How much do you suppose she got paid to write this? Not only does it piss all over other people's access to basic health care, but it's active misinformation.
informed voterof CA2:03PM December 16, 2009
As the wife of a cardiologist, I am downright worried.
My husband spent years training and now, just as he is going to begin his practice and recuperate the earnings he sacrificed becoming an invasive cardiologist, Obama's administration has decided to impact our future and fund their healthcare reform on the backs of healthcare practitioners. Here is the kicker. I voted for Obama, and I believe in reform, but what I see happening before me is not what I envisioned. What happened to ending the war in Iraq? The savings from that act alone would fund this overhaul. The result of the 26% cuts in medicare reimbursement (between now and 2012), along with those that will surely come with healthcare reform will be ruinous to cardiology. There is already a serious deficit in cardiology care within the country. People, we have to wake up and try to stop this before the cascade of events plays out. What will be next?
I am very disappointed that the funding is coming out of the doctor's pockets. We already pay a boat-load of taxes. When I think about the years of hard work, the call, the long hours, the holidays spent away from family, the countless sacrifices that most people don't understand, I just shake my head. Sadly, most people think that doctors make too much money. Consider this: my husband didn't start making a decent salary until he was 36 years old! It took him 10 years total to become an interventional cardiologist (med school, internship, residency, general fellowship and interventional fellowship). If you include undergrad, he spent 14 years learning to save lives.
I don't think the politicians understand what a doctor goes through to specialize. While I applaud the effort to balance things for the primary care provider, I can't ignore that a cardiologist spends an additional seven years training to do what he does. Who would these policy-makers want working on their heart? Who do you want working on yours?
We should all be very, very worried friends. Bad things are coming our way, and I am sick that I helped swing the country in this direction. I trusted Obama to make smart decisions. I hoped that he would cut government waste. Instead he is behaving like previous politicians. He will fund his program on the backs of hard-working physicians who truly deserve to be paid a premium for the intense stress and pressure under which they practice.
My husband stands in a cath lab all day wearing lead, exposing himself to radiation. In his late thirties, his back is already bad, his shoulder is shot, his knees hurt, and he will need to retire early. What will happen to our family?
Health care reform bill of USA atleast acts as a blue print for countries who do not have such luxury of government funds for public health. It is indeed a blessing for all citizens of USA to have such a system. Any system needs control for every system has a positive side as well as a negative side-call it a Daedalus effect.
Clinical decision making and patient choice do play a role in healthcare. But it is important that our choices come with responsibility and accountability. With powerful lobbying you could add subclass to introduce the word except mammogram or PSA testing. I feel that it is not a ticket for restriction but for scrutiny of what we do which we have not done so far. Health is personal as well as universal. We as individuals need to make choices that will be responsible to the individual as well as to the nation. We are at a time when economy stares at us with great gloom for we have the greatest pathogen looking at us "poverty". I donot suggest that women or men's right must be violated. Let us be responsible and let us support all good things that are done to help humanity live healthily.
sheriff dhastagir6:18AM December 02, 2009
The point of health care reform is to cover tens of millions of Americans who have no health care options at all because they can't afford health insurance, and to make sure that people who do have health insurance don't lose it because they develop a long-term health problem or lose their jobs. It's comical to read the selfish and short-sighted opinion of a wealthy, privileged, caucasion woman, who surely has never gone a day in her life without health insurance, about how the government is trying to take something away from her. I have health insurance and a middle-class income, and am also a caucasian woman, but I am not blinded by my own relatively plush circumstances to the plight of those who cannot afford health insurance because they don't earn enough money, who are denied coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition, or who can't afford to keep their coverage due to loss of employment. Yes, this spoiled white chick may eventually earn less money per year than she's used to; maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars instead of four, five or six hundred, or more, since she won't be able to order every test she's ever heard of to milk both her patients and the system out of as much money as possible -- but the result of her cut in income will be a safer, healthier nation for all Americans, knowing that your family will still have health insurance even if you lose your job, making sure that the homeless are treated for diseases like tuberculosis so those more fortunate among us won't contract it ourselves, and the simple satisfaction of doing the right thing instead of being a selfish, insulated, gated-community-inhabiting agent of misinformation.
Minnaof IL5:53AM November 27, 2009
I agree with Dr. Healy. When I was at Ohio State Medical Center we were taught to do the right thing for the patient. People and tests are not perfect. People have to work hard to interpret tests and to treat cancer.
At Ohio State, we chose to be leaders in cancer treatment. Our goal was to save the life of people. We did not ask how much money they made. Similarly, people are very honest in Columbus, Ohio. People, even if they did not have money really tried their best to pay.
If women want mammograms they should be able to get them. Many people come to the hospital with their worries. Many work very hard and would never otherwise complain. I have treated many patients with cancer, and all these patients were always nice to me.
Recently, I treated a patient with severe heart disease. Two years earlier I diagnosed the husband with cancer. I did not wait for months to have the patient treated. I called the oncologist in the middle of the night and had him evaluated the next day. Today, the patient is healthy. The wife, who is still my patient, made my little girl a pillow. The pillow has all sorts of animals on it. At night, I can talk with my little two and a half year old daughter about the animals.
This connection between people depends on the freedom to appropriately order tests and treatments. A government panel would never react as quickly and a patient who expects perfect care even despite the best efforts never makes a little girl a pillow.
Gary
Gary Gechlik, M.D.of CA12:04PM November 24, 2009
european year levels year
parkinsgarof AZ7:31PM November 23, 2009
Are people are aware that the woman at the center of the Wade v Roe, case has lamented the manipulation and misuse of her standing in the matter, by a deceitful minority.
Allopathic medicine pays scant heed to the emotional side of illness, next to nothing of the mental level and totally ignorant and defiant of spiritual implications, viz. " All illness is the result of the thwarting of the Soul life ".
A bigoted or a literal interpretation of this Law is definitely not endorsed or intended. A ill person could be courageously carrying a double load for a Coward like me.
Read " Esoteric Healing by Alice A Bailey (Lucis Press) for a balanced understanding.
Joseph I. D'Souza5:53PM November 23, 2009
We should believe a right-wing creationist "doctor" because...?
samirof TX2:09PM November 23, 2009
It's easy to jerk tears by evoking images of poor dying relatives, the deaths of which could have been prevented, if only there had been one more mammogram been made.
Nobody talks about the economic interest of the doctors and facilities working in that field who might see a steep loss of income, just as nobody seems to talk about the torture that women suffer who are diagnosed with cancers that would better not have been treated.
For a more balanced view on this matter, I'd suggest some alternative reading:
It's insulting to think that the scientists behind that research, many of which are women, would come to their conclusion to save the insurance companies some money, when they have personally nothing to lose or gain from these guidelines, when at the same time the radiologists and other health care professionals who make a living administering these tests are not questioned for their profit motive.
Just like world hunger will not be solved by fertilizer and pesticides but with population control, so medical practice needs to be put on a scientific basis. This day and age, it seems, the healthiest person can enter a doctor's office, and leave with a long list of prescription drugs; and yet people die earlier in the USA than in any other nation that's similarly developed.
Maybe regulated health care, based on sound scientific principles isn't so bad after all.
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fletagist of AR 9:55PM January 01, 2010
informed voter of CA 2:03PM December 16, 2009
A Caper of OH 12:36AM December 07, 2009
sheriff dhastagir 6:18AM December 02, 2009
Minna of IL 5:53AM November 27, 2009
Gary Gechlik, M.D. of CA 12:04PM November 24, 2009
parkinsgar of AZ 7:31PM November 23, 2009
Joseph I. D'Souza 5:53PM November 23, 2009
samir of TX 2:09PM November 23, 2009
rcfa of RI 2:08PM November 23, 2009