A doctor speaks out on Obamacare
Dr. Zane F. Pollard has a penetrating article up at American Thinker on Obamacare. It’s a must-read, and a must-send to all your friends, Left and Right and in-between.
Here’s a key excerpt (but please read the whole thing; there’s much more where that came from):
I have taken care of Medicaid patients for 35 years while representing the only pediatric ophthalmology group left in Atlanta, Georgia that accepts Medicaid. For example, in the past 6 months I have cared for three young children on Medicaid who had corneal ulcers. This is a potentially blinding situation because if the cornea perforates from the infection, almost surely blindness will occur. In all three cases the antibiotic needed for the eradication of the infection was not on the approved Medicaid list.
Each time I was told to fax Medicaid for the approval forms, which I did. Within 48 hours the form came back to me which was sent in immediately via fax, and I was told that I would have my answer in 10 days. Of course by then each child would have been blind in the eye.
Each time the request came back denied. All three times I personally provided the antibiotic for each patient which was not on the Medicaid approved list. Get the point — rationing of care.
Over the past 35 years I have cared for over 1000 children born with congenital cataracts. In older children and in adults the vision is rehabilitated with an intraocular lens. In newborns we use contact lenses which are very expensive. It takes Medicaid over one year to approve a contact lens post cataract surgery. By that time a successful anatomical operation is wasted as the child will be close to blind from a lack of focusing for so long a period of time.
Again, extreme rationing. Solution: I have a foundation here in Atlanta supported 100% by private funds which supplies all of these contact lenses for my Medicaid and illegal immigrants children for free. Again, waiting for the government would be disastrous.
[Hat tip: Commenter “John.”]
Love your writing Neo. I come here to preserve my sanity.
You seem to think like I do, and if that’s right, then perhaps I’m also right in detecting a certain quiet desperation in your posts. They carry an air of > But of course it is happening. Fortunately I get the impression the great American public has woken up.
It reminds me of something ascribed to Churchill: the American people can be counted on to do the right thing… eventually.
People can handle only so much reality. That’s my explanation. They want to believe in fairy tales. No matter how much you point out that everything has its price, that government-provided does not mean “free” (the opposite, in fact) – many people will either fail to understand you or blame you and hate you for letting them see the facts.
Lots of people are of course also more than happy to live off others. To punish them for their success. Or just because.
In Britain some (American) companies offer prospective employees private health insurance (a way out of the NHS, the UK’s socialized medicine) as a perk. That should be enough of a warning, but people don’t want to know.
Nobody buys their groceries from the government, or their car, or their vacation. Except in North Korea and Cuba. But, somehow, health (and education) are supposed to be different. Ask even educated liberals why, and they’ll just stare at you. It’s happened to me a million times, when I still had the passion to have such conversations. I’m done now. People past the age of 30 who still believe in liberalism are very hard to change – you being the honorable exception…
The NHS kills people. A simple comparison, for example, between cancer survival rates in the US and UK, is enough to establish that.
Thanks for letting me blow off steam here…
[Apologies for the double post; the first failed to appear properly]
Love your writing Neo. I come here to preserve my sanity.
You seem to think like I do, and if that’s right, then perhaps I’m also right in detecting a certain quiet desperation in your posts. They carry an air of “surely this cannot be happening…?” But of course it is happening. Fortunately I get the impression the great American public has woken up.
It reminds me of something ascribed to Churchill: the American people can be counted on to do the right thing… eventually.
People can handle only so much reality. That’s my explanation. They want to believe in fairy tales. No matter how much you point out that everything has its price, that government-provided does not mean “free” (the opposite, in fact) – many people will either fail to understand you or blame you and hate you for letting them see the facts.
Lots of people are of course also more than happy to live off others. To punish them for their success. Or just because.
In Britain some (American) companies offer prospective employees private health insurance (a way out of the NHS, the UK’s socialized medicine) as a perk. That should be enough of a warning, but people don’t want to know.
Nobody buys their groceries from the government, or their car, or their vacation. Except in North Korea and Cuba. But, somehow, health (and education) are supposed to be different. Ask even educated liberals why, and they’ll just stare at you. It’s happened to me a million times, when I still had the passion to have such conversations. I’m done now. People past the age of 30 who still believe in liberalism are very hard to change – you being the honorable exception…
The NHS kills people. A simple comparison, for example, between cancer survival rates in the US and UK, is enough to establish that.
Thanks for letting me blow off steam here…
Great link, Neo. If anyone has time, there’s a bunch of great comments in the article linked as well. Lots of doctors affirming what Dr. Pollard says, some even threatening to quit if this goes through.
Just letting people die, or be ill / let their problem resolve itself for the worst, from wait lists is another public healthcare dirty secret…..
Neo, are you on Twitter?
One proposal to encourage care for the indigent and low income population is to allow tax deductions for doctors for uncompensated or under compensated care at full value. Sounds like a very good idea to me.
Just this one post and the article in American Thinker would be more than enough for me to not want nationalized health care.
Those who do want it are the ones who need to be reading posts such as this, and articles such as that.
Like that’s going to happen.
Seems the best we could do for those who don’t actually have access to health care of any kind (which is NOT true as we all know) is to buy them computers and Internet access so they can see both sides of a story. They aren’t getting it from the MSM, and doesn’t look like they’re getting it at town hall meetings.
Protesters at town hall meetings are being accused of disrupting things. Well, what’s the real effect of each and every town hall meeting to date? Push the agenda, and put anyone against the agenda in a bad light. That is all I have seen so far.
By the way, we already have a public health service. There is one around the corner from where I live, right next to a hospital. My oldest daughter once worked at a small local hardware store as a cashier. The outfit did not offer health insurance. She went to the local public health care service when she needed to go to the doctor for any reason. Hell, add on to the buildings, add more staff. Don’t revamp the entire country’s health industry. It is not NECESSARY, first and foremost.
At the end of the day, we already HAVE a single payer system. Depending on the term you choose to use, it is either “consumer”, or “taxpayer”. The pocket where the money comes from, however, is one and the same. This national health care will increase the cost, lengthen the lines, add more people to the lines (people who otherwise wouldn’t be in those lines because they had PRIVATE health insurance) and ration the care received. Who in the hell sold congress and Obama on the idea that was good for America?
I’m told that 85% of the people are satisfied with their health care. I’m one of the 85%. So they are trying to fix a 15% problem by disrupting the other 85%! How much sense does that make? Plus, probably at least half of that 15% are illegal aliens. Lunacy!
Also, how much would it cost to just buy insurance for that 15%? I would bet it would be less than this monstrosity they’re trying to foist on us!
And in all of the debate no discussion about increasing the supply of doctors and nurses.
Shortages cause price rationing.
Oversupply causes price reduction.
All of the complications stuffed into ObamaCare = a patronage boon.
A Gonnabee destroys that which he commands. Infantile vision + magical thinking + hyper-arrogance = systemic failure.
It is chilling to note the micro-management style of the Obamanaut. Shades of JEC !
I must recommend Dick Morris’ Catastrophe; however take your blood pressure medications first.
They’re also lying about the number of uninsured, I’ve read. They’re including the ~30 million illegal aliens that they want us to take care of, too.
That’s how you get the total number up to the over 40 million mark.
I don’t know if this is true, but it would sure be worth checking out.
The sooner Dr. Obama quits the practice of medicine the better off we will all be.
Why is Obama and the Left trying to offer Health Care to uninsured and under-insured? Offer them health insurance.
All other forms of insurance is for catastrophic coverage. There is no insurer out there for routine wear and tear of your car.
My work offers a Fitness Center and a Wellness Center with a nurse practitioner and a nutritionist on site. That takes care of majority of the medical needs of normally healthy people. And it improves the company productivity as you are not taking time off for a doctor’s visit or fitness center.
We need more such initiatives from the private sector. A public option would surely kill those incentives.