Health Insurance Card Doesn't Mean You Have Healthcare

I was a big fan of Andy Rooney, that curmudgeon who reported television news in a manner that caught our attention, using a combination of disbelief and an air of incompetence and confusion.

It went a bit like this, “I can’t complain about my life….neither should we. I’ve been reading about the new health care law, and I am somewhat confused. Perhaps one of my listeners could explain this to me better.”

I was a big fan of Andy Rooney, that curmudgeon who reported television news in a manner that caught our attention, using a combination of disbelief and an air of incompetence and confusion.

I am getting close to the age where I should be a bit confused, but my younger colleagues also seem confused about the Affordable Care Act. There are those who think the ACA is the best thing since Medicare went into effect in 1964. At the time it may have been true, but the Congress did not listen to the medical establishment who said it would bankrupt the country in short time. In less than 50 years, this has become largely true.

Then there remain significant numbers of providers who say “Hell no, I will go!” Go where? Anywhere, but certainly not stay in medicine. I was brought up in an era where ethics and patient welfare were the first, last and always guiding light for practitioners. My decisions now can be overrriden by a clerk with a pencil checking or unchecking boxes.

Some advocates like to level the playing field by calling themselves consumers, instead of patients, and physicians are providers, not doctors.

I preface my remarks by stating that I unequivocally believe that health insurance should be a right — however, not at the expense of providing an inadequate program that tramples upon human rights, individual liberties, nor economic common sense.

The Affordable Care Act was born in the midst of confusion and not read by our illiterate Congress and senators. Imagine our leaders, the head of the Democratic party in the Senate stating that we would not know what was in the Affordable Care Act would do until it was passed.

From what I read the Affordable Care Act is not affordable, nor is it patient oriented. Patients really had little to do with its formation. (But more about that later.)

My mind works more slowly now, so perhaps I will rest a bit and wait for my next curmudgeonly ideas to form.