Monday, September 27, 2010

Limiting or Limited Government?

Thomas W. Kendall Sr., M.D.
(Posted with permission)

As a medical professional for 33 years, it is my opinion that if the Health Care Reform bill, which recently passed against the will of the majority of freedom-loving Americans, is not repealed, the American medical dream will have become a night mare. This will signal a demise of liberty.

The United States Constitution is not a document to limit the expression of liberty of a free people, but rather to limit the coercive, oppressive, godless tyranny of those who consider themselves superior to others.

No jurisdictional authority exists or is implied by our supreme law that would allow mandated medical care, much less determine the nature of that care. Decades ago, the term crisis had frequent use in clinical medicine when the critical time of a patient’s prognosis was defined by the evidence of vital recovery or imminent death. American medicine and America itself is at a crisis. Will the honor, courage, and esthetic of those who have made themselves the servants of their patients be mongrelized into servitude of the state?

At the 2009 Annual Medical staff meeting of the Greenville Hospital System two speakers were commissioned to speak on Health Care Reform. Dictums such as “Doctors, you are going to have to change the way you think,” and “Doctors, you are going to have to become team players,” were among some of the most alarming comments. But when Charles Darwin’s name was mentioned, and his evolutionary conclusions were invoked, that “Doctors would adapt or they would not survive,” I was compelled to respond.

“Is it a presupposition that the Federal Government has any responsibility in health care?” I asked the speakers. One responded with laughter and said he would not address that question. The other said, “We don’t know what it’s going to be like when these changes are implemented.”

What will happen as the Health Care Reform Bill becomes the new way? Initially there will not be significant change in the delivery of services, but as the progressive regulatory restrictions limit medical decision-making, doctors and patients will begin recognizing the following substantial changes:

1. Doctors will face fines and imprisonment for failure to adhere to ever-increasing bureaucratic regulations that have little if anything to do with providing the best care for the patient and have everything to do with control of the Doctor and profession.

2. Innovation will shift from cutting-edge technological advances benefitting all of mankind to isolated government selected interests to benefit politically motivated elitist agendas.


3. The patient-physician relationship becomes vulnerable to politically appointed non-medical administrators whose philosophies put the well-being of the state and its ruling class over the well-being of the patient. This is perhaps the most important change.

Most Americans are not aware that only 18% of U.S physicians were members of the AMA (American Medical Association) when “Obamacare” was signed March 23, 2010. This organization received much media attention in its support of the legislation which protects its monopoly of the coding of medical care procedures that is required for physicians to receive payment for services. Physicians are polarized in these ideological debates. Do they do what is best for their patients or what is best for the nationalistic, socialization of our once free and prosperous nation.

Now is the time for those who have never thought it necessary to be involved and take action. Unless the principles of the framers and their ideas which produced the Articles of Confederation, the subsequent U.S. Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, are embraced and defended, we do not deserve the liberties that our heroes past and present fought and died for. Several physicians were involved in drafting our founding documents. They knew about tyranny . We physicians today must oppose this breach of our founders’ intent. The Hippocratic oath I pledged upon graduating from medical school included the promise “I would allow no harm to be done to my patient.” This attack on American freedom is harmful to all of us. It arises from within our own halls of legislative, judicial, and executive responsibility. WE THE PEOPLE must acknowledge our contribution to this current crisis. We must act immediately with courage and conviction to return our Republic to the rule of law. We must return to constitutional rule and limit government’s oppressive tyranny, not liberty-loving free Americans.



6 comments:

  1. America's medical for profit Doctors said the very same things when Medicare and Medicaid were implemented. Under both systems they have flourished and prospered and many have become excessively wealthy. Instead of selfishly carping about their individual work load and new rules I suggest they take a page from those medical hero's in the Nations V. A. hospitals. I wouldn't trade my 100% VA coverage for any civilian hospital or Doctor. Any Doctor who dares compare government run health care to any loss of freedom or liberty know nothing of either and more than likely evaded service to their country as they now try to evade service and responsibility to human kind. Shame on every one of them.

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  2. It is absolutely true that one of the government strategies is to break the back of the private insurance carriers, thereby making the jump to a single payer (government) a necessity. Once these big insurance companies have gone the way of the horse and buggy, there's no going back!

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  3. Hey Chipmunk, methinks you’ve got a major case of wealth envy going on there. Maybe you should see a doctor – and stop obsessing over profits so much. I further suggest you haven’t been to any good hospitals in order to have a valid comparison for your heroes in the VA hospitals. If you had ever set foot in a Mayo Clinic, you’d realize how ridiculous you sound touting the VA.

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  4. Well GunRights4US, you are correct in assuming that I’ve never been to the Mayo Clinic. Nor I suspect have 99% of Americans. So that’s hardly the comparison most Americans have to deal with. I have however during my 65 years on this earth been confined to seven civilian hospitals in three states. I’m now 100% disabled from wounds incurred in the service of my county in Vietnam. As a 100% service connected veteran I have the right and ability and permission (in an emergency) to go to any civilian hospital and the V.A. will pay the bill.
    Last summer with internal bleeding I had my wife drive me the 62 miles to the V.A. Hospital in Fargo North Dakota. During the trip the V.A. emergency room doctor called my cell phone three times and advised (pleaded) me to turn around and go back to the emergency room at Lake Region Hospital in my home town. I refused, I have been to both hospitals in the past and I’m perfectly capable of making a comparison as to where I will get the best care.
    The Doctors and nurses at the V.A. are concerned with me as a patient not with capitalizing on my malady in order to turn the greatest profit. At the V.A. I’m treated with respect and dignity, never referred to by my first name by some arrogant Doctor who just met me and desires to treat me as some silly child in order to impress me with his credentials.
    I’m sure there are veterans who feel differently than I do, that’s their choice. For myself and the many veterans I personally know, I have never had a bad experience at the V.A. Studies show that the VA health care system is the most efficient best run health care system in the United States and has a satisfaction rate of 97%, far better than any civilian hospital INCLUDING the Mayo clinic.
    Lastly, I have enough wealth that I don’t need to envy anyone else, I sometimes wonder if it is possible for you conservatives to formulate a cohesive argument without accusing the opposition of wealth or class envy. Have a nice day, and I hope you are never in a position to make the same medical comparisons I have had to do.

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  5. Well said, Doctor Kendall.

    Bureaucrats and politicians make their decisions based on political reasoning, not medical reasoning; this doesn't make them evil, it makes them bureaucrats and politicians. It is unnecessary to assume those who support Obamacare are evil; there is more than enough greed, jealousy, and ignorance to go around.

    Free people trade with each other voluntarily on terms agreeable to all parties. Slaves do only what they are allowed, and only for such reward as their masters permit them. The difference is who gets to make the decisions. Some folks seem to think slavery begins with chains. It only ends with them.

    Ron Pittenger

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  6. What if the same hospitals unionized janitor had written a similar letter?……

    I’ve been a janitor for 33 years and ever since the new management team took over at the hospital and imposed new rules and policies for janitors I feel like my freedom is under siege. I doubt that the new rules will allow me to have the same relationship that I have felt for this building in the past.

    The new rules and policies dictate which rooms I clean first rather than allow me the freedom to use my best judgment in the order. If I fail to follow the new rules I could be fired or even go to jail.

    We used to have the best maintenance program in the world, but now some bureaucrat (Just appointed by the directors) in the home office thinks he knows better than me how to do my job and he’s never been a janitor.

    My entire way of life and that of my brothers is under attack by bureaucrats who hate freedom. I used to take the initiative to come up with new and better ways of cleaning but now I’m no longer able to do so.
    The oppressive tyranny of the home office is destroying our jobs…….

    I wonder if that janitor could garner the same sympathy from conservatives or would he just be told

    “Buck up and do your job, you are just a lowly worker. If you don’t like the new rules why don’t you quit?
    There are a lot of janitors who would like to do your job and for a lot less money.” After all, he’s not a doctor and who really needs clean and sanitary rooms in a hospital?

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