Medicine and providers Power of Life and Death

How did it come to be that we are so reliant on pills and surgery? Recently I am coming face to face with my own dilemia. A godlike doctor; a proclaimation that without a million dollar surgical procedure I could drop dead. Assurances that the treatment provided by medicine would improve my life. I think the worst of it is that the doctor was selling the idea of eternal life. Perhaps the idea is to sell the idea that life can be sustained indefinitely with devices and or medicines. The stuff of science fiction. So often good futuristic science fiction mimics what could become reality in real time. Briefly I got caught up in it. So it was back to the books. Research although it be medical research and a branch of the diabolical problem set before me, still I know the answer is there somewhere. The following was taken from a pharmacological text book. This is a paraphrased version of a few paragraphs taken from the introduction. In our history a natural bond was formed between religion and medicine. Those most proficient in the use of drugs to treat disease were the “mediators” between this world and the spirit world, for example, the priests, shamans, holy persons, witches, and soothsayers. Their power within the community came from the cures that they could effect with drugs. It was believed that the sick were possessed by demons and that health could be restored by identifying the demon and cast it out. In early history religion dominated its partnership with curing disease and and divine intervention or the GODs were called on for every treatment. Drugs and herbs used to cure led to a change in both religious thought and structure. As more became known about the effects of drugs, the importance of divine intervention began to recede, and the treatment of patients effectively became a province of the priest rather than the gods whom the priest served. This process would lead to an increase in knowledge about drug and herbs as cures. What followed was a decrease in the reliance on supernatural intervention by priests, soothsayers, witch doctors and their representatives. knowledge that would forever alter the relationship between humanity and its Gods.

Important term and concept.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/24035-anastomosis#procedure-details

Tracking a medical device.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/postmarket-requirements-devices/medical-device-tracking

How does medicare implement laws allowing patients gain access to surgical procedures like TAVR

There is one summary for H.R.4043. Bill summaries are authored by CRS. Shown Here: Introduced in House (06/22/2021) Ensuring Patient Access to Critical Breakthrough Products Act of 2021 This bill provides for Medicare coverage of medical devices that are approved under the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Breakthrough Devices Program. (Under the program, manufacturers work with the FDA to expedite the review and approval of certain medical devices that provide for more effective treatment or diagnosis of life-threatening or irreversibly debilitating human diseases or conditions.) The bill allows designated medical breakthrough devices to be temporarily covered under Medicare during a four-year transitional period. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) must assign payment codes for such devices within three months of FDA approval. The CMS must also establish a process to allow for continued coverage after the transitional period has expired, taking into account any additional evidence or data the CMS deems necessary. The CMS must also provide for temporary and, where appropriate, permanent Medicare coverage of breakthrough devices for which there is no existing benefit category