Doctors Have Responsibility But No Authority: Welcome to government-run U.S. healthcare.

American Thinker ^ | 10/17/2024 | Deane Waldman, M.D.

[SeekAndFind]

Nothing proves the title better than the recent reinstatement of a mask mandate in San Francisco hospitals. Every clinical doctor knows the data overwhelmingly proves they don’t work “to prevent the spread of the flu, COVID and other seasonal illnesses,” the ostensible, official reason for re-masking.

Note the adjective “clinical” doctor to contrast MDs in the trenches caring for sick people with bureaucrat MDs who, like Fauci, have never cared for patients in the real world but who dictate how the clinicians must practice medicine.

For most viruses, a cloth surgical mask is as effective as a screen door on a submarine. When (not if) patients get sick with the flu despite healthcare workers wearing masks, who will be responsible to care for them? When patients complain that masks did not prevent illness, who will they blame?

For decades, federal regulations and bureaucratic doctors have been chipping away at doctors’ independence, authority, and valuation. The heart surgeon with the best results can charge more than the surgeon with poor results, yet both are paid the same: an amount much less than their charges and what Medicare determines as “allowable reimbursements.” These are not reimbursements — they are government-pre-determined, low-ball payments.

As an interventional pediatric cardiologist, this author’s charges for a cardiac catheterization in a critically ill newborn baby ranged from $1,500 to as much as $9,000 if a device were implanted. Medicaid paid the maximum allowable reimbursement: $387.

In the past, general physicians would refer their patients to surgeons with the best results for the operation the patient needed. Now they must send the patient to whatever institution (not even who) the insurance company has a contract with.

[SeekAndFind]

A personal physician is no longer chosen by the patient. The enrollee, not patient, is assigned a provider on a health plan panel. People wait months to get in for a 15-minute appointment during which the doctor spends most of the time looking at a computer screen and filling out forms. No one takes a history or does a physical exam anymore.

[No name given]

This proves demonrats should not be in charge of anything at all, much less our healthcare!

[dfwgator]

"The only thing I'm actually sort of good at is referrals. You know, that thing where doctors send patients to other doctors. Well, I'm the king of referrals. What I do is I call the, uh sick person, into my office and I stare for a long time really seriously at a blank sheet of paper. Then I say, "Hmmm, I'd like you to see someone. He's a specialist in this area." (laughs) There are specialists who have their whole career based on my referrals. I am the cornerstone of a medical empire."

[Openurmind]

Yep, it literally handed the power of life or death to the insurance companies. Ocare “Death panels” was NOT a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory.

[MayflowerMadam]

The day the government forced physicians to start murdering people in 2020 with Covid and “vaccines”, the souls of most of them were snatched by demonic entities. How could they not?

[lightman]

[rktman]

We’re still looking for the “afforable” part of o’bamski’s ‘aca’ to kick in. So far, crickets........ 🤔

[Vaduz]

Welcome to socialism Canada and the UK tap table.

[Openurmind]

“We’re still looking for the “afforable” part of o’bamski’s ‘aca’ to kick in.”

Yep, it was a huge give away to the insurance companies. They are the only winners aside from the population control folks.

[momincombatboots]

The republicans funded and continue to fund it. If you can’t remember that or the lockdowns or the bumpstock ban or the now Grand Ole Planned Parenthood Party.. you are the reason we are a dead and dying nation.
How many days would you have locked down under Obama or Biden.
They learned from the Reagan years.. anchor babies and big pharma immunity require a complicit republican leader.

[ssfromla]

I waited 3 months before I went to the er because I have no faith in doctors anymore. I was referred to another doctor and had to wait 3 months to see him. He was a jerk who wanted to do surgery right away on my back and referred me to a podiatrist because it broke my ankle too. I got a call from that doctor who wanted to give me an appointment for December and I told them hell no.

The system is broken on purpose.

[gattaca]

p

[Gay State Conservative]

My primary care doctor is an older man (my guess...at least late seventies) who's on the staff of one of the world's most famous hospitals.Before I retired I worked for him so he treats me as something like an equal (which,of course,we're not).

The stories he tells me of happenings behind the scenes at this Harvard teaching hospital would make the hair on your toes curl!

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Your health care is run by an unholy marriage of the government and insurance companies who are making record profits. The insurance companies have the power to declare a treatment that has been in use over two decades "experimental" and say that they will not pay for it.

Obama(DONTGIVEASH*T) must go.