Obama Slams Pediatricians: Mr. President, You Don't Even Know Who I Am

You know, a couple of days ago, I said I "really disliked" President Obama.

Now, I think I hate him. Go ahead. Report me to the White House. Like I care.

Hey, maybe they'll invite me over for a beer.

I remember reading about our President slamming doctors a week or so ago. For some reason (perhaps because I've been so busy being the Pediatric glue holding a rural LDRP unit together), at the time, what he said did not really register with me.

But Google searches leading readers to this blog lead me to the video of our President mumbling some more of his special brand of foot-in-mouth idiocy (once again, it's in blue because it's just so damned "progressive"):

Right now, doctors a lot of times are forced to make decisions based on the fee payment schedule that’s out there. So if they’re looking and you come in and you’ve got a bad sore throat or your child has a bad sore throat or has repeated sore throats, the doctor may look at the reimbursement system and say to himself, “You know what? I make a lot more money if I take this kid’s tonsils out.”

First of all, Pediatricians/other Primary Care Physicians don't remove tonsils (well, at least these days . . . and let me just say, THANK GOD!). It's a job for surgeons - usually subspecialty surgeons (i.e. ENT's).

I mean, this man wants to take over healthcare . . . and he sleeps with an ex-$317,000/year hospital administrator. You'd think he'd know who does what.

Second, whatever practice/clinic/ED I work for (me being employed or independently-contracted . . . as so many doctors these days are . . . because they simply cannot survive on their own) would probably make a lot more money if I didn't make the referral (to an ENT) . . . if I kept bringing the child in and throwing antibiotics at him/her forever and ever.

It's all about VOLUME, baby. Encounters are where it's at.

Third, some of those protocols we (obviously greed-motivated Machiavellian) doctors follow, include taking tonsils out for repeated/documented Strep Throat. And sometimes, even then, you've got to "fight" with the ENT to get them to move - because they want to "wait and watch" (you see, Mr. President, the angry parent . . . tired of taking off work for sick visits and higher-dollar consults . . . doesn't usually breathe down the ENT's neck . . . they come back to your office and breathe down yours).

I can safely say, Mr. President, that in the course of my day-to-day practice, I have NEVER made a medical decision based on my own reimbursement. And you see, Sir, it's because, for ALL of my career, I've either been either on a piddling salary (working like an under-appreciated dog for the hometown "non-profit" hospital that ripped my life to shreds and destroyed every dream I ever had) or paid by the hour (as an independent contractor). How many patients I see a day - or what tests I order - does not matter in terms of what goes into my pocket.

That's not to say that I have not made medical decisions based on a patient - or family's - financial circumstances. But again, those decisions are made in a way to ASSIST them and/or HELP THEM COPE with their fiscal disadvantages/difficulties . . . NOT for my own financial benefit.

In fact, while in Asheboro (and still in public service), I REFUSED to accept a reimbursement plan based on "production" and "incentives" (you know, stuff you should get paid for - like going to church). I was content to collect a reasonable salary and do the work for the sake of the work. I was "giving back".

It was the best of the best. Work I love in a place I loved.

And you see, Mr. President, I turned down the incentive program because I did not want to start seeing my patients as a path to money. That, and my soul was just not for sale.

It's one of the reasons "NON-PROFIT" Randolph Hospital executives targeted me for destruction. You see, Mr. President, in putting patients first, I just did not fit in.

And I gotta ask you, Mr. President, WHERE were all of the oh-so-noble Democrats under whose watches I served . . . when I was fired for standing up to the threats of medically-clueless, morally-challenged executives . . . after answering a terrified nurse's call in the middle of the night and saving a baby's life?

Where was the government that I served faithfully and well?

I mean, Hillary could stump for her village. Bill Clinton can run to North Korea these days in order to rescue two naive girl journalists who arguably should not have been stirring up crap over there to start with. But way back when, Clinton's Secretary of Health & Human Services couldn't read a letter or pick up the phone to help a doctor-in-public-service burned for doing the right thing by a patient?

Jim Hunt and Mike Sleazely and Jim Black and Bev Perdue and their well-connected cronies all over the state could BLEED North Carolina's healthcare coffers dry (billions of dollars wasted in scams like disproportionate share - or the disastrous restructuring of mental health), and treat doctors like they're "a dime a dozen". Nobody blinks. We're told to move on along. Get over it.

And let us not forget Senator John Edwards, the genius ex-malpractice attorney and son-of-a . . . mill-worker, who had no problem blowing off his constituents-with-complicated-problems like a puff of hairspray. There's no doubt in my world-weary mind that he would have been your Attorney General were he not Reille's baby-daddy.

So I gotta ask you, Mr. President. You promised "change". Like a Calgon bubble bath, you were going to take me away from all that.

Where the hell are you and your Attorney General now?

You say you "represent" me . . . and you're going to "save" my world.

But you don't even know who I am.