Presidential Posturing

After President Obama finished his 48 minute oratory on healthcare reform, I found myself on the verge of clinical depression. All of the hype surrounding this whole issue has come full circle to where we began months ago. Just when I thought we may be approaching some semblance of compromise my hopes were dashed as the liberal Democrats in Congress laughed at the conservative members applauding Mr. Obama's mere mention of Tort Reform.

They actually laughed at me, a member of what is still considered the noblest of professions, my colleagues, my patients and my family. How dare we think that as physicians we should be entitled to a level playing field when it comes to frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits? How dare we think that as patients and doctors that we should know what is best for us? How dare we propose something as simple as medical malpractice reform to curb abuse of the system and thus lead to one of the simplest solutions to healthcare cost reduction (not to mention reduction in the plaintiff's attorney lobby contributions).

The President began by outlining a speech that would give specifics. He fell far short of that despite the rather lengthy verbiage. What also concerns me was the superficial way in which he described how this program was to be paid. Again, details were nonexistent except to say that the inefficiencies in the current Medicare/Medicaid programs would be addressed and used to pay for the public health plan.

Are you kidding me? Common sense tells us that this will not be possible. Are we to believe that the government that brought us the United States Postal Service and the "new flat rate boxes" now has their act together and can run something as difficult as public healthcare? Sending a letter is simple. Taking care of a dying patient in the emergency room is not. How is it that FedEx can make a profit without taxpayer monies and the USPS cannot?

How about the issue of insurance reform? Let me get this straight. The government is going to lower healthcare costs by making private insurance carriers compete with a government option, dictate to them who is within their plan at a rate dictated by the government while confining their catchment area within localities? That does not add up.

Eliminate pre-existing condition clauses. Prohibit insurance companies from dropping you when you become seriously ill, but open the states' borders to interstate competition and break up the in-state monopolies that we all know exist which control premiums that are too high to be justified. That is how you begin to remove some of the unfair practices in order to reform healthcare and simultaneously lower cost.

Now we have a majority in Congress who want to ram down our throats legislation that could irrevocably change healthcare in America and possibly for the worse. I think we should give it the time and consideration justly deserved of any enactment of this magnitude. What is the rush? The liberal Democrats say that the time is now and blame the Republicans for pandering lies and half-truths. I will argue that the response from the American people as a whole in opposition to much of what has been proposed as "reform" was a gut reaction. This reaction was emotional and based on common sense and led a majority to speak now and speak loudly. Blaming the Republicans for this strong opposition gives the GOP too much credit.

Call me naive, but with rumblings of compromise on the issue of healthcare reform abounding in the media as of late, I was hopeful that some of the politics could be put to the side. The message from the President, although compassionate, left me disappointed.