I have been watching the developments in the Obama Care parade, and I have not commented, because he talks about the "nay Sayers" in an effort to discredit us, but I can't keep quite anymore. Too much astute distortion and half truths are flooding the airways that something must be said about this "obamination."I listened to most of his speech to the AMA. Listening to the applause of that bunch of sycophants, hoping that the income of the primary care doctors will be raised, made me nauseated. They don't care what happens to the field of medicine, or the patients, because anyone with half a brain can see that Obama's vision of health care will be a catastrophe.
His first two methods of financing this debacle will be the EMR (electronic medical records), and preventive care. What a joke. I do believe the EMR will help transmit information so it is not duplicated, but that is a drop in the bucket. Who, may I ask, will pay for the installation of this technology into any of the offices? The software people have not had to deal with "maximal allowable charges" as medicine has, so we cannot pay their exorbitant fees.
But the biggest fallacy of Obama cost saving ideas is "preventive care." He thinks we are going to get everyone to eat right, stop smoking, and exercise. I guess if they earn less than $250,000 per year he will pay them to live healthy. He has no idea what the practice of medicine is about. I have been trying to get people to do this for 30 years. They do what they want to. Maybe the government will FORCE people to do these things. His ideas like this make me wonder how unrealistic his other ideas will be about this topic. It's brutally frightening!
As for malpractice reform, physicians didn't get the time of day from this highly trained lawyer. Any physician knows that many dollars are wasted in defensive medicine. I guess the lawyers stick together. More importantly,I worry that the most powerful man in the world cannot get the perspective of physicians that are being robbed by the malpractice insurance companies each year with exorbitant fees. Why don't the patients foot some of this bill? They could purchase a policy prior to any procedure, to cover "insurance." That policy could stipulate that Obama's sacred "caps" would not apply.
Another area which is dubious is the total lack of discussion of the physicians in these plans. After all, our government is about to enslave a group of highly trained,educated, hard working people to "give" their talents to other citizens for a government controlled fee. In controlling these "fees" the government has a fundamental conflict of interest: they're paying the bills and they can't afford it. It doesn't look good for the physicians.
Each time the government puts in another program in place, they split the medical profession along specialist and generalist lines to gain the "support" of medicine. There are many more primary care physicians than specialists; it's easier to get that training, and the lifestyle is easier. I had eight years of training after medical school myself to become a vascular surgeon. Obama has promised the primary care doctors "more" to get their support. The problem is that primary care doctors may be replaced by nurse practitioners and physician "extenders" in the new Obama care. Their work comes cheaper, and, after all, he plans to "save money" to pay for this thing by cutting expenses in the delivery of medical care.
Finally, I agree with him that something needs to be done. But let's first be honest with our citizens. I'm sorry folks, but we cannot all have everything we want from medical care and, I fear, everything we might need to stay alive and comfortable.We will have to ration.
My suggestion for a good start would be to control the third party bureaucracies, cap malpractice awards, tax alcohol, and cigarettes, and continue medical savings accounts, but get the third parties out of them. Finally, the Congress should not have access to any better medical care than the rest of the country.
James P. Weaver, M.D., FACS
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