Stuck in amid the innumerable chunks of pork in the Pelosi/Reid/Obama "stimulus bill" is a radical encroachment upon America's health care system, an encroachment that will certainly diminish the quality of care and greatly limit both physicians and the public to make free, fully informed decisions about health care issues.As Betsy McCaughey explains in this story for Bloomberg:
...Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health.
The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States.” Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions. These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far...
