Thursday, September 2, 2010

Quick Links: Scherz and Amerling

Dr. Hal Scherz of Docs4PatientCare has piece in the September 1, 2010 Wall Street Journal entitled "Dear Patients: Vote to Repeal ObamaCare".

One critical passage:
In making doctors answerable in the federal bureaucracy this bill effectively makes them government employees and means that you and your doctor are no longer in charge of your health care decisions. This new law politicizes medicine and in my opinion destroys the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship that makes the American health care system the best in the world...
(Read the full text of "Dear Patients: Vote to Repeal ObamaCare".)

Dr. Richard Amerling of AAPS warns of "Enslavement by Health Insurance".

He likens our current system of tax-preferred employer-based health insurance to working in an oppressive "company store":
During World War II, the government imposed wage and price controls. In an effort to attract and retain workers, companies offered health insurance in lieu of wages. These benefits were not taxable for either the employer or employee. When the war ended and controls lifted (everywhere except in New York City, where rent controls persist to this day), the tax subsidy for employer-sponsored health insurance was retained. This explains why the majority of working Americans buy health insurance at work, at the "company store." This accident of history underlies much of what has gone wrong with health care in America...
(Read the full text of "Enslavement by Health Insurance".)