Unfortunately Named the Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009

Chance brought across my path an old friend, Dr. March, whom I had not seen in four years. During the last conversation, he was trying to convince me that electing President Obama would be a positive turn in the history of our country, particularly after the “dreadful Republican Bush.”

I do not see people so much as belonging to the Republican or Democrat Party but as promoters and believers of a particular social and fiscal ideology. Occasionally, Congress members of either party share identical beliefs and vote the same way, regardless of the D or R after their names. They no longer represent the will of the people who elected them but the will of the corporate interests and the lobby groups.

 

Many uninformed and ordinary Americans vote on their perceived understanding of the issues after watching biased commercials and presentations. Some Americans vote on family traditions. Other Americans vote for the most telegenic of the candidates, or whoever promises most welfare.

As a medical doctor and an academician, Dr. March argued at the time that Obamacare could not possibly destroy our medical system and make it any worse because it was already in a mess with so many insurance companies, in dire need of tort reform, with so much bureaucracy, and daunting paperwork requiring full time staff to deal with insurance plans.

No to worry, this week we found out that 4,000 new IRS agents will be hired to handle Obamacare. A nagging question kept swirling in my head, what does health care have to do with tax collectors? Is health care a tax? Why would tax collectors be part of the decision to treat people medically or perform surgery on patients?

According to the Hill, “the Obama administration is quietly diverting roughly $500 million to the IRS to help implement the president’s healthcare law. The money is only part of the IRS’s total implementation spending and it is being provided outside the normal appropriations process. The tax agency is responsible for several key provisions of the new law, including the unpopular individual mandate.” (The Hill, April 9, 2012)

Dr. March told me what a hard time his medical students were having finding jobs after spending $50,000 each year for a degree and how we are not going to have many primary care providers left – nobody will be willing to go to medical school if jobs are hard to find and salaries are capped by The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. He was bemoaning the fact that a lot of our healthcare will be provided by nurses and will thus be inadequate and lacking.

His solution was rather perplexing – find a president who is fiscally conservative and socially progressive. The pronouncement struck me as illogical and impossible, as I see those two as polar opposites. You cannot be fiscally conservative and spend money on social programs lavishly without going bankrupt at some point.

I did not dare ask him what his presidential choice would be in November. It is impolite to ask such questions unless a person volunteers the information. He did mention that his wife voted for Ron Paul in the primaries. Both had voted cheerfully and eagerly for Obama in 2008.

When I told him how corrupt the socialized medical care system was in Romania, 23 years after the fall of communism, he agreed that most good doctors in the former iron curtain nations left for other places where they were paid based on merit and not on a central government salary decree. Only doctors who accepted bribes to supplement their salaries stayed behind to deliver care to the population.

There are not enough doctors and nurses left behind and people do not have enough money for bribes in countries where medical care is free but care and drugs must be rationed. At some point there is not enough “free everything” to go around.

Socialized medical care in Western Europe's nations fares slightly better. Doctors are still paid a government capped salary, there is rationing of care, long waiting lists for procedures, and gross negligence in hospitals. When patients have sniffles, everyone is treated, no problem. That is when free medical care works best. When more expensive procedures and long-term care become an issue, rationing ensues, depending on the patient’s age.

Dr. March was not aware that Muslims are exempt from the requirements of The Affordable Health Care Choice Act but will be full beneficiaries of free health care paid by the rest of us, a blatant form of dhimmitude.

Because health care has become so expensive in Germany and birth rates are going down, Chancellor Angela Merkel is considering an extra tax on young people in order to support the pensions and health care costs of the burgeoning older population. Could that become a future issue in the U.S.?

The cost of Obamacare has been purposefully misrepresented. A recent and more accurate report doubles the cost. This does not take into account the 1,500 plus exemptions offered to many crony capitalists for a year.

Dr. March was not incensed by the fact that faith-based hospitals will be forced to provide abortion on demand or that contraceptives are considered health rights.

Obamacare is not about providing affordable healthcare choices, it is about government control by unelected bureaucrats with no medical degrees or training over hospital admissions, payments to doctors, medical devices, and forcing private insurance companies out of business. It is about the most massive transfer of power to the executive branch of the government.

The law rations care to seniors and other classes of citizens and gives free health care to illegal immigrants.  Free abortion services under Obamacare forces participation in abortions by members of the medical profession who find the procedure highly objectionable.

Dr. March concluded with an interesting observation, that, in the D.C. area, Republicans who live in Virginia and Democrats who live in Maryland are two distinct groups at odds in the fight over Obamacare while the rest of the country supports Obamacare. Perhaps a biased poll gave credence to his belief but the polls I read show the majority of the U.S. legal population against Obamacare.

It is a moot point if you are for or against Obamacare. It is already the law, the bureaucracy is already in place to completely overhaul and destroy the best care in the world, and we are waiting on the Supreme Court to weigh in with their opinion in June, which is likely to determine that the law is constitutional. We, the “units,” will see each other in line at the IRS office begging for healthcare, surgery, and pain pills or petitioning the 15-member non-medical “death panel” for mercy.