“Dear Patient: Section 1311 of the new health care legislation gives the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and her appointees the power to establish care guidelines that your doctor must abide by or face penalties and fines. In making doctors answerable in the federal bureaucracy this bill effectively makes them government employees and means that you and your doctor are no longer in charge of your health care decisions. This new law politicizes medicine and in my opinion destroys the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship that makes the American health care system the best in the world.”
In this same letter, Doctor Scherz writes:
“Badly exacerbating the current doctor shortage [ObamaCare will bring] major cost increases, rising insurance premiums, higher taxes, a decline in new medical techniques, a fall-off in the development of miracle drugs as well as rationing by government panels and by bureaucrats like passionate rationing advocate Donald Berwick that will force delays of months or sometimes years for hospitalization or surgery.”
He also cites the brutal, unignorable, irrefutable facts of ObamaCare’s passage:
“Despite countless protests by doctors and overwhelming public opposition — up to 60% of Americans opposed this bill — the current party in control of Congress pushed this bill through with legal bribes and Chicago style threats and is determined now to resist any ‘repeal and replace’ efforts. This doctor’s office is non-partisan — always has been, always will be. But the fact is that every Republican voted against this bad bill while the Democratic Party leadership and the White House completely dismissed the will of the people in ruthlessly pushing through this legislation….
“In the face of voter anger some Democratic candidates are now trying to make a cosmetic retreat, calling for minor modifications or pretending they are opposed to government-run medicine. Once the election is over, however, they will vote with their party bosses against repealing this bill.”
The letter’s final lines are perhaps the most important:
“Please remember when you vote this November that unless the Democratic Party receives a strong negative message about this power grab our healthcare system will never be fixed and the doctor patient relationship will be ruined forever.”
In the Wall Street Journal, the following from Doctor Scherz is appended:
This message is going out to an electorate that is already frustrated over what they see happening to health care. Missouri voters rejected ObamaCare overwhelmingly in August, voting by a margin of 71%-29% to reject the federal requirement that all individuals purchase health insurance. Democratic pollster Douglas Schoen has assessed that ObamaCare is “a disaster” for Democrats. And around the country many little-noticed primaries have reflected voter rage—including the Republican primary victory of surgeon, political newcomer, and advocate of repeal Daniel Benishek in Michigan’s first district.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration’s damage-control efforts have fallen flat. The latest round of pro-ObamaCare television spots targeting the elderly and starring veteran actor Andy Griffith have not only failed to move the polling numbers. They have caused five U.S. Senators to ask for an investigation of the ads as a violation of federal laws barring the use of tax dollars ($750,000) for campaign purposes.
(Link)