Obama admin. clueless about modern medicine

By Warner Todd Huston

With each passing day we see mounting proof that President Obama and his White House really haven't a clue about modern medicine. Doctors all across the nation are finally starting to realize this, too. Cardiologists and Oncologists, for instance, are beginning to understand that President Obama and his takeover of our healthcare system is based on power and not service to patients.

Bloomberg is reporting that a group of Cardiologists and Oncologists are protesting the planed Medicare cuts in their services. The "Medicare proposal, announced July 1, slashes projected spending for care by cardiologists and oncologists by more than 10 percent each, while paying family doctors 8 percent more and nurses an additional 7 percent."

The thought was to push preventative care but these cuts will have "unintended" consequences: rationing.

The cuts could have the unintended consequence of rationing care, especially in rural regions with a large number of Medicare patients, doctors said. In other areas, specialists may decide to pull out of Medicare, or ask patients to make up the difference with higher out-of-pocket payments, said Alfred Bove, president of the American College of Cardiology.

"A fair number of cardiologists are looking at the accounting and saying 'we can't afford it,'" Bove said in a telephone interview.

Some oncologists in rural areas may stop offering chemotherapy in the office, forcing patients to travel to more- distant hospitals, said Allen S. Lichter, 63, CEO of the 27,000- member American Society of Clinical Oncology in Alexandria, Virginia.

Once again we see that any government take over of healthcare will — must — end up in rationing. There are only so much resources and when the whole country is suddenly eligible for those limited resources, the government by necessity will have to decide who gets and does not get services.

The odd thing about this attack by government on specialists is that we have the high quality of care that we have because we have so many specialists. It is specialists that diagnose and cure so many of us with skills that are greater in specific fields than general-care physicians. Therefore, if we see this attack succeed and the number of specialists diminish, our access to their expertise when we need it will be more sparse. This, of course, is another form of rationing.

The main fight we have here is a fight over the philosophical soul of America. On one hand we have the Euroesque Americans that don't mind at all that they are creating a world where our bodies and minds belong to government and on the other you have the conservatives that value the freedom and liberty that our Founders gave us.

(Cross posted at HealthcareHorseRace.com.)

© Warner Todd Huston