So near death experiences aren’t the only failure of healthcare, like I said earlier, there are many stakeholders to blame — or hold to account. Where did it start for you as a patient, or as an employee (insider) working in healthcare, or as a caregiver trying to keep your parents healthy and alive?

I can look back, with the information now available and say that it started everywhere for me, with everything — because everything affects our health. I remember eating chips back in high school, and specifically at a family event where there were chips with dip. As I ate them, I remarked to my family that they tasted so different. I asked, ‘what did they buy’ and why?  Turns out that they got the regular chips, nothing special, but they were made with a ‘new and better oil’ so they tasted different. Just like in that same time period, everyone started using Splenda instead of regular sugar. Looking back, those ‘new seed oils’ and this new ‘better sugar Splenda’ were much more unhealthy than their predecessors. In fact they were just cheaper ingredients, so that the food manufacturers could make more money per unit — that’s all it ever is right, health be damned, corporate profits rule the day.

RFK Jr. has set his sights on ultra-processed foods for a reason, these products are killing us. The ingredients used in the U.S. food supply are AGAINST THE LAW in the EU and thus their same ‘chip or cookie’ is a different version than what is sold in the U.S.!

How is that possible? With the FDA and the NIH, and the whomever, whatever, agency or leadership personality — why is it that every stakeholder that was supposed to protect the American patient (taxpayer, consumer) is not being held accountable to this obvious abuse of their role?

Looking back, it makes sense now why I started having massive intestinal issues when I was 25. I actually forced a doctor to order me a colonoscopy because I had such bad day to day issues, and I had recently had a friend get diagnosed with cancer of the gut.  I couldn’t believe that I didn’t have cancer after feeling so bad for more than a year. In the end, my colon was the ‘best colon’ he had seen in a decade! I didn’t win an award, no Grammy for nicest colon, but it was still regarded as a personal accomplishment by me and those close to me, which is me!

What was the answer? No diet changes, no exercise changes, no feedback at all other than, take this pill for the rest of your life because you have IBS. Wait what? I have irritable bowel syndrome at 25, after not having any issues for 25 years? Where did it come from, what created this, what can I do to fix it? Nothing — nothing! Just take this pill!

So our whole country was given sh&t food, got sick and then told there was a pill to fix it. Not sure if any of you have been gaslit in the past, but this is gaslighting 101, isn’t it?  They create the problem, you question your own sanity, then they provide the solution and you’re supposed to thank them — how in the hell does that work?

There are dozens of these stories, hundreds of them, for all of us. This is why Patients First is so important to me, we need to catalog these experiences nationally, and we need to act as a collective moving forward, so that we can demand a seat at the table where these decisions are being made. The politician does not represent us, they are a different class citizen, everything they do proves that to you everyday. They don’t even have the same healthcare coverage we do, they built our system and then don’t have to live within it! Collectively, we need to educate ourselves, once we are educated (on the same page) we can advocate for our needs, and once we 

There are 1,000 foundations and 10,000 new healthcare companies formed every year — all to solve these problems. Do you know what none of them share with Patients First?  We are building this for patients, by patients — they are all backed by big money (bankers, hedge funds) and thus will always serve big money — Patients First will serve patients today, tomorrow and always.
 

We are building an ecosystem of patient leaders, of for profit companies, and of non-profits organizations that are focused on the long term health of the American patient. Costs need to be controlled, transparency needs to be REAL, interoperability across technology needs to finally be allowed and all organizations earning money off of our lives (and deaths) need to be making that money responsibly.

Join the team, join the fight and make sure your voice is heard.

Until next time…Steve