Monday, June 15, 2009

Obama Lectures AMA: Open Mouth, Insert Foot

So President Obama is talking (down to) the American Medical Association. He publicly stated that he is against caps on awards in class action suits. That probably suits John Edwards down to the ground. But at the same time he doesn't want doctors practicing "defensive medicine". I ask you, if you were faced with the very real possibility of having someone sue you with or without grounds, and having that case more than likely settled out of court, but at the same time raising your liablitiy insurance 200%, wouldn't you be just a teensy be defensive? I've been on the receiving end of such treatment and while I don't understand the procedures, I do understand that many doctors feel that they are targets for class action lawyers. Much of this could have been avoided with meaningful tort reform which would limit the trawling for cases done by many lawyers. Even less than his understanding of the mechanism in place in the medical community, President Obama reveals a certain cluelessness in his speech. Can you spot it in the following excerpt?

"...It simply doesn't make sense that patients in the 21st century are still filling out forms with pens on papers that have to be stored away somewhere. As Newt Gingrich has rightly pointed out, we do a better job tracking a FedEx package in this country than we do tracking a patient's health records. You shouldn't have to tell every new doctor you see about your medical history, or what prescriptions you're taking. You should not have to repeat costly tests. All of that information should be stored securely in a private medical record so that your information can be tracked from one doctor to another – even if you change jobs, even if you move, and even if you have to see a number of different specialists...."

Full speech HERE


Ummm...did anyone bother to inform His Highness that Federal Express is a PRIVATE COMPANY. That's why customers can track where their packages go. And now he's saying that a government system would do that as well? If that's the case, then why is the US Postal Service going broke? And why should we trust a government that doesn't track mail as well as FedEx to perform medicine as well as the many private physicians and hospitals that exist? And once again, what about that "no tax for under $250,000" promise? How do you reconcile that with the many who get health insurance through their work having to pay taxes in order to fund this juggernaut boondoggle?

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