Dr. Sanity explains why she has not commented on the Health Care Debate. Her reasoning is compelling and worth keeping in mind as the debate unfolds:
THIS TIME, I DON'T CARE ANYMORE...LET THE ZOMBIES TAKE OVER MEDICINE
A number of emailers have written wondering why I haven't commented on Obama's health care plans for America.
Doug Ross highlights an ad/op-ed piece by Nicolas Kristof, part of the massive PR campaign in the Age of Obama to make socialized medicine palatable to the American public. Kristof calls people like me "scaremongers;" and defiantly says, "This time we won't scare." But he doesn't have to worry.
I'm done.
My entire professional life as a physician and psychiatrist I have been exceptionally vocal about the prospect of government medicine here in the US. I have given impassioned speeches (when I was younger); written essays in medical journals and elsewhere; and talked until I am blue in the face to anyone and everyone about the horrors of socialized medicine and government interference in the health care system of this country. Once it would have seemed impossible that I would ever want to quit medicine; to stop practicing psychiatry.
I have watched with dismay as every year we have inched closer and closer to the Democrats and the left's goals; goals which I firmly believe will completely destroy American medicine. I have watched up close and personal the utter soul-destroying consequences to both patients and doctors alike, of the pervasive cultural collectivist and looter thinking in my specialty. Every time this madness is killed, it just doesn't stay dead. Like some kind of putrefying zombie, the left just keeps resurrecting it. Logic doesn't matter. Facts don't matter.
Let's face it. To the zombies of the left, reality doesn't matter. With President Postmodern in office, aided and abetted by zombie hordes in Congress; why should I pretend anymore that it does?
This time around, I JUST DON'T CARE ANYMORE. If that's what people want, so be it.
I'm done. If Congress passes Obama's destructive zombie health plan in any form, I quit.
Read the whole thing and keep this in mind: A non-trivial percentage of Medical Doctors, often including the "best and the brightest" have no interest in becoming employees of the Federal Bureaucracy, with work rules, fees, and treatments determined by a set of Washington Bureaucrats who have no idea what clinical medicine entails.
(That includes those Academic Doctors who have minimal patient care responsibilities and from their lofty perch are quite willing to tell us what the evidence determines is good medical practice. Keep in mind that at one time, state of the art Medical treatment for neurasthenia included the manual masturbation of female patients by their male Physicians. In fact, the vibrator was invented because of the stress that the treatment imposed on the Physicians. One year's "best practices" can and all too often does become the next year's "bizarre medical treatments from history." Considering we still do not have adequate etiological explanations for most illnesses, diseases, and organismic dysfunction, take the "evidence based" rubric with a grain of salt. Further, keep in mind that once the government has inserted itself even further into determinations of appropriate treatment, those with the most political clout will be those with the most effective treatments.)
A final point: I am tired of being told that "rich" Doctors make too much money and should sacrifice so that everyone can have access to universal health care, ie access to my expertise at a non-market price. (If I'm so rich why do I drive a Honda with 135,000 miles and my wife drives a Honda with 150,000 miles, instead of a new Mercedes or Lexus? It is not because we love driving cars that require a lot of maintenance.) Medicare, the model for government run health care, has cut compensation for Doctors by ~30% in the last decade, with greater cuts sure to follow. My compensation from Medicare has been cut an additional 8% because a year ago I had to hire a billing service (who takes the aforementioned 8%) because Medicare had become so adept as finding ways to avoid paying my bills. I stopped my involvement on any insurance panels many years ago and as of last year will not accept another Medicare patient. I don't care if you think I am selfish, over-value my time and expertise, or any of the other comments that have come my way since this debate started. Like Dr. Sanity, I no longer care; if the country wants government run health care, welcome to it and know that I will not be a part of it.
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