Healthcare Reform
Dr Barry Marks, Chiropractor, Orange, CA
Mr Obama stood before the doctors gathered at the American Medical Association’s meeting asking doctors to join him in his healthcare reform quest.
The resposne was tepid from an otherwise fairly progressive membership. Asking doctors to make radical changes and sacrifices to their practices, yet have no lesser exposure to malpractice claims chilled the audience.
Whatever the reason why the AMA members are cool to the idea of publicly funded (Nationalized, Single Payor, Socialized, or whatever you want to call it) healthcare, my opinions are these:
- As broken as many seem to believe our system is, (I don’t necessarily believe it is nearly as bad as critics say) it is still the highest regarded healthcare system in the world attracting patiens from around the globe.
- Innovation and new technology is expensive, but in the end usually results in better treatment outcomes and lowered costs; R&D will be severely stifled under a nationalized program according to many experts
- Many of the “uninsured” are willfully uninsured
- Many of the people covered by the new system will be non-legal citizens who will not be paying for it
- Similar nationalized health systems with long track records such as in the UK and Canada are dismal failures with long waits, inferior technology, severe rationing, poor outcomes and high patient dissatisfaction, to name just a few
- Whatever the price tag is now, it will be bloated by 2, 3 or even 5 times once it gets going, causing our already weak economy into the tank even deeper; simply put, we do not have the money to implement and sustain it
- Your choices in health care will be severely limited; you may not even be ALLOWED to seek a doctor outside the system
- Treatments and services covered at inception will be arbitrarily eliminated on a whim to meet budget constraints. Chiropractic was “de-listed” (completely removed from coverage) in an entire province in Canada this year to meet their budget.
- Chiropractic will no doubt be funded as in the MediCare system currently, which is so unfair, so unrealistic, so fraught with fraud by the adminstration itself that I have opted out of the system
What we need in the US is to heal what is broken and sick, not a complete transplant of a system that is already 75% healthy.
Free Back Pain
June 16, 2009 at 8:55 am |
Hi Barry,
The US spends way more per head of capita than any other country on health care and is ranked below most European countries in the WHO rankings, presumably because 50,000,000 Americans can not afford health insurance.
Michael Moore over cooked the NHS system in his movie, we hardly ever use it,however when my wife had twins it was amazing the service and all free.
I have worked in the Cuban health care system and despite lack of resources it is impressive what it does spending one seventh per head of the US spend and is able to provide an excelent service for all its people. No chiropractors there because of the blocade. They use a lot of acupuncture.
June 17, 2009 at 9:16 am |
Thanks for your comment Richard. WordPress is nixing all my replies on my own blog for some reason so thsi is the third iteration of my reply to you and is therefore very much shortened. The actual uninsured in the US is more like 8-10 million, not 50 as stated. Many people from all over the world travel here for surgeries, and even minor things like MRI\’s because they can be obtained here free of red tape and at reasonable costs. My patients can have an MRI ordered and taken on the same day and I can read the film the next day for around $450. That kind of almsot instant access is not available many places. If you had a brain tumor or other life threatening illness would you really go to Cuba for care or would you come out here and visit me? Be honest. They might have a good system for what they can afford, but nobody can rival the technology and availability we have here.
Your NHS care is NOT free. You paid lots and lots from each paycheck for your twins\’ delivery. You will continue to pay lots each paycheck for care you will never receive.
Wishing your family good health so as not to test any health care system!
Warmest regrds,
Dr Barry Marks, DC
June 16, 2009 at 9:01 am |
Thanks for a great acticle, I will pass this on to my patients…
June 17, 2009 at 9:27 am |
Thank you Dr Brian. Please see the above reply to Roberoo.
Fraternally,
Dr Barry Marks, DC
http://drmarks.com
June 16, 2009 at 10:50 am |
[...] Obama to Docs: “Join me” This Doc to Obama: “No!” « Spinal … [...]
June 16, 2009 at 11:12 pm |
You wrote :
“Many of the “uninsured” are willfully uninsured.”
Oh really, did you do a study with random sampling of the 44 million children who are presently uninsured ?
Your dribble is less credible than Obama, and because you right-wing-nut greedy basturds never can get enough, there is no rationalizing with you. Obviously you let nothing, not even integrity stand in the way of your self-serving efforts.
June 17, 2009 at 9:18 am |
An intellectual debate cannot be had by throwing incendiary language and ad hominem attacks. Roberoo, I appreciate your passion on this issue, but you are factually incorrect. There are erroneous reports of between 45 and 47 million uninsured people in America. “People” not children. So your statement of 44 million uninsured “children” is misleading and flatly wrong.
Of the disputed 45-47 million uninsured there are about 10 million who are not US citizens. Of the remaining 34-37 million, there are almost 18 million who earn more than $50,000 per year, half of those earn more than $75,000 annually. Of the remaining 27-29 million uninsured, the CBO estimates that about 45% are uninsured for only part of the year because they are transitioning from one job to another. Of the remaining 20-22 uninsured, it is reported that about 14 million are eligible for existing government health care such as Medicaid and other programs, but have not accessed it because the government red tape and confusing regulations make it difficult to navigate.
We therefore end up with around 8-10 million uninsured American citizens. That\’s still too high, but it is a far cry from 45 million as touted so vehemently by proponents of nationalized health care.
And please remember that if you are sick or injured and present to a local hospital, by federal law, you cannot be denied care simply because you cannot afford it. Everyone, citizen or not has access to our health care system.
Here are some links with glaring facts and figures that might interest you:
http://www.businessandmedia.org/printer/2007/20070718153509.aspx
http://healthcare.ncpa.org/commentaries/few-americans-lack-access-to-health-coverage
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/03/20/the-myth-of-the-46-million
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/08-28-2007/0004652893&EDATE
http://www.medcitynews.com/index.php/2009/04/cutting-the-number-of-uninsured-means-linking-insurance-to-people-not-jobs/
My aim was to raise an important question and yes, to voice my disagreement with the president over what to do about health care reform. As an American citizen, I have the right to voice this opinion as you do, without being called names or castigated because I dare to have an opinion opposite yours. Unless of course you want us to adopt a Cuban form of government to accompany our healthcare…
Warmest regards,
Dr Barry Marks, DC