Doctors Will Be "drafted" Under Public Option

[Ron Van D]

[FONT=&quot]Doctors Will be 'Drafted' Under Public Option[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Monday, October 12, 2009 6:47 PM

By: Jim Meyers [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]A respected medical specialist has carefully reviewed the healthcare reform bill in the U.S. House, and he declares that it would amount to a virtual "draft" of doctors into the government's "public option" health insurance program. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Dr. Russell Blaylock, a renowned neurosurgeon, book author and editor of the Blaylock Wellness Report published by Newsmax, also warns that "death panels" could lead to the rationing of medical care to the elderly and a "violation of the Hippocratic Oath." [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In an exclusive Newsmax interview, Dr. Blaylock points to other ominous provisions in the bill, HR 3200, which he says would: [/FONT]
·[FONT=&quot] Severely discourage the readmission of patients to a hospital after they have been treated, and punish doctors and hospitals if they do readmit them. [/FONT]
·[FONT=&quot] Require medical practitioners to document their dealings to the extent that they won't have enough time to adequately treat their patients. [/FONT]
·[FONT=&quot] Jeopardize the confidentiality of patients' medical records, including psychiatric reports. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The Senate's version of healthcare reform is slated to be voted on by the Finance Committee on Tuesday. But the House bill has already been approved by several committees and is sure to play a major role in any conference by the House and Senate to reconcile the bills those bodies pass. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Newsmax.TV's Ashley Martella noted that under the House bill, physicians would be drafted into the public option, a provision Dr. Blaylock has earlier called "conscription." [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]This bill "is virtually a draft because it says all physicians are automatically in the public option unless they opt out, and the opt out mechanism will be later determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services," Dr. Blaylock said. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"Well, we don't know how difficult it will be for physicians to opt out. Will there be penalties, fines, taxes, etc.? Because that's all left up to the Secretary." [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]He added on that score: "One of the things that concerns the legal minds of this country is that any bill that contains arbitrary language can be interpreted after it's passed any way they want to. And in this bill, virtually every page gives arbitrary powers to the Secretary of Health and Human Services." [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Blaylock warned that under the House bill, hospital readmissions will be very restricted. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"One of the things they targeted to save money was to punish hospitals and physicians if they readmit a patient within a month of them being treated in an emergency room," he said. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"The effect of that is going to be that doctors are not going to want to treat these patients, hospitals are not going to want to treat these patients. It's going to cost hospitals a considerable amount of money as well as the physicians in fines if a patient comes back readmitted. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"Now the people who are going to be readmitted are people with chronic illnesses, the elderly, the disabled. Those are the people who are going to have complications occur within that month period. And why should hospitals and physicians be punished for that? [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"They're not going to want to treat these patients. They're going to want to refer them quickly to another facility. And that's one of the biggest problems we have, patients being bounced around." [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Martella asked about a controversial provision in the bill for so-called end of life counseling, which critics have charged would set up "death panels." [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"This caused a lot of controversy, on so-called death panels and whether this advanced healthcare planning was actually required," Dr. Blaylock said. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"But it says very specifically on pages 424 through 428 that these sessions will be part of the normal medical practice. Therefore it's not voluntary. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"So every patient of a certain age will have to undergo this counseling. And further, in really frightening language, this bill [stipulates] that the people doing the counseling will be specially trained and approved by the federal government. They'll supply films, brochures, pamphlets,[/FONT][FONT=&quot] the data the patients are being exposed to. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"If you look at a lot of this literature now, what it says is that these patients will be encouraged to end their life early rather than take extraordinary medical treatments. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"For instance, if you're 65, 70 years old and you have congestive heart failure, in their view you really should make the decision that you don't want any further treatment, that it would be best for you and your family. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"And if you couch it that way you can convince a lot of patients through guilt that they really shouldn't be spending the money that it's going to cost their family as well as the country at large. So this is a very dangerous precedent. This is a violation of the Hippocratic Oath... [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"But then the health czar, Ezekiel Emanuel, has said that physicians are too obsessed with this Hippocratic Oath. And if you read his papers on this subject, he clearly states that the elderly should just make the decision that they don't want any further treatment and go ahead and meet their end. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"The Hastings Center that he writes for, and that he's on the advisory panel for, clearly [states] that patients need to just reject any kind of extraordinary healthcare, or just ordinary healthcare, and accept that they're going to die. To me that is under the definition of a death panel. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"If you look at the socialist countries, for instance National Socialist Germany and the Soviet Union, they had very similar policies. They just didn't treat these people." [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Dr. Blaylock is also concerned about the huge amount of paperwork the bill would require from medical practitioners. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"Those of us who have practiced medicine for a lot of years know that in the last 15 years, progressively, there's been so many requirements for the reporting of virtually everything," he said. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"This bill expands it enormously, so that physicians are not going to have time to do patient care to the extent that they should. They're not going to be able to follow up on their post-graduation education or attend seminars, because they're going to spend time documenting everything. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"They have to document any interaction with any federal bureaucracy or any other entity that they contract with. They have to determine whether there's a fraud risk. They're fined if fraud is found later, even though they're just referring a patient to an outpatient facility. They have to do quality assessments continuously. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"Now that's going to cause doctors to spend enormous amounts of time documenting all this and I don't see how they can even do it. The paperwork is absolutely enormous." [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Martella asked if that record-keeping would encroach on doctor-patient confidentiality. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"Certainly. Whether you use patient code, patient names, all that is to be determined later. None of that is spelled out in this bill. So it has the potential, particularly in regard to the financial records that have to be supplied, of putting at risk your financial data, your medical data, if you've seen a psychiatrist, if you've had any kind of infectious disease that you don't want anyone to know about." [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Under the bill, "all this information is available to a lot of eyes at every level and all sorts of bureaucracies, and it can leak out." [/FONT]

 

[atlantainsguy]

It's too bad so many people are so paranoid about something that doesn't even exist yet. Everyone has an opinion about what may or may not be. Many doctors favor a public option, many don't. It's a question of balancing public need versus personal greed.

atlantainsguy

 

[ABC]

It's too bad so many people are so paranoid about something that doesn't even exist yet. Everyone has an opinion about what may or may not be. Many doctors favor a public option, many don't. It's a question of balancing public need versus personal greed.

atlantainsguy

Hey Al sorry I mean Atlanta

HR 3200 does exist. That bill will be used to blend in with the other bills to form one bill.

Most practicing Doctors do not favor a public option. Do you have stats that say other wise?

 

[ins.dave]

It's too bad so many people are so paranoid about something that doesn't even exist yet. Everyone has an opinion about what may or may not be. Many doctors favor a public option, many don't. It's a question of balancing public need versus personal greed.

atlantainsguy

Any doctor with anything going on does not favour the public option.
Got a couple in the family.
The only ones that do want it are jealous of the doc’s with a real client base.
They want every MD to be just as miserable as they are in their sh*tty lil H.M.O.s.
Just like the public. It’s not the 85% with coverage. It’s the gimps who can’t get indie product or the slackers who don’t want to be responsible and participate. Everybody else has to much to lose.

Below from Investor's Business Daily.
Note the emboldened areas ... Putz?

45% Of Doctors Would Consider Quitting If Congress Passes Health Care Overhaul

By TERRY JONES, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILYPosted 09/15/2009 07:09 PM ET

View Enlarged Image


IBD Exclusive Series:
Condition Critical: What Doctors Think About Health Reform
Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted, a new IBD/TIPP Poll has found.
The poll contradicts the claims of not only the White House, but also doctors' own lobby — the powerful American Medical Association — both of which suggest the medical profession is behind the proposed overhaul.
It also calls into question whether an overhaul is even doable; 72% of the doctors polled disagree with the administration's claim that the government can cover 47 million more people with better-quality care at lower cost.
The IBD/TIPP Poll was conducted by mail the past two weeks, with 1,376 practicing physicians chosen randomly throughout the country taking part. Responses are still coming in, and doctors' positions on related topics — including the impact of an overhaul on senior care, medical school applications and drug development — will be covered later in this series.
Major findings included:
• Two-thirds, or 65%, of doctors say they oppose the proposed government expansion plan. This contradicts the administration's claims that doctors are part of an "unprecedented coalition" supporting a medical overhaul.
It also differs with findings of a poll released Monday by National Public Radio that suggests a "majority of physicians want public and private insurance options," and clashes with media reports such as Tuesday's front-page story in the Los Angeles Times with the headline "Doctors Go For Obama's Reform."
Nowhere in the Times story does it say doctors as a whole back the overhaul. It says only that the AMA — the "association representing the nation's physicians" and what "many still regard as the country's premier lobbying force" — is "lobbying and advertising to win public support for President Obama's sweeping plan."
The AMA, in fact, represents approximately 18% of physicians and has been hit with a number of defections by members opposed to the AMA's support of Democrats' proposed health care overhaul.

 

[Winter_123]

The government will control even more of the funding of physicians and require public sector service in payment for loans. The libs will love it because the more "public" the better. The conservatives and the libertarians will love it too because it has the appearance of requiring a return on the investment of public funds.

I am opposed to it. One of the ways that the government will create a National Health Service is to create an entire class and generation of physicians who are essentially indentured serfs. If you work for a government program as a physcian you can make $60,000 a year but if you leave at any time you will owe a million. Not surprisingly, all those docs end out wanting to see more and better public programs because they are never going to see private practice in their lives. It also requires private practice phyisicans to charge more and more to pay off loans which were not forgiven because they left the government programs. The more they charge, the more the government justifies the need for a public program and so it goes.

Note to libs: I did not say I was opposed to any or all public service as partial payback. I am saying that government funds should help to support a vibrant private sector in all fields, including the practice of medicine.

 

[JustinUpright]

It's too bad so many people are so paranoid about something that doesn't even exist yet. Everyone has an opinion about what may or may not be. Many doctors favor a public option, many don't. It's a question of balancing public need versus personal greed.

atlantainsguy

It is too late to worry about it when it happens. I am worried about becoming a communist under the regime of the "elected" officials we now have. Should I wait and worry about it til it happens?

 

[Mac1958]

The Democrats appear to be convinced that, once this plan is crammed through, everyone will be happy and love them for "caring" so much.

That's what narcissistic hyper-partisan ideology does to people - it makes these wild-eyed zealots think that theirs is the only way to do something, and that everyone will thank them for their heroic actions.

The smartest thing Republicans could do right now is shut up and let the Democrats pass the biggest, most bloated, most wasteful, most bureaucratic, most anti-incentive health care bill possible. Then spend from now until the 2010 mid-terms tearing it apart, piece by piece.

But I've long since given up expecting the Republicans to do the smartest thing.

This thing is gonna be an absolute mess.

...

 

[JustinUpright]

We need to vote everyone out next election. Fire everyone Dems or Repubs. No incumbents in 2010!