Quick Links: Vanishing Doctors, Transparency, Constitution

Because of my schedule I have no detailed commentary today. But I wanted to point to a few links worth checking out:

Will doctors continue to practice after ObamaCare?

Find out at the survey site VanishingDoctors.com.

(Only doctors may participate in the survey but all may view the results.)

The Congress' decision to hammer out the final details of the health care bill is getting lots of negative reaction from those who expected President Obama to live up to his promise of "transparency".

Brian Schwartz has his take at: "AP on health bills: meaningful negotiations occur behind closed doors'".

David Catron links to two good videos at: "Gibbs Waffles On Obama's C-SPAN Lie"

Betsy McCaughey discusses the constitutionality issue at: "ObamaCare vs. the Constitution" (New York Post, January 6, 2010).

McCaughey highlights one key point:

...Never before has the federal government intruded into decisions made by doctors for privately insured patients, except on narrow issues such as drug safety. Nothing in the Constitution permits it. But the Senate bill makes you enroll in a plan and then says that only doctors who do what the government dictates can be paid by your plan.

"Qualified plans" can contract only with a doctor who "implements such mechanisms to improve health-care quality as the [current or future] secretary [of Health and Human Services] may by regulation require" (Sec. 1311, p. 148-49). That covers all of medicine, from heart care to child birth, stents to mammograms.