While the Supreme Court pores over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, assessing its constitutionality for a ruling that will determine the fate of Obamacare, I can't help but wonder why one important group has been left out of this whole debate--doctors.
Obama has been pushing this hastily produced piece of reform for years despite protests from all over the health care industry. He heeds no one's warnings and refuses to consider the consequences.
I don't know about the president, but all of my health care experiences have involved doctors, not the government. I don't know many people who would go to Congress with a broken leg, the flu or cancer.
I also don't know many people who leave the U.S. to utilize the services of universal health care systems in other countries.
I remember watching Fox's "Universal Nightmare" years ago when the issue of health care was on its way to becoming more than just another one of Obama's campaign promises.
People from all over the world urged America to rethink moving toward the type of system that has plagued them for so long, telling stories of waiting periods, shortages of care and near-death experiences, most of which were only averted by second opinions and treatments in the U.S.
Where is the logic in turning our system into a replica of the systems people come here to escape?
Scott W. Atlas, a professor at Stanford University Medical Center, told Real Clear Politics that Obamacare will result in less access to timely health care, less access to state-of-the-art drugs proven to cure serious diseases, less access to modern medical technology, less choice of doctor and treatment, less choice in health insurance coverage and less access to leading innovators in health care.
In "Universal Nightmare," Shona Holmes of Ontario, Canada, expressed what these losses would mean in more personal terms, saying, "In the United States I felt like a patient, and I felt like I was cared for, and in Canada I'm nothing but a number."
With Obamacare we will all become numbers in a tangled, bureaucratic web with administrators at the top making the final decisions about how our doctors can "care" for us.
According to a December 2011 Forbes article, "Doctors Say Obamacare Is No Remedy For U.S. Health Woes," nearly 70 percent of doctors believe long wait times will flood emergency rooms and 83 percent anticipate increased waiting periods for primary care appointments. Almost two-thirds of doctors expect the quality of care in the U.S. to decline and 70 percent of doctors believe medicine will no longer appeal to America's "best and brightest."
What is the point of universal access to healthcare if that will result in less access for all? What is the use of everyone being insured if that insurance provides inadequate care?
Why does this obvious reasoning faze the president in no way? Perhaps it's because he will be one of the only Americans exempt from his care plan.
Unless Obama plans to take a few years off to get his M.D., then I suggest the government start listening to the people who are trained to provide this care for our country.
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