President Obama Not Following His Doctor’s Advice On Health Care Reform

Obama Not Following His Doctor’s Advice On Health Care Reform
by Ron Chusid
June 19th, 2009

David Scheiner, Obama’s internist from Chicago, says Obama is on the wrong track with regards to health care reform. No, he is not a doctor opposing health care reform but is recommending a single payer system. From Forbes:

Scheiner, 71, was Obama’s doctor from 1987 until he entered the White House; he vouched for the then-candidate’s “excellent health” in a letter last year. He’s still an enthusiastic Obama supporter, but he worries about whether the health care legislation currently making its way through Congress will actually do any good, particularly for doctors like himself who practice general medicine. “I’m not sure he really understands what we face in primary care,” Scheiner says.

Scheiner takes a few other shots too. Looking at Obama’s team of health advisors, Scheiner doesn’t see anyone who’s actually in the trenches. “I have a suspicion they pick people from the top echelon of medicine, people who write about it but haven’t been struggling in it,” he says.

Scheiner is critical of Obama’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary–Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who used to work as the chief lobbyist for her state’s trial lawyers association.

“He doesn’t see all the pain, it’s so tragic out here,” he says. “Obama’s wonderful, but on this one I’m not sure if he’s getting the right input.”

What should the president be focused on? Scheiner thinks that a good health reform would be “Medicare for all,” a single-payer system where the government would cover everyone and pay for it by cutting out waste in the system. “A neurosurgeon gets paid $20,000 for cutting into the neck of my patient. Have him get paid $1 million a year instead of $2 million or $3 million. He won’t starve,” Scheiner says.

Please read the complete article at:

http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=8971

This part was entertaining:

<snip>

Conservatives apparently loved the title of the article (Obama’s Doctor Knocks ObamaCare) and the beginning, but then had to change the tone after reading of Scheiner’s support for a single payer plan.

annual "retainer" fee. Instead I found a new and better doctor.

No one doctor is always right anymore than one lawyer or judge is always right.

I don't get it. Obama ran on a different platform as a candidate and that's the platform I would have expected him to follow.

“A neurosurgeon gets paid $20,000 for cutting into the neck of my patient. Have him get paid $1 million a year instead of $2 million or $3 million. He won’t starve,” Scheiner says.