I voted for President Obama and I agree that the best health care is unattainable by many Americans
because it is too expensive. However, a rush to get a health care reform bill through Congress before
the end of the year is just plain wrong because like the stimulus bill, which was also rushed through,
there may be a lot wrong with the new reform bill that may get brushed aside now only to come back to
haunt us later, when it’s too late to do anything because it’s the law.
The likelihood is that Obama will get it wrong because he is putting the bill on the fast track and
therefore has not had time to think things through.
Also President Obama is not listening to those of us on the front line of the delivery of medical care.
He is only listening to Washington, D.C., pols who have no idea of how to best deliver medical care,
what is necessary to provide good medical care.
If current Medicare plans are any prediction of what is to come in the reform package, the new reform
bill will make pariahs out of it subscribers and no one will want to take care of them. After all, what
physician wants to take of people whose insurance plan will be hiring companies whose salaries are paid
on the basis of how many errors they can find (invent?) and who will be fined large sums of money on the
basis of the findings of companies whose profit margin is incentive-driven?
This is not a joke – Medicare already has these plans in progress. And President Obama has indicated that
he plans to fund his plan by "savings" from medicare.
Some think that we should have a socialized medical system such as they do in Great Britain. I have seen
the havoc -indeed, devastation -wrought by the National Health Service upon my family and friends in
England.
If such a system is foisted off on Americans, I predict that there will be a second American Revolution
that will "throw the bums out" of office. But once systems are in place, they are hard to
dislodge, so it’s better not to rush to judgment and to put in a good system from the start.
I urge readers of the Sentinel-Tribune to write to President Obama and tell him to take his time and get
things right. If enough people write, perhaps he’ll listen. Or just send him a copy of this letter with
your signature appended if you agree with what I have written.
W.E. Feeman, Jr., MD
Bowling Green