ACOG: Traitors.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) may be the blindest supporter of all. Their leadership is dominated by leftists, and most of their members probably don't even realize it. They are selling their support to the members by claiming that 1/5 of women of childbearing age and 1/7 of pregnant women are uninsured or underinsured. I guess they are trying to make the case that mandatory, government-issued "coverage" of these women will help their members' bottom-line.

As someone who has delivered babies and cared for many women patients myself, many of them uninsured and more of them insured by some sort of government agency, I'd like to ask ObGyns this one simple question:

How is that reimbursement from the government working out for ya?

After pondering that question, ask yourself if you'd like the other 4/5 of the currently privately-insured women of childbearing age and the other 6/7 of the currently privately-insured pregnant women to have the same kind of "insurance" that is notoriously late with payments and consistently cuts your pay without the chance of any kind of appeal. Then make your voice heard with your traitorous Board.

American Academy of Nursing: Traitors.

The AAN goes so far as to have a whole page on their site dedicated to their support of HR 3200. This gives us a rare opportunity to see just how ridiculously blind many of these socialized medicine supporters are to the realities of the bill they just signed on to.

I personally know many nurses who are appalled at the provisions in the bill. Are you a nurse? Are you employed by a doctor or a hospital? This bill puts your job at risk. Oh, of course the government will be more than happy to employ you once your doctor has had to shut his or her doors. Their arms will be wide open to embrace you...at about 1/2 your current salary.

AARP: Traitors.

The website that allows you to join the 50+ savings club known as AARP has this little nugget on the bottom of their main website. Describing what they're about, they say:

"AARP is dedicated to enhancing quality of life for all as we age. We lead positive social change and deliver value to members through information, advocacy and service."

I defy them to explain how the mission of "enhancing quality of life" is accomplished through a bill that (1) paves the way for euthanasia as a cost-cutting measure, (2) destroys a patient's ability to choose their doctor, (3) rations care and medications in order to cut costs, (4) virtually ensures a shortage of doctors for the aging baby-boomers through draconian reimbursement cuts and (5) creates waiting lists for appointments and procedures.

This one is easy. Have an AARP membership? Cancel it. They sold you out.

AAFP: Traitors.

The American Academy of Family Practice (AAFP) supports destroying health care. I find their press release on the subject to be a laughable attempt to be "part of the debate". They have played with the fire, and now are being burned.

I, for one, as a family doctor, will not forget that they allowed their name to be used in support of a bill that would do more in a season to destroy American Medicine than all of the insurance companies combined have not been able to do in nearly 100 years.

To my family medicine colleagues: there is another family medicine board that has not, as yet, identified itself as traitorous to our profession and our Liberty: The American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM). I strongly suggest that those of you in family medicine switch your allegience. Your board has sold you out.

Consequences

Now that the truth about the socialized medicine bills coming out of Congress is out, the future of this latest attack on our Liberty is uncertain, at best. I am encouraged by the number of responsible citizens who have taken the time to actually sit down and read the 1000+ pages released by the U.S. House. I am even more encouraged to see that they are horrified by what those pages contain. Say what you will about the blogosphere - they are doing what the "real" media are not. They are researching and reporting facts.

(Kinda makes you wonder what is involved in getting a 4-year degree in journalism entails, if it doesn't include stressing the importance of research and reporting, doesn't it?)

But now to the point. Without regard to the outcome of this battle, it is time for those of us who believe in Liberty to name names. There is now a list of the groups who have come out in support of House Resolution 3200, which, it is now clear, would result in the destruction of personal liberty in health care choices, would ration health care, and would decimate American Medicine.

(from http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/07/supporters-of-the-americas-aff.shtml)

Some of the names on this list come as no big surprise. Many are unions, and as such, would benefit personally from this anti-American bill. Unions have always been, and continue to be, a smoldering ember of outright communism that we have always allowed to exist within us, smoldering, always with the risk that it will burst into a full-blown socialistic fire to destroy us. Nevertheless, they are what they are, and their support of a bill that would basically guarantee their ability to sell their votes for free health care for life (the exact cause of the recent problems at GM and Chrysler, incidentally) can be taken in stride.

Many of the others are similarly excluded, because they are notoriously socialistic in their missions. At least these organizations make no secret of their leftist designs on government - to make the majority suffer for their special pet projects.

Now, though, we come to the painful part. We have to decide what to do about the following organizations who signed on to this bill. Their support is being used to push it along, and therefore, their support should be seen as their endorsement of all that it says. We must not listen to their ex post facto excuses about their reasons for supporting it. The support of this bill says it all.

I strongly suggest that you consider making a list of these organizations. We must not forget their names. We must not forget this moment - when a group of people sold us out for their own self-interest. By their support, they said that the well-being of their organization meant more than your security and more than your Liberty. I, for one, plan to make it my mission to prevent one penny of my hard-earned money from ever going to any of the following traitors:

AARP

American Academy of Family Practice

American Academy of Nursing

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

American College of Physicians

American College of Surgeons

American Medical Association

American Nurses Association

American Osteopathic Association

American Psychiatric Association

American Public Health Association

Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

International Association of Fire Fighters

YMCA

Tell them how you feel. Let them feel how you feel. If this is a battle (and I believe that it is) then this is a list of new ideological enemies. These are some of the people who have banded together against you. It is time for us to band together against them. It is time for consequences.

"Evidence-Based" Medicine - the Sword Cuts Both Ways

Want to see how effective Obama's health care plan will be? Look to the much-vaunted British Health System for guidance.

One of the major elements of the democrat plan is the so-called "Pay for Performance" or P4P provision. The lie is that when doctors are payed based on a government algorithm that grades their success, they practice better, cheaper medicine.

That has now been conclusively proven to be false. I wonder if anybody will listen, or if they are too blinded by ideology to respond to reason. I'm sure that they won't let the facts get in the way of a good vote-buying opportunity.

You see, the objective is not to make health care delivery better, or cheaper, or more equitable. The objective is to increase our dependency on the government for everything - even our very survival.

I feel dirty.

I have spent the majority of my adult life pursuing and practicing medicine. I think I'm pretty good at it. I certainly try to be, at the very least. I feel sure that I've helped some people. I feel relatively sure that if left alone, without somebody hovering over my shoulder, watching my every move and scrutinizing my practices to ensure that I am using their particular version of "best practices", I'd still treat my patients like I'd want to be treated. I practice medicine the way it was taught to me - as an art as well as a science.

Want to know a secret? Picture this: two patients, about the same age, with about the same complaint. Ready for the shocking medical truth? I may not treat these two people exactly the same. Infinite variables exist, which guide the decision-making with regard to the way I speak to the two different patients, the medicines I may prescribe, the education I provide to them...it goes on and on. That's why medicine can only be properly practiced by a living, breathing human doctor.

This is surely offensive to those who believe that medicine can be reduced to a series of algorithms; who believe that the best treatment for a particular condition must necessarily be the one that is cheapest and most efficient for the collective. By this logic, the most "efficient" medical care would undoubtedly be practiced by a computer, which can stick to the now-worshipped "evidence-based" algorithm with a ruthlessness that can never be approximated by even the most devoted human practitioner of "cookbook medicine".

Because I reject this notion wholesale; because I believe that what I do matters; because I want to help my patients to live better lives, even if it is expensive sometimes; and because I have spent my life trying to be worthy of the kind of trust I see in the eyes of a terrified mother with a sick infant, in the eyes of an elderly person gasping for air, in the eyes of a family who knows that one of their loved ones is dying - because of all this and more, I feel dirty, violated, and sickened when I hear our President saying the things he presumed to say tonight on TV.

To suggest that a typical doctor, faced with a child with a sore throat, would seriously contemplate subjecting him or her to a tonsillectomy simply to secure a higher reimbursement is the most disgusting sort of lie. I shouldn't be surprised. He has never been afraid to lie to accomplish his infernal objectives before. But this time it was more personal. He's been very careful not to alienate doctors in the past. He is counting on us to be good little soldiers, taking whatever he decides to give us for our work, and make this big socialist vote-buy possible. He tipped his hand.

What he feels about us is now painfully clear for all who will care to listen to his words. Left to our own devices, we doctors are opportunists - seeking to parlay our education and skill into filthy lucre even at the expense of our patients' safety...especially at the expense of our patients' safety. The mere suggestion should be disgusting to any decent doctor. That this sort of suggestion would be made in the context of his attempts to undermine our hard-won relationship with our patients so that he can ram his socialist agenda down our throats is more than "politics as usual". It is a violation of the most hideous sort. Pot, meet kettle.