Doctors Boo Obama

Obama's trek towards socialized medicine got off to a rocky start with his speech to the American Medical Association in Chicago last Monday. Part of the reason was that he refused to endorse limiting the payouts of medical malpractice lawsuits.

From Richard Alonso-Zaldivar of the Associated Press:

For all the young president's popularity, the response he got Monday from doctors at an American Medical Association meeting was a sign his road is only going to get rockier as he tries to sell his plan to overhaul the nation's health care system. The boos erupted when Obama told the doctors in Chicago he wouldn't try to help them win their top legislative priority—limits on jury damages in medical malpractice cases.

Why would Obama go to an AMA conference and say something that he knew would draw the ire of the crowd?

Read on:

If Obama announced support for malpractice limits, that would set trial lawyers and unions—major supporters of Democratic candidates—on the attack. Not to mention consumer groups. Every other group in the health care debate has a wish list and a top priority. Insurers don't want competition from the government. Employers don't want to be told they have to offer medical coverage to their workers. Hospitals want to stave off Medicare cuts. Drug companies want to charge what the market will bear. Obama can't give all of them what they want. Instead, he's got to figure what's just enough to keep as many groups as possible on board—without alienating others. It's a fine line for him—and sometimes for them.

Obama and the Democrats can no longer hide the fact that socialized medicine is going to be expensive (about $62,500 per person per year, including illegals) and that people are going to get screwed by the new socialized system.

But, the Dems still say they want to reform the system because the current system is too expensive. Where is that expense coming from?

The article actually hit on it here:

Doctors have special reasons to be wary of the president's plans to overhaul the health care system. Not long ago, doctors' decisions were rarely questioned. Now they are being blamed for a big part of the wasteful spending in the nation's $2.5 trillion health care system. Studies have shown that as much as 30 cents of the U.S. health care dollar may be going for tests and procedures that are of little or no value to patients.

A very large perecentage of the tests and procedures that have "little or no value" to the patient are requested by the doctors to make sure they didn't miss anything that they could be sued for. In other words, it is not the patients or the insurance companies driving doctors to request these test, it is the medical malpractice suits that Obama refuses to address that are the driving force behind them.

Obama also tried to say that he is not endorsing a socialized medical system. Either he is lying or he is incredibly ignorant. There are people from Canada and Great Britain who know very well what a socialized medical system is and they see Obama trying to build exactly that.

Here is something to show that Obama really is pushing government run health care:

Since doctors are the ones responsible for ordering tests and procedures, health care costs cannot be brought under control unless they change their decision-making habits. ... Obama assured the doctors that his plan would provide them with objective information on what treatments work best, with new computerized tools to better manage their patient case loads, and with support for harried solo practitioners to form networks.

And how would those "decision making habits"change? Through government edict.

Although Obama avoided the term "socialized medicine" he was unable to avoid the desciption of it in his own plan.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Analysis: Doctors' Boos Show Obama's Tough Road
Richard Alonso-Zaldivar
Associated Press via Breitbart
June 15, 2009