‘Obamacare’ wouldn’t be the best

‘Obamacare’ wouldn’t be the best

EDITOR:

“Obamacare” or HR3200, will have devastating effects on our community, especially seniors, who understandably account for most of our health care spending.

Despite what is said, the bill before Congress now will inevitably lead to rationing of care, including long weeks if not months of delays for diagnosis and then additional delays for treatment, as is routine in Canada and England. Which treatments one will receive will be prescribed by government assigned “experts”, who will approve only the most cost-effective (least expensive) treatments. In order to achieve the goal of reducing health care spending by 30 percent over the next 20 years, “high cost, low value treatments” will be eliminated. (Translated: oldest and sickest patients”) I believe most Americans, together with their doctor, should be the ones to decide questions of value and cost, rather than a government appointed “expert.”

There are better, and much simpler ways of reducing cost. One would be to give individuals the same tax breaks that companies get to purchase health insurance. The second would be to allow individuals to purchase health insurance outside the state they live in. This would allow one to buy a policy more suited to one’s needs, without having to pay for all the mandates that individual states require. We can go to Pennsylvania to buy a car, but not health insurance. Expanding medical savings accounts, and giving people more freedom and responsibility for their own health care is a strong incentive to hold down costs, and would reduce costs significantly.

Finally, there is the scourge of “defensive medicine,” or all the extra tests and imaging studies done by doctors to avoid being sued for not eliminating every possibility. I can assure you that this is very real, and has become almost routine in the practice of medicine. Studies have shown that up to $200 billion annually could be saved by eliminating this extra testing, more than enough to pay for health insurance for all the uninsured in the country. Yet nowhere in HR 3200 are there any malpractice reforms to eliminate or lessen lawsuit abuse. Several common sense reforms enacted here in Ohio over the last several years have caused a dramatic drop in the number of frivolous lawsuits, and have slowed or stopped the exodus of good doctors leaving Ohio. We need to do the same thing for the entire nation.

If this “reform” is so good, then why are federal employees and congress exempt? They should be the first in line. This health care bill is much too important for us and our children, to be rushed through under the guise of another “crisis”. Let’s talk about the real issues and how they will impact us in years to come.

THOMAS D. KAMINSKI, M.D.

Warren