I declared “independence” from the tyranny of insurance companies in 1986, one year after leaving a medical school faculty position to open my own practice. When it became legal to do so, I “opted out” of Medicare. I did it because I could not, in good conscience, continue to watch patients suffer because some bureaucrat denied care that the patient and I thought was needed.
Medical treatment decisions, rightfully and fully, belong with the patient and their physician and family, not some faceless clerk who has no medical training and has never even seen the human being in question. As an independent physician, I have no “contracts” with any outside entity. My only “contract” is with my patients. I am able to make the decisions that my patients and I together decide are medically in their best interest.
In the 1980s, physicians abdicated much of their power and decision-making to insurance company bureaucratic decision-makers as “managed care” directed and controlled payments for allowed treatment options.
Now in 2009, we have new threats from our own government in the proposed massive takeover of health care under the guise of “reform.” But House Healthcare Bill 3200 provides for your medical records to be sent without your permission to the federal health “czar,” for required end of life counseling beginning at age 65 and increasing in frequency the older and sicker you become, and requires use of “comparative effectiveness research” to decide your treatment options based on age and your value to society.
Oh, and did I mention, that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that this “reform” will cost taxpayers another 1 to 1.6 TRILLION dollars … and also insure non-tax-paying illegal immigrants? Yes, all of this really IS in the actual bill … but legislators are not even reading the bill!
Let us be clear. House bill 3200 is not reform – it is about control. Control of how, when, and with whom you get medical care. Control of your very freedom to live.
Last week, I resigned from the AMA as a protest of their support for government run health care “reform” that violates our physician code of ethics and our Hippocratic oath in several key ways that most patients don’t yet know:
? The 2009 “stimulus” bill violated patient’s privacy – it requires doctors to send your full electronic medical records without your permission to the federal “health czar”
? The 2009 “stimulus” bill requires comparative effectiveness research (code for limiting care based on age and your “value” to society) to be used to determine whether you are able to have a particular treatment, e.g. hip or knee replacement, angioplasty, back surgery, hospital re-admission.
? House Bill 3200 requires everyone over age 65 having government-provided medical care to have federal workers “counsel” you about end of life plans, such as going into hospice. The sicker you are, the more often these counseling sessions are required. (pg 425-446)
? House Bill 3200 requires doctors to follow government “guidelines” – soon to be “dictums”- for your care
? House Bill 3200 effectively eliminates your private insurance options
My next step has been to sign The Physicians’ Declaration of Independence. This document is a project of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), the group that has been the voice for private physicians and patients since 1943. AAPS is a non-partisan professional association of physicians in all types of practices and specialties across the country dedicated to the highest ethical standards of the Oath of Hippocrates and to preserving the sanctity of the patient-physician relationship and the practice of private medicine.
AAPS motto says it all: “Omnia Pro Aegroto” means “all for the patient.”
There are many good ideas to protect patients rights, preserve choices and control costs – but the House leadership is ramming through this massively expensive bill without even allowing the minority party ideas and amendments to see the light of day – I protest these underhanded tactics to pass a bill that its own supporters are not even reading!
Yet, in public statements, leadership in Washington is giving the public platitudes and false assurances that directly contradict what is actually in the bill.
This is one piece of legislation YOU had better take time to read. It is available on-line at www.PatientsUnitedNow.com. If you have not yet read it, you must do so. It is shocking and eye opening. This is your life, your choices, your liberty, and your health freedom at stake.
© Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. July 29, 2009
Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet speaks as an independent physician, not as an official spokesperson for any organization. Dr. Vliet has no financial ties to any health care system, pharmaceutical company, or health insurance plan. Her allegiance and advocacy is to and for patients.
