Has anyone received this email,

from a Zane Pollard MD.
I have been sitting quietly on the sidelines watching all of this national debate on healthcare. It is time for me to bring some clarity to the table and as your friend by explaining many of the problems from the aspect of a doctor.

First off the government has involved very few of us physicians in the healthcare debate.While the American Medical Association has come out in favor of the plan, it is vital to remember that the AMA only represents 17% of the American physician workforce.


<snip>

I am a pediatric ophthalmologist and trained for 10 years post college to become a pediatric ophthalmologist ( add two years of my service in the Navy and that comes to 12 years).A neurosurgeon spends 14 years post college and if he or she has to do the military that would be 16 years. I am20not entitled to make what a neurosurgeon makes but the new plan calls for all physicians to make the same amount of payment. I assure you that medical students will not go into neurosurgery and we will have a tremendous shortage of neurosurgeons. Already the top neurosurgeon at my hospital who is in good health and only 52 years old has just quit because he can't stand working with the government anymore. Forty-nine percent of children under the age of 16 in the state of Georgia are on medicaid so he felt he just could not stand working with the beaurocracy anymore.

We are being lied to about the uninsured.They are getting care. I operate at least 2 illegal immigrants each month who pay m e nothing and the children's hospital at which I operate charges them nothing also.This is true not only on Atlanta, but of every community in America.

<snip>

One last thing, with this new healthcare plan there will be a tremendous shortage of physicians. It has been estimated that approximately 5% of the current physician work force will quit under thi s new system. Also it is estimated that another 5% shortage will occur because of decreased men and women wanting to go into medicine. At the present time the US government has mandated gender equity in admissions to medical schools .That means that for the past 15 years that somewhere between 49 and 51% of each entering class are females. This is true of private schools also because all private schools receive federal fundings. The average career of a woman in medicne now is only 8-10 years and the average work week for a female in medicine is only 3-4 days. I have now trained 35 fellows in pediatric ophthalmology. Hands down the best was a female that I trained 4 yea rs ago- she was head and heels above all others I have trained.She now practices only 3 days a week.

Zane Pollard, MD

but it seems like it is filled with all the usual right wing anti-health reform bullshit that is already out there

but it seems like it is filled with all the usual right wing anti-health reform bullshit that is already out there

That gives them away every single time. "I operate at least 2 illegal immigrants each month..." :eyes:

and I use the term loosely.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/obamacare_and_me.html

http://comments.americanthinker.com/read/42323/384747.html

We truly live in a society overrun with stupid. (On my hospital admissions, I put "none" in the religion field. They still give me a bed.) :eyes:

Around the early 1980s, I spent a week in the country at a retreat and returned home to receive a letter a week after that saying one of the kitchen helpers preparing everyone's food had Hepatitis. It was suggested that I go immediately to a doctor for a shot to ward off the disease.

I first tried my local Queens, NY hospital which was requiring I give them my religion on the emergency room form. Since I wanted to go to a health facitility that had more confidence in their abilities and didn't think they needed to know which funeral home and cemetery to transfer my dead body to, I decided to go elsewhere. So I went downtown to Bellevue Hospital, a place most commonly known in New York for its mental ward.

Some of you here have seen my contributions to American Thinker signed as "Jack Kemp (not the politician)." I did then - and do not now - physically resemble the late and former Republican Vice Presidential candidate, having no gray hair and a physique and height smaller than the ex-pro football player's. But when I entered the treatment station, the nurse on duty was having trouble making this distinction.

There I was, bent over a treatment table with my pants down, waiting for an injection in my buttocks. Then the nurse, possibly a candidate - not for office, but for Bellevue's mental ward - said to me, "I do not like your politics, Mr. Kemp." Since I had not discussed any politics with her, I replied in my most deep and authoritative voice, "I am not the Republican politician Jack Kemp." This had a calming effect on her mania and she apologized and came out of her trance of anti-Jack Kemp rage to remember she was, in fact, a nurse on duty in a hospital and not a person being interviewed for their political opinion on National Public Radio.

I swear this is all true, even though it sounds like something from a Seinfeld episode. It is hard to make up a story like this, even if one is a professional writer. Then again, experiences like this have driven many New Yorkers to take up the pen.

Jack Kemp
(standing upright, and not the late politician)

The site is AmericanThinker.com, and yes it is a conservative site.

Here's another piece of the same editorial:

But there is more to the story than just the lower fees. When I came to Atlanta, there was a well known ophthalmologist that charged $2500 for a cataract surgery as he felt the was the best. He had a terrific reputation and in fact I had my mother's bilateral cataracts operated on by him with a wonderful result. She is now 94 and has 20/20 vision in both eyes. People would pay his $2500 fee.


However, then the government came in and said that any doctor that does Medicare work cannot accept more than the going rate ( now $500) or he or she would be severely fined. This put an end to his charging $2500. The government said it was illegal to accept more than the government-allowed rate. What I am driving at is that those of you well off will not be able to go to the head of the line under this new healthcare plan, just because you have money, as no physician will be willing to go against the law to treat you.

It seems that the good doctor is an advocate for "if you have money you go to the head of the line".

I could not believe it. Unfortunately the right wingers in my family have no problem with the idea. It seems that to right wingers having money makes you better than those who do not.

who is an opthalmologist in Atlanta, so I think he's real. Not all physicians are good writers.

no...sounds like the letters I get Nigeria....I am still waiting on my money..lol.

"We are being lied to about the uninsured.They are getting care. I operate at least 2 illegal immigrants each month who pay m e nothing and the children's hospital at which I operate charges them nothing also.This is true not only on Atlanta, but of every community in America."

Meanwhile, there are a thousand working poor who need care but are invisible to him.

I've been uninsurable for over 20 years and no, Slick, we don't get care.

"I've been uninsurable for over 20 years and no, Slick, we don't get care."

I make 41K a year. My employer provides insurance for me. However, if not I would get medicaid. I'm confused with so many of us working class individuals saying we don't have health care. Please, explain to me why you don't?

So, for most adults under 65, you need a child to qualify for Medicaid, or to be pregnant.

making $41 K yearly. Suppose your employer changed your status to "contract worker" and revoked benefits? No Medicaid, dude.

I would do all the research necessary to find suitable insurance for me. I am very ignorant in this category, however, i simply refuse to believe that YOU CAN NOT GET INSURANCE in this country. My mother has opted to stay on her State job for an additional 5 years simply so she can retire with her benefits. I have personally, done the research for insurers who offer insurance at a reasonable price. Granted, she is going to stay working for an additional 5 years because she "doesn't trust" the information I've provided. But there are options. This is just too much for me to bare. The quantity of the opposition alone makes me think..."shouldn't we evaluate what we're asking?". Asking of all the workers who will be bundled with the non-workers/bums who don't want to work. How long will we, as workers, have to wait to be evaluated by a doctor as a result of the back log - at what cost?

Have you found the gun dungeon yet? (you can't "bare" it?) Please spell moran.

in assets. That means that while that amount meant Medicaid was for the working poor when it was set up in the mid 60s, it covers only the destitute now. Have a jalopy to get to work? Sorry, you own too much. Have a minimum wage paycheck? Sorry, you earn too much.

Republicans made certain they'd cover fewer and fewer people when they tied the tied the program to fixed dollar amounts for income and assets.

I am appalled that people like you who don't realize this are still going around blithely assuming that since these programs were set up, they have continued to work the way they were supposed to. In fact, they don't work for many people, at all, and certainly not the people who need them the most.

I am appalled that people like you who don't realize this are still going around blithely assuming that since these programs were set up, they have continued to work the way they were supposed to. In fact, they don't work for many people, at all, and certainly not the people who need them the most.

granted, I've never been without insurance and I've been in decent health for 33 years. So no, I don't know that such programs aren't working. But I can say this with certainty that I know individuals who are unemployed who have government insurance. You know, without going into a long explanation - I strongly believe if you want insurance in this country you can get it. That's what I believe. If I'm wrong, then why don't we comprise a plan to support that issue. Why should we all be bundled in the same plan? I invision delayed doctor visits, delayed results from those visits, unfair and uncomfortable visits at the doctors, and the list goes on. How do we all feel when we go to the post office that isn't adequately staffed? Or the Department of Motor Vehicle? THAT'S my concern.

Once you're written off by the for profit insurance industry or have to take a job without insurance, you're shit out of luck until you turn 65.

but what about those of us who are concerned we may suffer & die because we CANNOT AFFORD healthcare?

If I could afford it I would have it...yet I make "too much" for state/gov't care and I have a few more years before I hit 65.

You can "believe" all you want that if people really want healthcare they can get it...doesn't make it even remotely true.

people in YOUR country. Not as smart as you?

70% work full time. 2/3 under poverty level. Workers.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x356778

BUT. They are calling it "good for the (Insurance) industry". And insurance companies are "counting their new customers". So what are you worried about? The corporations win again and the American public loses. That's good for you, right?