Dear Mr. President,

Other considerations to consider may include:
1.) Medical malpractice tort reform is mandatory as part of your comprehensive plan.
2.) Expansion of medical and nursing education opportunities to meet the growing need of more physicians and nurses for primary and patient care. We must continue to provide quality health professionals with the ability for critical thinking and compassionate care.
3. Appropriate financial compensation within the health care delivery system for physicians and nurses, considering their years of education, continuing academic achievements and pursuit of accepted standards of care.
4. Spend a day in the shoes of health care professionals to better understand their daily routine and requirements that we as professionals must perform. This should be done at the academic medical center institutions, community hospitals, inner city clinics and rural health facilities, so that you as politicians with see and better understand the complexities of health care delivery in America. So, please come spend a couple of days/nights to better appreciate our professional commitment to patients, their families or significant others, as we strive to deliver the best care.

Sincerely,
Harlan R. Weinberg, MD, FCCP
Director, ICU
Northern Westchester Hospital
Mt. Kisco, NY
Diplomate, American Board of Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Medicine

Contrary to your portrayal of the plan, the plan is much more along the lines of Tom Dashle’s “Critical, What we can do about the Healthcare Crisis”. Some cornerstones of the plan – treatment is based upon cost benefit, a determining factor is age, more clearly a 30 year old taxpaying adult would receive advanced treatment for cancer, a 65 year old social security recipient would be denied the removal of a corn on their big toe. The differentiating factors a young middle aged taxpayer has 30 years more tax payments, the aged tax recipient, well… Using similar criterion a smoker with lung cancer would be denied treatment, because he did it to themselves, and an overweight middle aged person would be denied cholesteral & high blood pressure treatment on the same basis.

How wil the government do this – through private insurance carriers? Beginning in 1994, the US government passed HIPAA. HIPPA requires hospitals, doctors and medical practicioners to provide government access to medical record. From these medical records, under the Omnibus Spending Act of 2009, US Dept of Health and Human Services has been authorized, funded and mandated to create a “Single Medical Record” for each US citizen. The record, under government control is to be used to compile data on “cost effective treatments”. Again, refering to Mr. Dashle or his disciple Sebelius, cost effective excludes treatment of high blood pressure, high cholestorol, smoking and various other illnesses that can be almost categorically deemed as illnesse of personal habit…but they now know – whom it is cost effective to treat and whom it is not cost effective to treat. The dept of health and human services then begins to endorse or recoomend certain treatments and discourage as well as limit others. The private insurance companies, with government approved and disapproved medical procedure changes the levels of coverage to match the governments recommendations.

So the conclusion is, if you think that the plan is what you say it is, you have your right to that belief, however if you dont such as I and many million other americans – YOU NEED FOR FREE MEDICAL CARE CAN NOT NEGATE OUR RIGHT TO CARE THAT WE WORK AND PAY FOR.

Does the government really want us healthy?

Think about it if the majority of Americans were health and not fat what would it mean to our economy? It means that we would consume less food, if we consume less food how many people does that put out of work? Farmers and ranchers would have to produce less, the food industry as a whole would sell less so they would need fewer employees. What about the medical industry, first the millions that are spent on diet programs, pills, weight watchers, etc. would end. Second if we weight less than we have less medical problems, if we have less medical problems we do not need as many doctors, nurses, hospitals, and insurance. Wait till AIG insurance hear about this. Also if we are healthier than we will live longer, what would this mean to government programs like social security?

Talk about bail-out program and stimulus packages, how many would we need with a healthy America?