gluten, keep rinsing out water solubles and kneading. Eventually pure gluten or pure protein.  But if you consider that American wheat is sprayed with roundup to make the grain ripen at the same time, you might want to avoid it   I avoid white flour and white anything because it is empty calories with little nutrition, so I was able to lose my 80 extra pounds.  But I ate the seitan which takes on what ever spice it is cooked with and it tasted okay.  So what does this leave us?  A wild rice (technically a grass with more nutrition) salad that contained walnuts. Some burgers made with chickpea flour and zucchini (the flour was ground with equipment that might have touched soy)  She did serve the 'burgers' on mini whole wheat buns which half the people skipped due to the presence of evil gluten  I imagine that we won't see the young woman again. Not sure what she can eat.  I said that taking a baby aspirin a day reduced inflammation and is strongly linked to reduction of breast cancer recurrence.

 and the incidence of colon cancer along with strokes. She looked at me as if I was crazy. That is a drug!!!! I am not putting drugs into me. I could say that it is a natural drug from pine needles but she said it causes leaky gut, whatever that is

so very little fall this year. We went from unbearably hot to snow and ice just like that.. I was able to get a long run in just before our big snow storm of the other day. I am hoping that enough melted so I could go out today. Driving has been treacherous. I did take a friend out slipsliding away the other day which was fun.  Thanksgiving will be sad as two of my kids and theirs will be gone leaving us almost alone.  Want it to be spring now!