Obama's bad medicine

Kevin McCullough:

President Barack Obama has taken to a unique and possibly quite macabre strategy into the August recess. In speech after speech on the need for the federalizing control of a national health care system President Obama has taken to insulting the wrong people--physicians--but beyond that he has turned them into orated illustrations of terror. I believe in doing so he is demonstrating an unusual degree of deception to which he is willing to stoop, all for the cause of saying he did "something" about health care.

Roughly one month ago President Obama stated in a press conference from the White House, "So if you come in, and you've got a bad sore throat, or your child has a bad sore throat, or has repeated sore throats. The doctor may look at the reimbursement system, and say to himself, 'You know what, I make a heck of a lot more money if I take this kid's tonsils out.' Now that may be the right thing to do but I'd rather have that doctor making those decisions, just based on whether you really need your kids tonsils out, or whether it make just make more sense just to huh... change... huh... maybe they have allergies, maybe they have something else that would make a difference."

In one swipe he slanders thousands of the very best children's doctors and ears, nose, and throat specialists across the board. He does so with an assumption that those who practice medicine are driven by greed, and not the welfare of their patients. Yet let me ask you this, how many children's doctors do you know, or have you had for your family? In many cases across America one doctor has been the family pediatrician for two to three generations of children, and extended family, and friends of that family. In all honesty do you think such a reality would exist, if they were treating kids like clunkers that can be cashed in for parts?

Roughly two weeks ago President Obama at a townhall meeting said,

"Let's take the example of something like diabetes, one of uh... A disease that's sky-rocketing, partly because of huh... obesity. Partly because it is not treated... huh... as effectively... as it could be. Right now if we paid a family... If a family care physician, works with his or her patient, to help them lose weight, modify diet, monitors whether they are taking their medication in a timely fashion. They might get reimbursed a pittance. But if that same diabetic ends up getting their foot amputated, that's $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, immediately the surgeon is reimbursed."

There he was again with the profit motive. Only this time he was actually making the argument that the doctor would be so malevolent as to allow the diabetic in question to purposefully worsen the condition, just to cash in. I cannot repeat this strongly enough--his willingness to view doctors with such contempt and disrespect sickens me, as it should every medical practitioner in the nation. As best as I can tell there is no other industry that swears to the ideals of such a lofty vision as is found in the Hippocratic Oath. Yet in allegiance to such an oath is something lost on the man who placed his hand on a Bible and took one to uphold our liberties, freedoms, and responsibilities as outlined in the Constitution.

On this issue he was also factually wrong. And given the extreme amount of detail that goes into any Presidential proclamation, a safe wager would be to say, that he knew he was not speaking the truth. The matter of monetary reimbursement was publicly stated by the American Medical Association within 24 hours. No doctor ever receives even a $1000 for the amputation of a foot. They also do not receive it "immediately." The facts according to the AMA are that reimbursement for amputations are slow in coming and average between $500-$700.

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There are other examples. What they suggest is that Obama is basing his policy prescriptions on several false premises. While he is busily arguing against myths that he claims are used to oppose his plan, he is also creating his own whoppers to support it. He needs to clean up his own myths first.