Uncle Sam, MD

By Dr. Fred Shessel
December 23, 2009

As a doctor, I know that the most important thing in quality healthcare is my relationship to you, the patient. You are a unique individual, not disease entity. I must tailor my diagnosis and treatment to your particular needs rather than simply assign you to a disease category. Because none of you are exactly alike, there is an art as well as a science to medicine.

Tragically, the so-called healthcare reform legislation currently before Congress will make it impossible for me to do my best for you. Both the House and the Senate Bills will firmly insert a Washington bureaucrat between you and me. The House legislation creates a National Health Care Board whose mandate is to reduce your care to a cost-benefit analysis. It also establishes a Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research that is designed to slow the development of new medications and technologies in order to reduce costs. The Senate Bill gives sweeping powers to the Secretary of HHS to delineate the appropriate treatment for any given diagnosis. In all of these cases, non-doctors who have no relationship to you at all will determine your care.

For example, if you were to present to my office with prostate cancer, I could offer you five different treatment choices. We could sit and have a discussion not only about the stage and grade of your cancer, but also about your job, your family situation, your hobbies, your travel schedule, and your personal preferences. We could choose a treatment option that offered you the best chance for a cure and satisfied your personal preferences. Under government sponsored healthcare you would get a one-size fits all, take-it-or-leave-it protocol that would be based on cost, not on your individual needs.

How do I know that would happen? If you look at other government controlled healthcare programs it becomes obvious. Government only knows one way to control costs--rationing. Under government healthcare, the priority is cost to the program, not cost to the individual. As a result, you become a "case" not a "person". Your care becomes determined by what is most cost-effective, not by what is most effective for you. A bureaucrat with a calculator decides whether you can have surgery for your heart, or chemotherapy for your cancer. Who do you think works in your best interest? Is it the bureaucrat who has never met you or the doctor who know you intimately?

The real shame is that there are ways to fix the system that preserve my ability to take care of you, reduce costs, and don't involve trillions of dollars of debt. Unfortunately, current government leaders won't consider simple things like health savings accounts, changes to the tax code, and allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines. They are more interested in taking control of medicine than they are in doing what is best for you, the patient. When it comes to deciding about your well being, I bring 8 years of postgraduate training and 30 year of experience to the table. The government brings a cost-benefit analysis. When you come right down to it, if Uncle Sam is going to practice medicine shouldn't he get a medical degree first?

---

Dr. Fred Shessel is an Atlanta -- based urologist and Vice President of Docs for Patient Care. Docs for Patient Care is the nation's largest voice of physicians opposing the government overhaul of healthcare. Dr. Shessel completed his undergrad Cum Laude at Yale University. He graduated medical school from Yale University. He then completed an internship at Emory University, a residency at University of Miami, and a fellowship in Female Urology & Urodynamics at the Institute of Urology in London, England. To learn more about Docs for Patient Care, visit www. Docs4PatientCare.org

http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/guest/ ... 1223.shtml