Ideas, Actions, and Inspiration for a Better Tomorrow - March 13 Edition

Education

Changing the School System’s Approach to Discipline

“As data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights shows, Black girls are more likely to be suspended than any other group of students other than Black boys. Nationwide, Black girls are 5.5 times more likely than white girls to be suspended from schools across several states. In the District of Columbia, Black girls make up 73% of girls enrolled in schools, and 94% of all girls suspended. This is not a result of worse behavior in classrooms, but the result of racist stereotyping of Black women as aggressive or hypersexual. Half of Black girls’ suspensions are for minor offenses such as violating the dress code, chewing gum, or talking back to a teacher. These behaviors don’t pose threats to classmates or disrupt teaching. But they challenge society’s idea of femininity– white femininity.

As a result, these girls are seen as disruptive and unfit for the classroom environment.

Even when students’ behaviors rise beyond these minor, subjective offenses, there are many creative solutions schools can employ other than immediately suspending or expelling students of color. Schools can start teaching conflict resolution practices, yoga, or meditation, all of which target the issue head on and are valuable skills for later life as well. Schools could also bring kids in the classrooms together to solve problems as group. Or, as an alternative to focusing on the punishment, schools can start focusing on prevention. Finally, instead of spending money on law enforcement officers, schools can hire more counselors who have experience with kids going through issues.

The stakes are just too high to push girls out of school. Studies have shown being suspended once increases a child’s chance of dropping out of school.”

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Flint, Michigan, Water Crisis, Good Deeds

Will and Jaden Smith’s Company to Donate Water to Flint Until Lead Levels Drop

“Will and Jaden Smith founded JUST in 2015 to provide a green alternative to plastic bottles and to invest in communities. JUST’s bottles are 82 percent plant-based, and the company has initiated long-term investments in Glens Falls, New York, the city where the water is sourced.

The Flint water crisis became a national topic in 2014 after city officials began using the Flint River as the town’s main water source. The city’s pipes were dangerously corroded, and they polluted the water with dangerously high levels of lead. In one study, the Environmental Protection Agency found lead levels in the city’s water to be as high as 397 parts per billion, far above the federal limit of 15 ppb.”

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Legacy, School Lunches, Good Deeds

Philando Castile fund pays off entire St.Paul schools lunch debt

“The initial intention was to raise $5,000 to pay off the lunch debt at J.J. Hill, knowing that Castile himself would regularly dip into his own pocket to ensure kids who had no money could still get their lunch.

But as the money rolled in, the fundraisers broadened their goal, attempting to feed all students in St. Paul.

And they did just that, FOX 9 reports that this week they presented a check of more than $106,000 to St. Paul schools that is enough to cover the lunch debt of all 56 public schools in St. Paul.

"That means that no parent of the 37,000 kids who eat meals at school need worry about how to pay that overdue debt," fundraisers wrote on YouCaring.

"Philando is STILL reaching into his pocket, and helping a kid out. One by one. With your help," it added. "Your donations will fill that pocket for years to come. Thank you for your generosity."”

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Medical Debt, Good Deeds

TV Stations Follow John Oliver’s Lead in the Movement to Forgive Medical Debt

““In 2014, Ashton joined up with Craig Antico, who also worked in debt collections, to form RIP Medical Debt, a nonprofit organization, which focuses on buying and forgiving medical debt.

Their effort went slowly at first. “The first couple of years our wives were wondering why we were going into debt to get other people out of debt,” he said. “We were struggling.”

“If it had not been for John,” he said, “we would be standing on a street corner with a paper cup."

Ashton is referring to John Oliver, who, on a June 2016 episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, did a scathing report on credit collection practices and the people targeted with repeated phone calls, calls to employers, garnishing wages, court cases, and so on.

It’s all too common an experience: About a third of Americans with credit were contacted by a debt collector or creditor within a year of a recent survey by the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Of those, more than half of people who were contacted about a past-due bill were contacted about a medical bill.

Oliver, after excoriating the medical debt system and the politicians who enable it, made an announcement. He had formed a collection agency of his own (which, he said, proves that a complete idiot can create a collections agency), and—with no credentials apart from a minimalist website—purchased nearly $15 million worth of debt for just under $60,000, less than half a cent on the dollar. This purchase entitled him to the names, current addresses, and social security numbers of those who owed the debt, even if the debt was so old it was called zombie debt. And with this information, he acquired the right to try to collect debt.””

Read more to find out what happened next.

Environment, Energy, Regulations

Trump White House quietly issues report vindicating Obama regulations

“President Donald Trump’s administration has been on a deregulatory bender, particularly when it comes to environmental regulations. As of January, the New York Times counted 67 environmental rules on the chopping block under Trump.

This is not one of Trump’s idiosyncrasies, though. His administration is more ham-handed and flagrant about it, but the antipathy it expresses toward federal regulation falls firmly within the GOP mainstream.

Republicans have been complaining about “burdensome” and “job-killing” regulations for so long that their opposition to any particular health, safety, or environmental regulation is now just taken for granted.

For instance, why would the Environmental Protection Agency close a program investigating the effects of toxins on children’s health? Is there some evidence that the money is wasted or poorly spent? Why would the EPA allow more unregulated disposal of toxic coal ash? Don’t people in coal regions deserve clean air and water? Is there any reason to think coal ash is currently well-regulated?

These questions barely come up anymore. Republicans oppose regulations because they are regulations; it’s become reflexive, both for the party and for the media the covers them.

The report was released late on a Friday, with Congress out of session and multiple Trump scandals dominating the headlines. A cynical observer might conclude that the administration wanted the report to go unnoticed.

Why might that be? Well, in a nutshell, it shows that the GOP is wrong about regulations as a general matter and wrong about Obama’s regulations specifically. Those regulations had benefits far in excess of their costs, and they had no discernible effect on jobs or economic growth.”

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Career Advice, Inspiration

In 7 Words, Millionaire Comedian Chelsea Handler Drops Some Epic Career Advice

“Chelsea Handler is the author of five New York Times best-selling books.

She runs her own company, Borderline Amazing Productions, and makes a multi-million dollar living as a woman in comedy, an industry dominated by men.

In 2012, she made Time Magazine's list of Most Influential People, and she has also been on Forbes' Celebrity 100 list.

She is, by all accounts, extremely successful.

But she didn't start out that way. She wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth; in fact, her first job was as a waitress, where she brought spoons to others.

It was during that waitressing gig at 23 years old that she learned a lesson that would serve her for the rest of her career, and what she passes along now as her best career advice:

"When you make a commitment, keep it."”

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Ideas, Actions, and Inspiration for A Better Tomorrow - March 1 Edition

Politics, Society (Foreign Policy)

A Liberal Defense of Tribalism

"From an anthropological perspective, Western politics has, it may be argued, become more tribal. Tribes are distinguished from other human groups by their relatively clear social boundaries, often defined by kinship and demarcated territory. It’s clear that our political groups are increasingly based on single aspects of common identity with unambiguous boundaries, such as race and educational status.

Equally undeniable, however, is that most commentators vastly misunderstand the nature of tribes. The mistaken view of tribes as primitive, violent, and insular is already having pernicious effects on our response to this new era of politics. Tribalism, contrary to popular belief, is not atavistic. But American political rhetoric, by suggesting otherwise, has become essentially fatalistic; it suggests that tribalism marks a reversion to some natural and ancestral mode of thinking and, thus, even if tribes can be temporarily transcended, their pull remains inexorable.

If we hope to live productively in this new political era, it helps to understand what tribes actually are — and how, rather than simply being the cause of our political problems, tribalism can also contribute to the solution."

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Education, Arts Programs (Slate)

They Were Trained for This Moment

"Despite the gradual erosion of the arts and physical education in America’s public schools, the students of Stoneman Douglas have been the beneficiaries of the kind of 1950s-style public education that has all but vanished in America and that is being dismantled with great deliberation as funding for things like the arts, civics, and enrichment are zeroed out. In no small part because the school is more affluent than its counterparts across the country(fewer than 23 percent of its students received free or reduced-price lunches in 2015–16, compared to about 64 percent across Broward County Public Schools) these kids have managed to score the kind of extracurricular education we’ve been eviscerating for decades in the United States. These kids aren’t prodigiously gifted. They’ve just had the gift of the kind of education we no longer value.

Part of the reason the Stoneman Douglas students have become stars in recent weeks is in no small part due to the fact that they are in a school system that boasts, for example, of a “system-wide debate program that teaches extemporaneous speaking from an early age.” Every middle and high school in the district has a forensics and public-speaking program. Coincidentally, some of the students at Stoneman Douglas had been preparing for debates on the issue of gun control this year, which explains in part why they could speak to the issues from day one."

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Work (Yes! Magazine)

3 Ways You Can Find More Happiness at Work

"We all spend a large part of our lives at our jobs. Yet how many of us are bored or frustrated at work, whether unhappy with our company’s goals, stressed from overwork, or dealing with toxic coworkers? Don’t we deserve better than that?

The new book How to Be Happy at Work makes the case that, yes, we do, and happiness at work should be our ultimate goal. Written by Annie McKee—an international business advisor and senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education—the book provides ideas for how to turn your job into a source of happiness no matter where you find yourself working.

According to McKee, part of our collective problem is that too many of us fall in the trap of believing that “work is work” and isn’t supposed to be a source of happiness, or that work goals will suffer if we focus on what makes us happy. But research suggests the opposite: Happier employees are more productive, benefitting their companies as much as themselves."

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Corporations, Political Spending (Brennan Center for Justice)

The Fight for Corporations to Reveal Political Spending

"The administration has been a veritable font of bad news as executives hostile to reasonable rules have taken the helm from the Department of Education to the Environmental Protection Agency. But there’s a little good news coming from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Provided Congress allows, it will determine the winner in the long-running battle over whether publicly traded companies should reveal their currently hidden political contributions, known as “dark money.”

Stockholders have long been agitating that the companies they own improve the transparency of their political spending. This is often done through shareholder resolutions, which are a bit like ballot questions, to require companies disclose their spending on campaigns and lobbying. In part as a result of these efforts, more than half of the S&P 500 have agreed to be open about their political activities. They now share information that would otherwise be opaque and untraceable, including money flowing through dark money trade associations and so-called social welfare organizations, such as Crossroads GPS, the conservative group founded by George W. Bush operative Karl Rove.

But the trend toward transparency is still being met with resistance. Goldman Sachs wrote to the SEC in December to block its shareholders from voting on a lobbying disclosure proposal in part because the amount of money at issue “relates to operations that account for less than five percent of the Company’s assets.” The shareholders withdrew their proposal."

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Elections (New York Times)

2018 Election: Calendar and Results

"The 2018 midterm elections, featuring hundreds of congressional, state and local primaries, will culminate with the Nov. 6 general election to decide whether Democrats can gain control of Congress or if Republicans will keep their hold on the legislative branch."

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America's gun problem: Can it be solved?

Student protests—teenagers demanding their right to attend school without the fear of being gunned down by some lunatic with an assault rifle—have been ongoing since the February 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people died and 14 others were injured. It’s been riveting and inspiring watching these passionate, young people stand up to pro-gun legislators, rabid Second Amendment-rights groups, and the NRA, saying, “Enough is enough.”

While I have no use for guns, nor do I own one, nor can I ever imagine purchasing one (but, I never say never), I believe people have the right to own guns for self-protection and rifles for hunting. However, military-grade weapons and automatic or semi-automatic weapons should only be available to the military, maybe the police; certainly, not civilians.

Parkland's was the eighteenth school shooting of 2018, though the number is up for debate depending on how a school shooting is counted and defined. It's not only school shootings that should concern us, but also the number of gun deaths—homicides, suicides, accidents—and injuries that happen across America every day. Something must be done. 

We have a problem no other developed country has: 30,000 gun-related deaths per year. None come close. We have a massive number of guns in this country, largely concentrated in a small portion of the population.

Here are some stats:

• 30% of the US population owns guns;
• 3% of the US population owns 50% of those guns;
• The US has 10 x the gun-related deaths of other advanced countries;
• Gun deaths in the US are 40 x greater than in Great Britain but we don’t have 40 x the mental health issues;
• US states with the highest rates of gun ownership, generally have higher rates of gun deaths;
• US states with the lowest rates of gun ownership, generally have lower rates of gun deaths.

Below, Fareed Zakaria talks about the massive number of guns in our country. It's a brief segment worth watching.

The proclamation (repeated on the right) that there is nothing we can do to stop these incidents is bull. I get it, some people don’t want to jump through hoops to purchase guns. However, we should always make it more difficult for bad guys to obtain a gun. And yes, that may inconvenience good guys a little bit. So what?

If I hear one more person refer to gun violence in Chicago as proof that strict gun laws are useless, my head will explode. Here’s a little geography lesson. What state is located just east of Illinois? Right, Indiana, which has some of the weakest gun laws in the country. No matter how strict gun laws may be in one state, there will be gun-related problems if it is in close proximity to one with weak gun laws.  

On February 21, the Indianapolis Star reported that Indiana lawmakers in the state advanced bills loosening firearm restrictions such as changing background check requirements, waiving the lifetime handgun carry permit fee, and allowing people to bring firearms onto church grounds, even if a school is on the premises. This is Indiana legislators' actions a mere seven days after the Florida shooting. 

There are also too many accidental shooting deaths, especially involving children. I don’t have kids, but if I did, and one of their friends got a hold of a gun because that child’s parents were careless about securing it and they injured or killed my child, those parents would regret the day they ever heard my name. Adults need to be held responsible for these tragedies, even if it’s their own kid who ends up being the victim. Until adults are held more accountable, these tragic situations will continue, and these are totally avoidable situations. Imagine being a child who killed someone else.

And while people with mental health issues should not have access to guns, they are more likely to be victims of violence than those instigating it. We should not only prevent them from possessing guns but also those with a history of violence, domestic violence included.

Lastly, we should never turn our schools into prisons. Who wants to go to school with armed guards and metal detectors? Teachers should not be armed. Many school systems can’t afford supplies for their classrooms (teachers oftentimes pay for these items themselves), but we’ll pay to arm and train them? Teachers should not be expected to take on that responsibility. That’s not their job. They certainly do not get paid enough to do it. The NRA loves the idea though: more guns equal more money for the gun industry.

So what can be done? Here are a few ideas:

• Implement a universal background check system, which also applies to ammunition purchases.

• Close the gun show loophole. Friends and family members purchasing guns from each other must also go through background checks and licensing.

• Enact two-week waiting periods. This is a precautionary measure, especially if someone is suicidal or bent on murdering someone who has upset them. A cooling down period is reasonable.

• Educate citizens to recognize the signs of violence or unusual behavior in loved ones, friends, and neighbors. If something seems off, report it. This can be tricky, and one must be careful not to abuse the reporting process, but most of us know when someone close to us is struggling or their behavior has changed. Ensure our healthcare system is capable of treating those suffering a mental illness, anxiety, anger, and depression.

• Ban assault weapons, bump stocks, and high-capacity magazines. No civilian purchases of semi-automatic, automatic, or military-grade weapons are permitted.

• Allow doctors to report gun-related injuries and the CDC to compile data about these incidents so we have a clearer picture of what is happening around gun injuries and deaths. The agency was effectively barred from studying gun violence as a public-health issue in 1996 by a statutory provision known as the Dickey amendment. (Click on: Why Can’t the U.S Treat Gun Violence as a Public-Health Problem? below for more information.)

• Reverse the Trump Administration’s bill passed last February that rolled back an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with mental illnesses to purchase a gun.

• Place terrorists’ names on a no-buy list. They are no-fly lists. 

• Organize a buy-back program. The number of guns in this country needs to be reduced. More guns equal more gun violence. That’s a fact.

These kids protesting out in the streets are the leaders we need in this fight. Their lives have been turned upside down. They watched their classmates be gunned down and some died. It’s their young lives being extinguished. It’s their future; they want to live it and grow old. 

Marches are planned in D.C. and around the country on March 24. I’ll be marching in New York City that day. These young people are right: Enough is enough.

March for Our Lives Info

Related articles:

• What I Saw Treating the Victims From Parkland Should Change the Debate on Guns
• Why Can't the U.S. Treat Gun Violence as a Public-Health Problem?
• Review of More Than 130 Studies Provides Powerful Evidence That Gun Control Saves Lives

Ideas, Inspiration, and Actions for a Better Tomorrow - February 22 Edition

It's time to resume posting these segments, although on a weekly basis rather than a daily one. I commenced doing it today because it is a special one for me: My father was born on February 22, 1942. He is seventy-six years young today. He can still keep up with his grandchildren, for the most part, although now that the two oldest boys are teenagers, that is getting a little tougher. He plays basketball, softball, and kickball with all of us as well as participates each August in the Tell City Schweizer Fest 2-mile road run—albeit walking all but the last couple blocks, when he must be photographed running across the finish line. Happy birthday, Dad! I hope I am as active and healthy as you are when I am your age. I love you. 

One of my favorite photos with Dad

Below are stories/articles worth your attention this week:

Energy, Climate Change (Read or watch)
Morocco turns the Sahara desert into a solar energy oasis

Morocco says it wants to be the Saudi Arabia of solar energy. Its flagship project is a first-of-its-kind, $9-billion energy plant called Noor, meaning "light" in Arabic, and the size of the city of Paris. Special correspondent Monica Villamizar reports from the city of Ouarzazate.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Next, we turn to Morocco, home to the largest solar energy plant in the world.

  Today, the planet Earth meets over 80 percent of its energy needs with either coal, oil or gas. But as climate science and breakthrough technology disrupt the energy sector, Morocco is taking advantage of an abundant natural resource, unobstructed sunlight, to power part of the North African nation.

  Special correspondent Monica Villamizar looks at a giant $9 billion project.

  It’s part of our ongoing series, Peril and Promise, on the challenge of climate change.

Leadership, First Impressions
Five Things That Can Really Influence How Others Perceive You 

1. Be curious.

Want to be the most interesting person in the room? In a previous article, I posed seven questions a person needs to ask that will ignite captivating conversations. But in order for that scenario to happen, curiosity is the social prerequisite. Albert Einstein famously said, "I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." Perhaps there's an Einstein in all of us.

Read more

Foreign Policy (Read or Listen)
The Answers are Out There

Contrary to conventional wisdom, solutions to many of the world’s toughest problems already exist — you just need to know where to look for them. In this segment are six articles in the current issue of Foreign Policy Magazine. 

Think Small to Weather Big Storms (Natural Disasters)

Why Beijing Should Dump Its Debt (China)

Normalize the Hermit Kingdom (North Korea)

Break Corruption with Bitcoin's Back (Corruption)

Inoculate Against a Global Vaccine Crisis (Health)

Where the Next Global Downturn Could Come From (Global Economy)

Travel
The 50 Best Places to Visit in the U.S.A. 

I have been bitten by the travel bug over the past decade and while I will be hitting Scotland's West Highland Way at the end of May to hike 96 miles with a group of fabulous women friends, I am also considering some travel closer to home here in the States. On my list of possibilities are New Orleans, Charleston (SC), or Austin. Check out the link above if you are looking for some vacation or weekend get-away ideas of your own. Happy travels! 

Making a Difference: A physical therapist assistant becomes a healthcare entrepreneur

Part II

Guest blogger: Mary Morgan Saalman

Mary Morgan Saalman

I returned from my first John F. Barnes’ Myofascial Release® seminar—taught by John Barnes himself—and began using the techniques I had learned right away. It was beyond amazing, and my life shifted forever, as my understanding of the body, all bodies—even those of our animal friends—was finally clearer. The first person I treated using MFR was a man who had been with our clinic for months. He suffered terrible neck pain from a vehicle accident. We were ready to plan his discharge because he had “plateaued,” which means he had improved about 25% but had shown no progress beyond that for two weeks. Therefore, insurance dictated that he be discharged from therapy. However, he still experienced terrible pain and could not turn his head very far, which was a problem for him considering he was a truck driver. 

I asked him if I could use MFR to treat him during his last visit. He agreed. I worked on him for only thirty-five minutes. I discovered the problem was not in his neck, but rather, due to restrictions in his pelvis and lower back that were pulling on his fascial “web” all the way up to his neck. He was amazed when we finished. His pain went from an 8/10 to a 2/10, and he had full cervical range of motion. He was stunned. So was I. He was incredibly thankful but couldn’t help but feel discouraged by the fact that he had spent over $1,500 on his therapy over eight weeks during which he had to meet his deductible. Now, here I had helped him significantly in just one visit. This was the day I knew I had to find a way to open my own clinic so that I could practice the work I knew would help people, especially those who could not afford insurance or traditional medical care, but how would I accomplish that?

I was a physical therapist assistant so was required to practice with a physical therapist under my current license. After an entire year of using MFR to treat my patients and watching people improve and get their lives back more fully and quicker than traditional therapy, I knew I had to make a change. So, I bit the bullet and went to school to receive my massage therapy license. I had no desire to practice massage, which is not what I do. However, I needed the license in order to open my own clinic to practice what I know to be a much needed and affordable healing modality.

I am strictly cash based. I do not accept insurance. I refuse to be a prisoner to insurance companies ever again. I know what my clients need to heal. Insurance companies do not. You might think that people would find it difficult to pay for medical services out of pocket, that it would be unaffordable. However, this is not true. I currently charge $70 per hour. That may seem like a lot of money, right? Well, it is to many of us. However, here is the difference. People do not have to see their physician to get a referral to visit me, unlike other forms of physical, occupational, or speech therapy. Furthermore, since MFR is a full body and mind treatment, my clients improve with fewer treatments than with traditional therapies, which saves them a lot of money over the long run that they would have otherwise had to pay toward their deductibles. Their outcomes are better with MFR than they had been with traditional therapies.

Many of my clients have told me that they were so excited to tell their doctors about me and myofascial release, how it has changed their lives, and helped them to understand that their body is a complete unit, not merely “areas of pain.” They tell me that their doctors “don’t buy it.” This is frustrating for me. Still, some physicians have asked their client to bring them more information on MFR and my clinic because they are shocked at the incredible improvements their patient has made [with me] since their last visit. It’s changing one mind at a time, right?

My dream came true last August. After much hard work and faith, I opened my clinic, Advanced Healing Myofascial Release & Wellness, in Angola, Indiana. I cannot express how wonderful it feels to be able to help people heal and learn more about their bodies. I also teach my clients how to treat themselves at home. My goal is to decrease the number of times they visit my office by hastening the healing process so that they are not returning to me forever and spending their precious dollars. Many talk to me about how much money I have saved them, keeping them out of the revolving-healthcare door by helping them to heal their bodies, teaching them how to keep their bodies healthy, and more importantly, feeling much better.

I do not turn anyone away. I do my best to work out a payment plan for anyone who needs help. A traditional therapy clinic will rarely do that. If you do not have insurance or the money up front, they will not treat you. I consider that barbaric. Many of my clients have very little, but they do have enough to see me for a few visits to feel better and learn how to maintain the improvements made during treatment, saving them money in the long run. 

Many of my clients come to me because their physicians are pushing them to have surgery for, pick your problem: carpal tunnel, frozen shoulder, back/neck pain, hip pain, etc. These patients are looking for an alternative to surgery to help them feel better and function without the pain and/or the cost of going under the knife. I get results. 75% of my clients no longer need surgery after working with me.

Think about this on a larger scale. Any surgery is expensive. Now, think about the possibility that people receive alternative treatments, such as MFR, to address their health problems and the possibility that even 50% of these people no longer need surgery. Think about the cost savings to insurance companies, which in an alternative universe, would be put back in to the system to help lower insurance premiums and other healthcare costs. Think about the savings to people who no longer need surgery, considering that the average insurance deductible today is $3,000 with a 20% copay on charges above the deductible. Furthermore, most surgeries cost tens of thousands of dollars, depending on what needs to be done and if it is done on an inpatient or outpatient basis. My clients averaged paying $400 for my services. That seems like a deal to me.

The cash-based trend is growing in our country. Many therapists are slowly switching over to cash-based businesses, refusing insurance. It might seem that this would cost the client more, but it does not. There are also physicians who are experimenting with cash-based business models solely so that they can provide medical services to those who cannot afford insurance or to see a “traditional physician.” Those who have done so state that they now have time to care for their patients’ needs instead of tackling mounds of paperwork for insurance companies. Nor are they spending their time developing care plans based on insurance company requirements. They spend more time with their patients, better understanding their needs as opposed to adhering to the “conveyor belt” business model they were taught in medical school.

There are many ways to make healthcare more accessible for every person who needs it. Making healthcare affordable for every single American should be a priority. Most healthcare professionals sincerely care about their patients and want to help them heal. It is simply wrong to turn sick and hurt people away. The medical care professionals who are turning toward cash-based practices are at the forefront of a new business model that will make healthcare more accessible and affordable to all people. I am proud to be a part of that trend. 

Read Part I 

Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog post belong solely to the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of A Better Tomorrow Media.