Comments on health care

Link: http://www.ajc.com/opinion/reform-123662.html

For some discussion of the health care debate is a letter to AJC that was not picked up. It is in response to the MAG's Dr. Williamson's letter at:
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/reform-123662.html

Just what planet do Dr. Williamson, the MAG, and for that matter, colleagues in Congress; Gingrey, Broun and Price live on?

Surely the MAG does not expect even the misinformed credulous to believe that the "private contracting" physician will not be influenced by:
1.    What and how much treatment the patients' insurance will cover?
2.    What diagnostic labs the doctor has a financial interest in?
3.    What pharmaceutical company he/she is financially linked to?
4.    And, ominously, whose life is more worthy of living as determined by the doctor's personal biases, sex, race, age, marital status etc.?

Development of technologically sophisticated diagnostic and treatment instruments has widely expanded the resources beyond the family physician's office. It should be noted the development has come largely at taxpayer expense, whether directly through government grants or "incentive" tax treatment or Medicare pricing deals etc.

With expansion has come corporate monetization and application of supply side economics to the human right of the suffering to compassionate succor. Medical care is either good enough or it is not. Competing modalities have no place in the arena. It is a corrupting system that has made the United States near a third world nation in health care outcomes. Bedside caretakers are dealt with as pawns of corporate power.

As a physician in early retirement I do have profound empathy for the situation in which physicians find themselves. I personally can attest to the immensely tempting and potentially corrupting effects of the corporate business model when applied to providers of medical care.

The MAG and segments of the AMA dream of a world that is no more; when the medical care possible was limited to the personal resources of the bedside clinician, and as "Dr." Tom Coburn suggests, the casserole from next door. That noted, the power of the bedside interaction does drive many, if not most, to continue to exert great effort to place the welfare of their patients first. I am grateful that the spirit of service and the Hippocratic tradition lingers.

Private contracting, permitted or not, will always be there but it alone will not provide the good enough care all humans are due.

As to cost. Of course the funds are severely limited.  The people, the government, have become impoverished at the expense of aggregation of wealth in the hands of small numbers of private individuals and industry holding jobs hostage. Go figure.