Bits and Pieces

Obama is out and about trying to sell his health care plan to the people. Today something refreshing happened...he was booed by doctors at an American Medical Association meeting. Shocking to me, since I know far too many physicians who were crazy enough to vote for him despite the potential threat to so many aspects of their careers.

Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar reported for the Associated Press:

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.

But what could they expect? 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.

Politics. Gotta love 'em. I realize that he wasn't generally booed by the crowd, but I still think it's cool he got a boo for ONCE in a blue moon. Then I read on. Sometimes I read or hear something that makes me think that maybe my brain is wired incorrectly and I think completely different from everyone else. This is one of those things:

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.

The Obama administration has cited such findings as evidence that the system is broken. 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.

I've had a conversation or two with many a physician and some interesting complaints are often heard. 1) Patients readily request/demand unnecessary tests be run, despite the doctor's recommendations. 2) Doctors are driven to run many unnecessary tests because of liability. They cannot simply make a "gut" call and save the patient/insurance company/taxpayer some money. When the lawsuit comes a calling, they have to be able to show that they did everything they could.

The lawyers have no accountability here? And, of course, the most amazingly overlooked question of our time: Where is the personal accountability?

Coming soon - why Obama's plan is bad for doctors (as I alluded to above without explaining) but most importantly, as the Obama administration will go down denying, bad for patients.

The entire article can be found here.