This post may well get me on the Secret Service watch list (as if I'm not already there), but I've decided this morning that I REALLY DISLIKE (because in these politically-correct days, we can't say "hate") President Barack Obama.
I've fought the feeling off for a long while, but I can fight no more.
(My horoscope this morning said not to draw attention to myself. Of course, a good Baptist should not be putting any stock in a horoscope anyway - especially on a Sunday morning. Some might chid me for my feelings as they are expressed here - but if I turn my cheek any further, my neck will snap.)
Before the men/women-in-smart-dark-suits-and-clearly-visible-earphones start mobilizing towards North Carolina, let us be crystal clear that we are NOT talking about a do-the President-harm kind of "really dislike" . . . even though there's little doubt that a good portion of what Obama is proposing will ultimately harm me and my colleagues (and ultimately the patients we take care of).
Before anyone tries to paint me as a "racist" (because, well, in case you haven't noticed, President Obama is black, and I'm white) . . . or offers to buy me a beer . . . I "really dislike" the President BECAUSE . . . in sucking up to hospitals (predictable, because his wife-with-the-beautifully-toned-arms and Hollywood fashion stylist is an ex-hospital administrator who had a phat job at a "non-profit" handed to her because of who she was - ala Mary Sleazely at NCSU) . . . and in demonizing the pharmaceutical & insurance companies that have taken the risks and developed the medicines or actually paid a good portion of the bills for all of the folks who do not already dump responsibility for their medical care and their children's medical care completely on the the government (translation: other taxpayers) . . . and by TOTALLY ignoring things like legal/tort & medical peer-review reform & real whistle-blower protection & a long history of downright pathetic government oversight of the programs it already has . . . and by dismissively swatting away the doctors actually doing the serious grunt work on the front lines (that would not be any of the HACKS supposedly speaking for us at the AMA) . . . President Obama is destroying healthcare as we know it.
And healthcare as we in the United States know it really IS the best of any society in the world (please note, I'm not counting the Arab states where the oil flows like water and every citizen - as opposed to their migrant workers & domestic servants - enjoys "free" care).
But if things continue in the direction they are going, doctors in the United States . . . especially anyone considering Family Practice, Pediatrics and Internal Medicine as career paths . . . and especially anyone wanting to to it in a rural area or small town . . . might as well carve 666 onto their foreheads (actually we already have "the mark" - it's called an NPI number) and attach chains to their ankles.We'll just be house-elves for the dark side (I think I'm mixing movies there).
Forget innovation, creativity, individual talent and responsibility and initiative (especially in things like research and drug development). Medicine will be run by state committee - presided over what was previously a figurehead and composed of morons and idiots like this (I'm still cursing under my breath that this buffoon has the direct power to vote on a bill he hasn't read - and I don't).
It was this article (featured on DRUDGE this morning) on rural healthcare that really tipped me over.
You see, President Barack Obama has NO CLUE how to fix this problem, because (despite all that talk about "change"), just like his Democratic predecessors, this Ivy-league-educated lawyer/ex-community organizer/less-than-one-term Senator is NOT LISTENING to the people who have been doing the heavy lifting FOR YEARS . . . people who have actually worked in these programs and in rural areas, and were either burned by them or left them for greener pastures (i.e. a pasture that let them have some resemblance of a personal life) when their service commitment was done . . .
. . . people who came and went through the revolving door that Barack Obama wants to make an integral part of his plan for healthcare reform (ala that equally clueless son-of-a . . . mill worker, John Edwards).
You know, people like, oh I don't know, ME.
Instead, Obama and his party consistently and irresponsibly pander to the lowest common denominators of human social behavior . . . and in that process, are selling ALL of our our futures into massive debt . . . in order to buy votes now, and stay in power.
Doctors' hard work, our sacrifices, our labor are now being parsed out as someone else's "right". Of course, we as a profession got in this boat because, over the years, so many of us took the Oath seriously and slowly gave away so much of ourselves and our time and our labor . . . never imagining that we'd reach a point where we are as under-appreciated, de-valued and demonized as we are now . . . never understanding that the more you give, the more some people take.
The fact that many of us have been taken for granted and treated like dirt (ala Randolph Hospital VP, Steven Eblin's, now infamous, "Good Pediatricians are a dime a dozen" crack . . . as he fielded off Obstetricians questioning his medically incomprehensible actions) does not register as "relevant" with the starry-eyed watchdogs of the fourth estate (so totally in love with the President they should be objectively observing) who've grown comfortable and fat (never mind that they are dying) slurping down the press releases of most-favored politicians and corporations and special interests . . . as opposed to getting up off their lazy tails and chasing down a story.
This means YOU, Ed Cone of the Cones.
It's totally bogus and just damned un-American.
Like all of the well-meaning (liberal) Democrat politicos (Bill & Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Jim Hunt, Mike Sleazely, Bev Perdue) that I've served & worked under during my fifteen-year career (that does not count seven years of training & indentured servitude during med school & residency), the enlightened/do-gooding Barack and his supporters (a good many of them with their hands out) only want to hear the words, "Yes, we can (take you for all you've got)", as opposed to, "No, we've failed miserably (at managing what we've already taken)."
But neveryoumind, because like all good "progressives" who aren't really, the President of these United States does not want to hear at all about (or, God forbid, closely examine) HOW we failed.
And I simply don't understand how anyone can "fix" healthcare in this country unless you do that FIRST.
Why aren't we talking about how this country failed to make people . . . ALL people . . . rich, poor and in-between . . . at least in some small part RESPONSIBLE for their own choices. We've not set limits. We've not said, "NO!" to anything or anyone (especially when it comes to the Medicaid rolls). We've done NOTHING to hold people (especially grown people) accountable for their decisions and actions.
Before new laws-that-no-one-has-read are passed that no-one-but-the-craftiest/most expensive-&-inaccessible-to-the-common-man/woman-lawyers will be able to enforce, WHY aren't we talking about how we failed to oversee and regulate the baser tendencies of an unfettered free market - or legal system - or even our own (doctors') kind?
WHY aren't we talking about how, especially over the last decade, government entitlement programs and "non-profit/charitable" institutions (especially hospitals and insurers) were allowed to be turned into the fully-immunized-from-accountability pawns & bullying arms of inept and/or corrupt and/or just plain greedy MBA's who fancied themselves captains of industry?
Captains of real industry having to answer for profits and losses (well, except when they're bailed out) and pay taxes?
I'm just one voice in medicine telling a story . . . in this case about the abject failure of the "mission" of the National Health Service Corps in pseudo-rural Asheboro, North Carolina (the same kind of program promoted in the previously-linked news story that tipped me over the edge).
It's a story that has been ignored and marginalized for eleven years . . . by people like Ed Cone, and John Robinson & David Renfro, and Kevin Pho . . . while the people who were supposed to care . . . who were CHARGED to care . . . like the Randolph Hospital BOD, and the Medical Board and JCAHO and NC/US DHHS and the IRS and local/state/Federal law enforcement . . . BLEW ME OFF.
But my head's not supposed to explode in rage or frustration. I'm supposed to move on and get over it - while people like Ed Cone of THE Cones live their happy & well-connected lives and tell me it's all my fault. I haven't jumped through enough hoops. I didn't play ball Ed's way.
Like I said, there's a reason journalism is dying. I'm going to keep pounding that story out on this blog and elsewhere. And I don't give a rat's tail whose head spins. This doctor is going to talk back.
And on that note, here's the thing I "really dislike" most about President Barack Obama: It is the behavior and tactics of a lot of his smug, holier-than-thou supporters . . . the ones who lord their moral and intellectual superiority and finely-honed sense of righteous entitlement over the rest of us (who are not "in tune") . . . the ones who, despite their tolerance and enlightenment and bluer-than-blue progressiveness still employ every under-handed, dirty trick in the book to silence even reasonable dissent.
And when they do encounter a reasoned and/or impassioned (not to mention, truthful) argument based on experience, well, IT MUST BE STOMPED OUT!
When it comes to our regulatory & law enforcement agencies and "representatives" in the state & federal legislature, they simply pretend you do not exist. They don't answer your letters or e-mails. They ignore your complaints.
The very clear message is that YOU ARE NOTHING - you do not matter.
When it comes to "our liberal media" (especially the blogging ones), they ignore your story or delete/ban/de-link you in deference to the best interests of their biggest advertisers - and/or poorly masked political & economic agendas.
Again, the very clear message is that YOU ARE NOTHING - you do not matter.
When it comes to the blogosphere, they marginalize you . . . by de-linking and banning your blog, and deleting your comments, attacking your character and your sanity and calling you names.
They are somebodies - "right people". They matter. But you don't.
I decided a while back, after the North Carolina Medical Board pretty much gifted this badly-burned medical whistle-blower with a lawsuit on a silver platter, that if I continue to be ignored for much longer, I will shortly sue somebody (or a bunch of somebodies) at the state and federal levels . . .
. . . but as it stands now, I'll probably wait at least until after Congress gets back from vacation and the fight for the future of my profession really begins.
Because, you know, I think after eleven years (as of today) patiently waiting and hoping for someone somewhere to hold Randolph Hospital executives Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin accountable for their despicable/amoral/unethical/illegal actions against a homegrown doctor-in-public-service-just-doing-her-job, I've been patient enough.
That, and I really, really dislike President Barack Obama, and it would tickle me no end for my story to help burst his clueless, elitist, leftist, socialist bubble.
BECAUSE ABSOFRICKINGLUTELY NOTHING HAS CHANGED. THE DEAF, DUMB & BLIND STILL LEAD US.
Author's note: Comments on this post are closed. On this particular night, I'm pretending I'm Kevin Pho hosting the AMA's James Rohack. Tonight, I just don't care what Obama's supporters think. Consider this post an editorial. And DEAL with it.
