In the 12/24/2010 Daily Beast, Shikha Dalmia describes how ObamaCare will criminalize both patients and doctors.
In particular, if physicians render "unnecessary" or "ineffective" care to Medicare patients, they could be punished for committing Medicare fraud. Of course, the government gets to decide what counts as "ineffective". Patients may not have heard much about "comparative effectiveness research" -- but they soon will.
With respect to Medicare patients the government is in effect saying, "We won't tell you how to practice medicine -- we don't presume to interfere with your professional judgment. But by the way, if you treat patients in a way we don't approve of, you'll be punished."
(Read the full text of "Obamacare Criminalizes Medicine".)
ObamaCare must go.
The blog of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM)
