Category: Health

Medicare Advantage

Back in the days when this scam first made it to the airwaves I started doing some research into it…..since I am an old fart and of course I was worried about my health once I retired I wanted to know why this was asking retirees for more money.

I have made my thoughts known about this amazing con job after my research….

Medicare Advantage

Then my follow up….

Those MediCare Advantage Plans

Now I have a follow up and hopefully anyone that has given these companies their cash will be forewarned….

Two of the largest Medicare Advantage insurers in the US, UnitedHealthcare and Humana, have signaled in recent days that they plan to exit certain “underperforming” markets and curb benefits in an effort to boost their bottom lines, a strategy that’s expected to kick more than a million seniors from their coverage.

On Thursday, Axios cited an analyst note published earlier this week indicating that UnitedHealthcare “has dropped around 13% of plans offered across 18 states.” Healthcare Dive reported that the company “expects to end 2026 with up to 1.1 million fewer MA members than it had last year.”

“UnitedHealthcare—the largest MA insurer in the US—offered plans in one fewer state and 109 fewer counties this year, cut allowances for certain over-the-counter health and wellness items, and prioritized plan designs with more limited provider networks,” Healthcare Dive noted. “The company also shifted commissions to brokers to incentivize enrollment in more profitable plans.”

As for Humana, the company’s chief financial officer said during an earnings call in late July that its exit from certain markets and dropping of specific plans would “impact approximately 600,000 members” as the firm implements “the changes necessary to drive the intended margin expansion.”

Seniors who lose their MA plans in response to the insurance giants’ moves will have to either find a new plan during open enrollment, which begins next month, or switch to traditional Medicare. MA plans currently cover more than half of all eligible Medicare beneficiaries.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/medicare-advantage-benefit-cuts

I regret to inform anyone that fell for this con your money was paid in vain for you will lose all that you contributed.

We could avoid this type of rip-off with Medicare For All (M4A)….but of course because of their corruption this will be a hard fought battle….even within the Democratic Party.

Even recently the House minority leader, Jeffries came out against the plan…why would a leader of the Dems who say they want to protect the elderly come out against this?

Medicare for All has been touted as an idea that might improve access to healthcare and help seniors save money in retirement, but House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has spoken out and said that he doesn’t support the current Medicare for All legislation. His comments highlight the growing divide between Democrats, underscoring the fact that the party hasn’t united on a way to address the healthcare challenges that are so important to voters.

As health care costs climb and Americans face higher premiums and growing medical debt, the conversation around health care is more important than ever. Here’s what to know about where the Democrats currently stand.

During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Jeffries explained that while he did support previous versions of Medicare for All legislation, he doesn’t support the current legislation being promoted.

“I haven’t co-sponsored the Medicare for All legislation that has been introduced over the last several years,” Jeffries said. “I do think we need to figure out how to fix our broken health care system and then build something better once we repair the damage that has been done.”

https://financebuzz.com/news/jeffries-rejects-medicare-for-all

This illustrates how his corruption is deeply ingrained….and this could be the next Speaker of the House….what a tragedy that would be.

About 7 years ago the first inklings of a new program was introduced and of course it was the brain child of progressives and not the spineless centrists….the idea is good, not perfect but good, but for it to move forward we need more progressives in the House and then the fight will move onto the Senate and we know how damn corrupt that group of pigs are now don’t we?

Here is one of my first posts on this idea…..

Medicare For All

This is an idea that all retirees should look at and in the end fight for more support from those do-nothings in Congress.

I shall step down from my soapbox now…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

8 Million And Counting

What is the scoreboard for you might question….this is just to let the world know what Donny and those slugs that are in his employ are doing to the health of this nation.

The unprecedented healthcare cuts that President Donald Trump and the Republican Party enacted last summer have impacted people in all 50 US states, stripping insurance coverage from around 8 million Americans total and wreaking havoc on hospitals and other providers nationwide.

The advocacy group Protect Our Care on Tuesday released state-by-state fact sheets detailing how many people have lost Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Affordable Care Act coverage due to Republican policy decisions, including the party’s roughly $900 billion in cuts to Medicaid and decision to let enhanced ACA subsidies expire, sending premiums skyrocketing.

“Eight million Americans have lost their health care because Donald Trump and Republicans decided they would rather hand out tax breaks to billionaires than protect working families,” said Brad Woodhouse, the president of Protect Our Care. “Every day that healthcare becomes more expensive, a family is forced to make an impossible choice between putting food on the table and staying covered, a senior is forced to ration their medication, and an expectant mother has to travel farther to access maternity care.”

(commondreams.org)

I still say let’s give Medicare For All (M4A)…..what have we to lose?

To be honest I want to give you an opposing view….this is from the website Reason….keep in mind their slogan is “Free Minds and Free Markets”….so with that in mind they are basically on the side of for profit healthcare…

“Free healthcare is cool,” comedian Shane Gillis recently said on The Joe Rogan Experience. “We should have that.”

“You should treat the entire country like it’s a community,” Rogan replied. “If you had a community, would you want the sickest person to fucking die who could be very valuable if you could take care of them, and do you have the resources to take care of them?”

While support for “free” healthcare in the United States is not new—Harry Truman campaigned on universal health insurance in 1948, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) has popularized the “Medicare For All” slogan in recent years—the policy has received renewed interest of late. The Democratic Socialists of America have made universal healthcare “at no cost to individuals” a key component of their party’s expensive platform.

But it is not just political hopefuls who like the idea of universal healthcare; academics seem to as well. A recent study by the Yale School of Public Health claims that single-payer universal healthcare would save more than 100,000 lives a year, and would supposedly cost $1 trillion less than the system it would replace. The study, which has not been peer-reviewed yet, appears to come to its conclusions by modeling a scenario that assumes cheaper pharmaceutical prices, less administrative overhead, reduced fraud, and fewer emergency visits.

…

The U.S. healthcare system has plenty of problems. While the promise of “free stuff” may sound tempting, the experience of countries with universal healthcare should make Americans deeply skeptical of the idea that putting the government in charge of the entire system is a panacea.

https://reason.com/2026/08/19/universal-healthcare-sounds-great-heres-whats-happening-in-countries-that-have-it/

The part about long waits for treatment….when I needed a gastro doctor it took me 14 weeks to get an appointment….we have those long waits, maybe not as stark as others but they are there.

If they are against M4A then how about giving Americans the same coverage as Congress people?  It is free and their waits are shorter and their drugs are mostly free….how about that for a solution?

In case there are those that still do not know what M4A is….let me help….here are the basics….

Medicare for All would transform the program into a single-payer health insurance program that would provide all Americans with healthcare coverage.

Single-payer healthcare systems, also called universal healthcare, are currently in place in various countries worldwide. These healthcare systems can have differing elements, such as:

  • how the health insurance is paid for
  • how the healthcare is delivered
  • how the health facilities are owned and operated

So yes I support M4A and will do so as long as I kind breathe on my own.

How about you?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Want To Save Lives?

If so then Medicare For All would be the road to travel….I have been a supporter of the idea since its inception….and now a new study has shown just how effective it could be….

Previous research has shown that shifting the United States to a Medicare for All system could save roughly 68,000 lives and $650 billion per year, but a new study by experts at Yale University suggests the savings would likely be even greater on both fronts.

In a Tuesday statement, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), lead sponsor of the Medicare for All Act in the Senate, highlighted the findings, published recently on medRxiv, a server for preprints, or research that hasn’t yet been peer reviewed.

…

“We estimate that such a system would reduce national health expenditure by $1,041 billion annually,” they explained. “Sources of savings include reductions in administrative overhead, pharmaceutical prices, fraudulent billing, and avoidable emergency care. Combined with the reversal of recent retractions, universal coverage would save over 114,000 lives annually.”

Specifically, as Sanders’ office detailed in a statement, Americans would save:

  • $377.5 billion by paying no more than other major countries for prescription drugs;
  • $286.3 billion by eliminating bureaucracy and waste;
  • $285.7 billion by curbing fraudulent billing;
  • $100 billion by preventing costly emergency room and hospital visits; and
  • $295.6 billion by reimbursing providers fairly for the care they provide.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/medicare-for-all-savings

I would say that is good news, right?

But not to worry….health insurance and other corporate donors will be fighting hard to defeat any chance of M4A having any success…

The investigative outlet Sludge published an analysis on Monday showing that the health insurance industry is among the corporate donors to Third Way, a think tank that is reportedly preparing to pour $15 million into an effort to combat the rise of candidates who support Medicare for All and other progressive policies.

Third Way, which has long been hostile to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and Medicare for All in particular, does not publicly disclose its donors. But Sludge’s David Moore uncovered some of the group’s benefactors by examining corporate tax filings, which revealed that the private insurance industry group Better Solutions for Healthcare (BSFH) donated $50,000 to Third Way’s advocacy arm in 2024.

Among BSFH’s members are the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and the health insurance industry trade group AHIP. Moore noted that BSFH is “run out of the offices of leading Republican digital and strategy firm Targeted Victory in Arlington” and was founded by GOP operative Alexander Schriver.

Sludge’s review of corporate tax filings showed other healthcare industry donors to Third Way, including CVS Health and Johnson & Johnson.

“Another corporate lobbying heavyweight, the Business Roundtable (BRT), gave $50,000 to Third Way in 2024, up from the $25,000 it gave in 2023 and down from the $75,000 it gave in 2022,” Moore reported. “Each year in 2019, 2020, and 2021, BRT gave $50,000 to Third Way. The CEO group’s health insurance members include the heads of UnitedHealth, Cigna, Elevance (formerly Anthem), CVS Health—all members of AHIP (formerly America’s Health Insurance Plans), save for UnitedHealth—as well as healthcare company Centene and many Big Pharma firms like Johnson & Johnson.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/third-way-medicare-for-all

Again not to worry the chance of getting good healthcare is small because the Congress is owned by the people that are fighting this attempt.

This is a little something for you to mull over while enjoying your morning coffee…..

Your medical records are private, right?  But for how long?

You might assume that what you tell a doctor stays between you, your physician and perhaps your insurer. But the reality is more complicated.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the federal privacy law that governs health information and is commonly known as HIPAA, is narrower than its reputation suggests. It regulates hospitals, physicians, insurers and their business associates, but not the health data you generate everywhere else: not the period-tracking application on your phone, the internet search you ran about a diagnosis, the DNA you mailed to a genealogy company or the wearable that counts your heartbeats.

Even the records HIPAA does cover can be shared, sold or handed to the government in ways that might surprise you.

This gap in protection matters more than ever because the U.S. government is pushing hard to gather health data domestically and abroad. This is happening even as a growing body of research shows that the safeguard which these efforts to collect data lean on – anonymizing data by removing identifying information to make it difficult to trace back to an individual – is far weaker than officials claim.

https://theconversation.com/us-government-is-pushing-to-gain-unprecedented-access-to-your-medical-records-as-data-protections-are-weakening-287021

Americans need to wake up and smell the manure in the road.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Putting Children At Risk

This group leading the country has already but our children at risk by depriving them of the food that some need to survive and now he, Donny and RJK,Jr, want the children to expose themselves to debilitating diseases….

President Trump on Monday signed an executive order calling for revamped childhood vaccine recommendations that promote his long-held but discredited theory that childhood shots should be spaced out into separate medical visits. The order advocates separating the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three different shots administered in separate appointments, and directs the nation’s health department to improve vaccine research, according to a White House fact sheet on the order. Separate measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines for children are not currently available in the United States, and vaccines are already extensively researched, the AP reports.

Speaking about the order at the Oval Office on Monday, Trump repeatedly suggested the number or timing of vaccines could play a role in rising rates of autism spectrum disorder, even as scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is no link. He also touted several changes to the childhood vaccine schedule that his health department has already attempted, but that have been blocked by a federal judge. He said his administration would no longer recommend COVID-19, flu, and hepatitis B vaccinations for children.

  • Trump said he wants to find out “what’s going on with autism,” Mediaite reports. “It’s many, many times what it used to be years ago, and it gets progressively worse, and we’ve had progressively more and more vaccines,” he said, adding, “Very simply, large amounts of vaccine—large amounts—like vats of vaccine are currently pumped into your child’s body.”
  • The renewed focus on vaccines marks a departure from his administration’s recent efforts to emphasize less controversial health policies related to healthy eating, drug price negotiations and medical fraud crackdowns ahead of November’s midterm elections, the AP reports.
  • Public health experts have raised concerns that spacing out shots as Trump suggests can lead to an increased risk that children become infected with a vaccine-preventable disease before returning for another visit. Childhood vaccines—and how and when to give them in combination—go through rigorous studies, and safety tracking continues for years as the shots are used.
  • “I’m a doctor. This executive order is wrong,” Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy said on X. “The President does not have the expertise to make these changes.” Vaccines, Cassidy said, are effective, “overwhelmingly safe,” and do not cause autism. “Breaking up vaccines will mean children have to get more shots to get the same protection, not fewer shots,” he said. “It will increase hesitancy and make children less safe. Parents should listen to their child’s pediatrician about vaccines rather than listening to an inaccurate executive order. This is so wrong.”
  • Even as the order calls for revised vaccine recommendations, states, not the federal government, have the authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren. The order advises states with school vaccine mandates to consider updating their laws to reflect the administration’s preferred schedule, the fact sheet said. Many states have already said that they no longer follow federal guidance and instead rely on recommendations from groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Washington Post reports.
  • Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist before he entered politics, set out to overhaul immunization guidance in the first year of Trump’s term. He fired an entire 17-member vaccine advisory committee, installing replacements who made far more restrictive recommendations that have since been halted by a federal judge. He also personally directed the CDC to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism, without supplying any new evidence to support the change.
  • Scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded that there is no link between childhood vaccines and autism. On Monday, Kennedy repeated his assertion that he believes an unknown environmental factor is to blame for rising autism diagnoses and said that his department will deliver research findings “as soon as they are ready.”

If this goes forth stand back and watch the problems that he creates…..think Whooping cough and measles, and you cannot see this as a good thing.

Children in the crosshairs.

I read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Why Is Healthcare So Expensive?

There is the question that asked every damn day.

My declining years I have had more health problems than I had 50 years prior and even with Medicare the procedures and visits are damn expensive.

Here is a look at 12 reason for the high cost of health care…..

Nobody sits down and decides to spend $15,474 on healthcare in a single year. It happens in increments – the specialist co-pay, the bill that arrives six weeks after the procedure, the prescription that somehow costs $400 even with insurance. And yet, that figure is exactly what the United States spent per person on healthcare in 2024, according to CMS National Health Expenditure data. Switzerland, the second most expensive country on earth for healthcare, spent significantly more than $10,000 per person. The average among other wealthy nations was $7,371. The U.S. is not edging out the competition – it is in a different bracket entirely.

Despite spending roughly twice as much per capita as comparable countries, the U.S. actually uses fewer healthcare services than many of its peers – meaning prices, not volume of care, are the primary driver of the gap. Americans are not visiting the doctor twice as often or taking twice as many medications. They are simply paying more for every single thing that happens when they do.

The reasons U.S. healthcare costs so much are structural, interdependent, and decades in the making. Here are twelve of them.

12 Reasons the U.S. Pays More for Healthcare Than Anyone Else

I know most of us have our opinion on this subject……

I say Medicare For All will go a long way in helping many of us cope with the health problems of old age.

Any thoughts you would like to share?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

M4A–The Return

M4A stands for the progressive’s idea from several years ago…..Medicare For All….

I as can be expected wrote about it and here is my reminder for you guys….first from 2019….

Medicare For All

Then in 2021….

M4A Update

You might come to the correct conclusion that I support M4A…..and now the new progressives are bringing this up again…

Simply put….M4A is health care for everyone not just those that can afford it….

A Single Health Program
Everyone will be covered by one health insurance program, administered by the federal government, and have equal access to all medical services and treatments.

Comprehensive Coverage
All services requiring a medical professional will be fully covered. You go to the doctor of your choice. Dental, vision, mental health, and pharmaceuticals are all included.

Free at the point of service
All healthcare costs will be financed through tax contributions based on ability to pay: no copays, no fees, no deductibles and no premiums. Ever.

Universal Coverage
Coverage for all United States residents — non-citizens included.

Jobs
A jobs initiative and severance for those affected by the transition to government-run healthcare.

 

Democratic Socialists Give New Life to Medicare for All

 

WE need to keep electing progressives…..we need to squash the centrists for all they are doing is helping the destruction of the family….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

City Owned Grocery Stores

Last Friday I posted the plan from NYC mayor to open city owned grocery stores to try and help struggling people get the food they need.

This is the post to which I refer….

Those City-Owned Grocery Stores

Of course there are those among us that think this is a good idea (I am one of those people) and there are those that want to crap on the idea by saying big box stores will kill the idea or they just do not want cities trying to solve a problem that the national government helped create.

I say good for those that will try to find a solution or part of one….

First thoughts from a magazine that caters to the food industry….although it is not as condemning as I had thought it would be….

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani took to Instagram to reaffirm his commitment to opening five city-owned grocery stores, one in each borough. Intended to “take on the affordability crisis” as grocery prices soar, this campaign promise is moving closer to reality: La Marqueta in East Harlem was announced as the first site for the municipal grocery store model and is expected to open in 2029. (Other to-be-announced sites will open before La Marqueta, as soon as next year.)

What does it mean for the local government to own a grocery store, and what’s it actually like to shop at a municipal supermarket? This isn’t the first time a city has opened its own grocery store, and similar models — along with Mamdani’s proposed plans — offer a clearer sense of what to expect.

https://www.foodandwine.com/how-government-run-grocery-stores-work-11975917

Those that criticize this plan do not understand how this concept works….they are shooting from the hip because some MORON has called in socialism.

Contrary to the public outcry from critics, city-owned grocery stores are not a novel or radical idea in the United States. The United States military already operates a network of publicly owned grocery stores; rural communities in Kansas have successfully experimented with municipally owned supermarkets; and big cities are exploring their potential and charting plans.

City-owned grocery stores are a promising solution for communities who suffer from the hunger and food insecurity that comes from living in food deserts, urban or rural neighborhoods with limited access to healthy and affordable groceries.

Food deserts exist in part because of misaligned profit motives for private sector grocery companies. Large corporate retailers like Kroger and Whole Foods do not bother to invest in certain communities because, despite demand, low-income neighborhoods lack the infrastructure and purchasing power to sustain their for-profit business. Instead, retailers concentrate or relocate their grocery stores to areas where they can expect a higher rate of return, like wealthier suburban neighborhoods.

That profit incentive creates a harmful cycle that perpetuates a phenomenon known as “supermarket redlining” that leaves thousands of communities underserved.

New York City is home to more than two dozen neighborhoods that are classified as food deserts. These localities are predominantly Black and Hispanic and rely on both bodegas and dollar stores for their grocery needs, creating “food swamps” where unhealthy food options vastly outnumber nutritious ones.

How City-Owned Grocery Stores Can Tackle Food Insecurity

Personal opinion….this idea should be in place already….with the idiots in DC passing judgement on the poor and corporation slobbering over the profits being made on screwing the public….it is time for some real programs to come to the light.

I Read, I Write, You KNow

“lego ergo scribo”

Witch Doctor Prognosis

in case you may have missed it the results of Donny’s latest medical check up….

President Trump’s physician says the president is in “excellent health” and is “fully fit” to serve as commander in chief after a medical exam on Tuesday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. A report from Dr. Sean Barbabella, released late Friday, says Trump underwent a CT scan and other heart imaging, along with cancer screenings and other preventive assessments carried out by 22 specialists, per the AP. Trump, 79, said after the three-hour visit on Tuesday that everything checked out “perfectly.”

The president weighed in at 238 pounds, up 14 pounds from a medical exam in April of last year. His doctors gave him guidance on his diet, physical activity, and weight loss, but they concluded his “cognitive and physical performance are excellent.” With his 6-foot, 3-inch frame, Trump has a body mass index of 29.7; an index of 30 is considered by doctors to be obese. The report also documented bruising on Trump’s hands, explained as “minor soft tissue irritation related to frequent handshaking,” noting it was “a common and benign effect of aspirin therapy.” Among the recommendations for Trump was a switch to low-dose aspirin.

Last year the White House said Trump, who turns 80 next month, was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a fairly common condition for older adults that causes blood to pool in the legs. The report from Trump’s latest exam noted “slight lower leg swelling” but said there was “improvement from last year.” His doctor reported nothing abnormal, saying Trump demonstrated strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, and overall health. “His demanding daily schedule, including multiple high-level meetings, public engagements, and regular physical activity, continues to support his overall well-being,” Barbabella wrote.

Then there is Donny’s pronouncement that he has “extreme intelligence’….the same thing he says every time….the problem is those tests are NOT an IQ test…..

President Donald Trump is again highlighting his performance on a cognitive screening exam as evidence of what he called “extreme intelligence,” following the release of a White House medical summary of his latest physical.

The condensed memo of the exam, issued by the White House physician after Trump’s annual examination at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, states that his cognitive function, assessed using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), was “within normal limits” with a score of 30 out of 30.

The MoCA is a widely used cognitive screening tool designed to assess memory, attention, language, visuospatial skills and other areas of cognitive function. Medical experts say it is intended to identify potential signs of cognitive impairment and determine whether further evaluation may be needed. It is not designed to measure intelligence, IQ or academic ability.

https://www.salon.com/2026/05/31/trump-says-cognitive-test-proves-extreme-intelligence-doctors-disagree/

This part gave me my first good belly laugh this morning….with coffee it was a good start.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Shameful Experimentation

Time for some history….(this is where you can tune out if so desired)….

Most of us old farts remember the horrific medical experimentation done by the likes of Mengele, Eichmann, Himmler, et al.,…these quacks used prisoners as guinea pigs….and they were condemned by the rest of the world as purveyors of genocide.

The sad part is the younger generation cannot seem to come up with one prison camp name…..

In 2025, 48% of Americans ages 18-29 could not name a single concentration or death camp, according to a survey by the nonprofit Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which works to secure compensation and restitution for Holocaust survivors.

Another 53% of surveyed Americans said that they had encountered Holocaust “denial or distortion while on social media.”

Given their ages, approximately 70% of living Holocaust survivors will likely die by 2035. As they do, more and more people will never hear firsthand experiences about the atrocities Nazis perpetuated during the genocide of European Jews.

My research shows that Holocaust education and awareness, though, doesn’t always follow a linear path.

How sad is that?   6 million dead and no one can be bothered to remember them.  But I guess you gotta be old to remember this shit.

The US and others were just as guilty of unethical experiments like Tuskegee Syphilis Trials, the UK’s Porton Down Chemical Trials, and others were also involved…..

Research involving human subjects is littered with a history of scandal that often shapes people’s views of the ethics of research. Often the earliest cited case is English physician Edward Jenner’s development of the smallpox vaccine in 1796, where he injected an eight-year-old child with the pus taken from a cowpox infection and then deliberately exposed her to an infected carrier of smallpox.

Although Jenner’s experiment was, fortunately, successful, the method of exposing a child to a deadly disease in this way would undoubtedly nowadays be seen as unacceptable. Perhaps the most notorious cases of unethical research were revealed during the Nuremberg trials concerning Nazi experiments on concentration camp prisoners. This “research” included involuntary sterilisation, inducing hypothermia, and exposing subjects to diseases such as tuberculosis.

There are also examples of government-run research that took advantage of the vulnerability of the subjects to ensure their participation and which resulted in the subjects experiencing severe harms, such as the Tuskegee Syphilis trials or the UK-run Porton Down chemical experiments in which 11,000 military personnel were exposed to mustard and nerve gas between 1939 and 1989.

https://theconversation.com/human-experiments-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-39876

But one of the most horrendous experiments was done by the CIA, the MKULTRA….

MKUltra[a] was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used in altering human behavior.[1] The term MKUltra is a CIA cryptonym: “MK” is an arbitrary prefix standing for the Office of Technical Service and “Ultra” is an arbitrary word out of a dictionary used to name this project. The program has been widely condemned as a violation of individual rights and an example of the CIA’s abuse of power, with critics highlighting its disregard for consent and its corrosive impact on democratic principles.[2]

Project MKUltra began in 1953 and was halted in 1973. MKUltra used numerous methods to manipulate its subjects’ mental states and brain functions, such as the covert administration of high doses of psychoactive drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals without the subjects’ consent. Additionally, other methods beyond chemical compounds were used, including electroshocks,[3] hypnosis,[4][5] sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, and other forms of torture.[6][7]

Project MKUltra was preceded by Project Artichoke.[8][9] It was organized through the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence and coordinated with the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories.[10] The program engaged in illegal activities,[11][12][13] including the use of U.S. and Canadian citizens as unwitting test subjects.[11]: 74 [14][15][16] MKUltra’s scope was broad, with activities carried out under the guise of research at more than 80 institutions aside from the military, including colleges and universities, hospitals, prisons, and pharmaceutical companies.[17] The CIA operated using front organizations, although some top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA’s involvement.[11]

Project MKUltra was revealed to the public in 1975 by the Church Committee (named after Senator Frank Church) of the United States Congress and Gerald Ford‘s United States President’s Commission on CIA Activities within the United States (the Rockefeller Commission). Investigative efforts were hampered by CIA director Richard Helms‘s order that all MKUltra files be destroyed in 1973; the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission investigations relied on the sworn testimony of direct participants and on the small number of documents that survived Helms’s order.[18] In 1977, a Freedom of Information Act request uncovered a cache of 20,000 documents relating to MKUltra, which led to Senate hearings.[11][19] Some surviving information about MKUltra was declassified in 2001.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra

Read this if you are not familiar with the tactics of the CIA and how they manipulated American citizens with horrific experiments.

Do not condemn anyone until you see what the CIA is capable of doing….

Korean prisoners of war in the 1950s were subjected to early MK-ULTRA experiments while in American custody, according to recently declassified CIA documents which confirm these experiments for the first time.

The only reporting that previously referenced Koreans being used as guinea pigs for these experiments was journalist John Marks’s landmark 1979 book, The Search for the “Manchurian Candidate.” Using CIA documents, Marks traced the now-infamous MK-ULTRA project to its start, when it was known as Project Bluebird. In the book, Marks describes how, in October 1950, 25 unnamed North Korean POWs were chosen as the first test subjects to receive “advanced” interrogation techniques, with the overt goal of “controlling an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against such fundamental laws of nature as self-preservation.”

CIA Ran MK-ULTRA Experiments on Prisoners of War in U.S. Custody, Declassified Docs Confirm

I wish I could say that this type of human abuse has been eliminated but I bet that it still goes on and under tight secrecy……use Iraq as an example.

Before you set about condemning the nazis just look around the US has been no better.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Least Intelligent Among Us

Every day there is some new conspiracy coming out of social media….from eating babies to flat earth to voter fraud to alien half breeds….it seems the least capable of critical thinking are the ones holding the day.

Why is this?

New research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied suggests that people often overestimate their understanding of political facts. This tendency to be overconfident appears most common among individuals who actually know the least about politics and those who lean conservative. The findings provide evidence that psychological traits, like a desire for quick and definitive answers, help explain why some voters struggle to accurately judge their own political knowledge.

Erika K. Fulton, an associate professor of psychology at Idaho State University and head of the META Lab, led a team of scientists to investigate how well people gauge their own grasp of political information. The research team noticed a gap in the existing scientific literature regarding this specific type of self-evaluation. Most prior studies on political knowledge were conducted by political scientists, who often use different analytical methods than cognitive psychologists.

The scientists wanted to apply the strict measurement standards of cognitive psychology to political knowledge. As the researchers explained, “Metacognition is broadly defined as thinking about one’s own cognition. The type we studied is called metacognitive monitoring accuracy, or the degree to which judgments of what one knows matches what one actually knows.”

In simpler terms, this concept refers to a person’s ability to accurately recognize when they are right and when they are wrong. “People tend to be overconfident regarding what they think they know, and this has serious consequences in the political realm, such as when people vote on candidates and issues that they don’t understand as well as they think they do,” the researchers stated.

“We couldn’t find any political metacognition studies conducted by cognitive psychologists, specifically metacognition researchers, only by political scientists,” the researchers told PsyPost. “Experimental psychology has very specific measurement criteria that guide our study designs, and we wanted to employ those for a fuller, more nuanced understanding of political metacognition.”

https://www.psypost.org/people-with-the-least-political-knowledge-tend-to-be-the-most-overconfident-in-their-grasp-of-facts/

Fascinating!  Social media is driving this erroneous thinking.

The reason social media is so influential is a person’s attention span….

In 2004, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that the average attention span on any screen was about two and a half minutes, Houlihan explained in the clip. By 2012, it had shrunk to 75 seconds.

In the last 10 years or so, the average attention span has plummeted to an abysmal 47 seconds, with the median being roughly 40 seconds.

What better place to tap into the short attention span to influence people than social media.

There is the problem that needs repair…..but sadly in a world that demands instant gratification we will not find the repairs we need.

The turmoil we face today will be with us for a very long time no matter the damage it does to the people….

And that is the name of that tune…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”