CNSNews.com - Former AMA Head Warns of ‘Disaster in the Details’ of Obama Health Overhaul

CNSNews.com - Former AMA Head Warns of ‘Disaster in the Details’ of Obama Health Overhaul


(CNSNews.com) – The former president of the American Medical Association, Dr. Donald Palmisano, a surgeon, warned that if the Obama administration did not slow down on its drive for a government-led health care overhaul, the treatment choices available to patients would be undercut.

He added that the president’s “public option” plan in particular would be a disaster for patients and medical innovation.


“When it comes to health system reform: slow down. Patients’ lives are at risk,” Palmisano told reporters at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. “Today, in America, we have the best health care system in the world – a system that provides urgent, preventative, and long-term care in every community at all hours of the day.

“The health care system is never closed in the United States,” he said.

Palmisano said that there were problems with the system, particularly in financing, but these problems deserved careful examination and debate – not the hurried, hasty process Obama wanted Congress to take.

“Do we have a problem that needs to be addressed? Yes. We need to find a way to get medical coverage to those Americans who are uninsured. We all agree with that,” said Palimisano. “But here in the United States more than 250 million have some sort of health insurance, and the vast majority of Americans like their coverage, and they like and trust their doctor.

“We are very concerned about the rush to pass health care reform legislation,” he said. “We want Congress to take its time and to do it right.”

Part of getting reform right, Dr. Palmisano said, was letting go of the idea of a government-run health care agency, the so-called “public plan.” He explained that if the government was allowed to directly interfere in the health care market, it could lead to a “virtual end” of medical discovery and innovation.

“A government run ‘public option’ would have an inherent advantage in the marketplace,” Palmisano explained. “Government-controlled health insurance cannot play on a level playing field, even if devised with the best of intentions.

“Government-controlled health care brings with it long waiting lines … government bureaucrats determining what car you can and cannot receive and a virtual end to medical innovation and discovery,” Palmisano added.

Palmisano said that the reforms the system needed were for patients to trim their health care purchases, make insurance companies more responsive to consumers, and extend coverage to the uninsured without disrupting the widely popular private system.

“We can improve the insurance system by making individuals prune purchases of their own insurance, insurance companies more responsive to the patients’ needs, [and] we can close the gap on the uninsured without disrupting the entire medical system by encouraging health savings accounts, tax credits for health expenditure, and vouchers to purchase medical coverage for those who need financial assistance.”

“Let’s put the patient in control, with the doctor as trusted adviser,” he said. “Let’s not lose the liberty that is our right as Americans.”

Dr. Todd Williamson, president of the Georgia Medical Association, agreed that while the system was failing, government was not going to make it any better by getting involved.

“We believe the mechanisms to finance medical care in this country have failed,” he said. “We do not believe, however, that increasing the federal government’s control over the practice of medicine is the best way to heal our ailing system.”

Dr. Williamson rejected the idea of a personal mandate – an idea that forms the cornerstone of Obama’s proposal – saying that every patient should have the ability to choose any doctor, not just the ones who participate in their particular insurance plan.

“In a patient-centered health care system, neither patients nor physicians should be required to enroll in any particular health plan, and every patient should have the ability to choose their physician,” said Williamson.

Another novel reform idea came from Dr. Marcy Zwelling-Aamot, who said that if Congress really wants to bring health costs down, it should mandate that doctors and hospitals make their fees and prices public, so that consumers can make the same type of choices they make when buying anything else.

“Let’s tell our patients what health care costs,” she said. “Perhaps doctors should post their retail and cash prices. Perhaps hospitals should start to post them [too]. Perhaps the government should tell the patients what they’re really paying doctors. Let’s bring some honesty and transparency, legitimately, to this system and demonstrate to the public what they need to do to purchase their own health care.”

“After all, it is their life,” Zwelling-Aamot said.