Obama: multiple tests by doctors is "wasting money"

Fox News Channel | 7/22/09

[pabianice]

Obama's news conference live.

"Multiple tests by doctors waste money. And I'm going to change that. If there is a blue pil and a red pill and the red pill costs twice as much, I want discriminating consumers to select the blue pill."

I am not making this up. Obama is incoherent.

"We had the bank bailout. We had the recovery package. People are saying, 'Look. I'm cutting back.' Let's understand that the same must be applied to healthcare. When I came in, we had a deficit and the US had lost trillions of dollars of wealth. That all just went away. We had 700,000 jobs being lost. So we created a recovery package to stabilize the economy..."

[Texas Fossil]

Now, the Magic Negro is smarter that all the doctors in the U.S. /sarcasm

I wonder if he stayed at a Holiday Inn Express on his way to the White House? /mocking

Arrogant Idiot /fact

[KarlInOhio]

$4 vs. $96 ????? What are you comparing, aspirin to Oxycontin? or drug coverage vs. no coverage?

generic antibiotics vs name brand for a week. I've had some prices that were shocking enough that if I didn't have insurance I would have had the pharmacist give the doctor a call to find something cheaper. But since the insurance picked it up I really didn't care. (I guess I'm part of the problem).

That's not their job, they prescribe what they think is best for whatever condition you have.

Sorry, I think it is. They have to check insurance companies' drug lists to see what they can prescribe and check on more info on the drug before coming back with the prescription (I don't expect them to memorize thousands of drugs so I don't mind them checking the computer). I consider checking a price list to be part of that. Patients, especially ones without drug coverage, shouldn't be surprised by a $100+ prescription.

The lack of openness about pricing is a problem. I'm not asking for a flashing sign in front of the hospital with "Gall Bladder Removal $5,999.99⁹, but if I'm getting a non-emergency procedure giving me a pretreatment estimate should be a standard part of the initial consultation.

[bluecollarman]

“So the answer here, at least in part, is Tort Reform and Loser Pays.”

I got no love for the insurance companies, drug companies or the doctors for that matter, but any plan that does not address tort reform is not a serious health care reform plan IMHO. I don’t know about “Loser Pays” but a cap on damages is very doable.

[Froggie]

Actually, the blue pill isn’t a bad idea....Viagra is BLUE

[bluecollarman]

It doesn’t happen that much. If it does you are probably going to have to pay for it. However, In an emergency situation all bets are off. That is not what O was talking about. In a regular clinical setting you are not going to get another MRI for the same symptoms if you recently had one.

Under Obamma’s plan you probably will not get another one for diagnosis of a new illness, because you had one for a previous illness.

[Blu By U]

I’d rather have too many tests than not enough..”

Especially because there will be so many- affirmative action doctors.

[outhousepatrol]

Barry! Let us pass on your second test
We’ll lay your Marxist a** to rest!

[BuckeyeTexan]

Well, okay if you want to sit naked in bucket of goo with an erection dreaming about an imaginary life, that’s your choice. Personally, I like shootin’ stuff.

:)

[pabianice]

One last point. ObamaCare requires that all private medical records be turned-into the government and put on computer, makng them available to all government agencies. You know that little medical problem you never told the DMV about? Well, kiss your drivers license goodbye, and maybe plan to spend some time in prison!

[arthurus]

Most malpractice suits don’t go anywhere or lose or get “settled” because it costs less to settle for the insurer than to win a court case. It is cheap enough to sue that it is worth many frivolous suits to score on one that may, itself, be actually frivolous. Loser Pays changes that dynamic and would induce insurers to fight cases where they can win. Most cases would not be brought in the first place if the attorney deems them not cost effective. If he has to pay the defendant’s costs in a losing case he will be less eager to proceed. In the old days judges threw out frivolous cases and it was not so huge a problem. In these days of Critical Legal Studies being a required course in law schools that judges have all graduated from, almost no case is deemed “frivolous” if it can be (mis)used to redress some perceived social injustice. Loser pays is a change of the system and is not amenable to fiddling. Caps is merely an adjustment and with caps there will be constant legislation and litigation to raise the caps. Caps does not affress the concept of the Courts as primarily a Lottery for Lawyers.

[anglian]

Obama’s plan talks about upgrading hospitals and doctor’s offices to electronic medical records to deliver better healthcare, save lives, and save money.

Linda Gorman, who runs the Health Care Policy Center at the excellent Independence Institute in Golden, Colorado, writes in with some important caveats over computerized medical records: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjcwZTFkZWU5MzVjN2Q5OTg3ZGZhZjQ2MGFkYmY0MWU=

IT is hugely, grossly expensive and is not secure. The IT introduction in the UK is failing. It doesn’t work. It has cost billions. [link] It is not secure [link]. The VA patient record system has problem that are not widely discussed. [link] According to the GAO, the cost savings claims made for it cannot be substantiated.

[slowhandluke]

Does that mean that getting a second opinion is also wasting money?

Boy, I'd be in a lot of trouble then. I went through specialists at 6 hospitals, including the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN to get a sarcoidosis diagnosis.

[jwalsh07]

Ten years ago the thrid scan on my wifes head, this time with contrast, found a tumor the size of a plumb. We were happy to pay the bill, which was reasonable by the way considering 13 hours of surgery at Yale by one of the best neuro guys in America.

[Political Junkie Too]

The real question that nobody is asking is, if our schools' test scores are going lower and lower, they why should we accept he first answer from a "doctor" that we get as the final diagnosis, and everything after that is "waste?"

-PJ

[Rome2000]

THIS IS THE SOCIALIST HOSPITAL WORKERS UNION THUG LIAR , HUSSEIN BARAKAS POLITICAL DIRECTOR, THE GOEBBELS LIKE PROPAGANDIST WHO WRITES OBAMAS SPEECHES AND IS BEHIND THE SCENES PUSHING THE QUICK PASSAGE OF SOCIALIZED MEDICINE TO BENEFIT THE SEIU

Politicians and strategists praise Patrick Gaspard highly, although he stays away from the limelight.

"Patrick is the best political mind of his generation in New York and maybe the nation," says Kevin Sheekey, who as Michael Bloomberg's right-hand-man has frequently worked and battled with Gaspard.

"I wouldn't dispute that," said David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist and Gaspard's cohort on the campaign trail. When reminded that such a title could be bestowed on Axelrod himself, the strategist said he was "happy to cede that" to Gaspard.

The Washington Post, among others, has announced that a longtime labor operative of Barack Obama's, Patrick Gaspard, will be named Obama's White House political director.

Gaspard served as national political director for much of Obama's general election campaign and was named deputy director of personnel for the transition effort. Prior to his work with Obama, Gaspard was the lead political operative for the 1199 branch of the Service Employees International Union, a huge and hugely influential union representing health care workers in New York. He spent the 2004 general election as the national field director for America Coming Together.

Gaspard was featured prominently in Ryan Lizza's recent New Yorker piece detailing how Obama won. Of his job interview with the Illinois Senator, Gaspard recalled Obama saying: "I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director."

[SaraJohnson]

When Americans get into this class warfare mentality and he says things like this, they think he is talking about the other guy - not them. Wait til they see what he is going to do to gradma and pop.

[Marie]

OK, here’s a scenario: Dr #1 orders a x-ray of my spine. I have scoliosis. Fine.

Dr # 2 orders another x-ray from a different angle. Discovers that my scoliosis comes from an unknown injury. Fine.

Dr # 3 orders a “special” x-ray at several weird angles. Discovers that I have scoliosis from a 30 foot fall that I took when I was a kid. I had crushed 5 vertebrae.

Which one of them made me “well”? None of them. But the last one used clues from the first two to bring me relief.

It took dozens of random tests from a dozen doctors to figure out my autoimmune peripheral neuropathy. The last doctor redid a test from a previous neurologist because (and I quote), “I don’t trust that he did it right. You have no idea how many times I redo the EMG and find out that the last doc botched it. I never rely on anyone but me. *I* read my x-rays, MRI’s and EMG’s. Nobody else.”

Oh, and the last doc wouldn’t have used the old MRI anyway because it was more than 6 months old and too much changes in that time.

Doctors are not stupid. If they need to see something from a slightly different angle, then they do. If they need to redo a test because they might see something that the last test missed, they do.

Running multiple tests isn’t always a waste.

And the government has no business making that determination.

[rintense]

So, the American people should cut back, but the federal government should continue to spend money like a drunken sailor? Damn this guy is stupid.

[Marie]

“F**k you, you stupid POS. If it wasn’t for multiple tests my mom would be dead now.”

I hear you. Two years ago I was in a wheelchair, almost completely paralyzed with cardiac issues. This went on for a freakin’ YEAR. Finally, after several specialists and I don’t know how many tests, they figured out that I had a vitamin B-1 deficiency. Thiamine. Yes, it was that simple of a fix. A shot a week and I’m fine.

But it took a hell of a lot to figure it OUT. Had they not pushed on, I’d be dead by now from a heart attack.

[Marie]

“Sounds like a guy working for an HMO pressuring doctors to reduce expenses by reducing care. Doctors don’t run multiple tests for the fun of it - and doctors and patients are the best judges of when multiple tests are needed, not Obama. “

Let us not forget this thing: Disease CHANGES. You can be feeling a simple uncomfortable pressure and have everything look fine. Six weeks later the pressure is worse and the same test will show a tumor. (This happened to my grandpa. It was a fast-growing pancreatic cancer.)

He didn’t make it, but at least he was validated in the end.