Just shows how inept this administration really is.....Even Europe has figured these
folks out.

Boy what a joke,they aren't even sure who's on their side and are inviting Dr's opposing them???? Lets face facts this is not about caring whether everyone has health care its about money and alot of it!!! Healthcare and prescription drugs are BIG BIG time money multi Billions!!! THIS is what its all about and our so called gov't wants some of the pie!!!!!

If everyone would read Jerome Corsi's book entitled "Obamanation" which came out BEFORE the election you would see what exactly this nation would be in for if Obama is elected president. Unfortunately for us he was and thus far many things mentioned in his book have already taken place both here at home and overseas. Obama is an ultra-left wing radical (just look at his friends, associates and advisors) and right off the bat it should be apparent to you that he, his associates, his friends, his advisors and political operatives have no desire to craft legislation that is in your interest or the in the best interests of medical care in the United States. They can punish us individually or as a group whereas if we as physicians act as a group we are violating the anti-trust laws so we have to act individually (as independent contractors) towards the same goal, to prevent the passage of any radical restructuring of medical care in the US by the Federal government .

Mr. Barak Obama
My Dearest President,

If you want to decrease the cost of medical care the only way to do that is to re-install a free market system where patients controls cost, fraud and abuse like they do in all other of their businesses.
Doctors have a disincentive to see Medicare patients because it has become a corporate business to go after doctors years after they have seen a patient. This is making all doctors quit seeing older folks when the country is having an elderly people demographic explosion. Doctors will work for patients even badly paid but if they are exposed to the liability of needing to hire an expensive lawyer to defend themselves from Medicare repayment schemes then they will not see those patients. Unless we deregulate and decriminalize doctor’s activities elderly people will not find a doctor to see them.
Now a great number of doctors do not want to accept any elderly Medicare patients in their clinics. The worst is that their families cannot even pay a doctor to see them, as it is illegal for a Medicare patient to pay for medical care! Elderly people will not find a doctor if this is not changed under a federal or private system.

The extensive paperwork, coding, billing and liability risk control is designed to have doctors do nothing for the patient. This business of doctors being paper shufflers instead of science and care oriented businessmen has destroyed the practice of medicine (no kid wants to be a doctor)and it has made the insurance companies very rich. We need to simplify and deregulate to make medicine a pleasure again. Putting computers and information technology will create a pseudoscience that will kill many people. This will make medicine much more expensive too. We need doctors to write on a piece of paper their impressions (cheap) and giving the copies of the technical results (labs, imaging results etc.) directly to the patients,. This will make the patients responsible for their health too. Furthermore they can use that information any way they want and then give it to all of the doctors taking care of them.

I hope you can stop the greed made effective by the antitrust situation we live in America where the owners of the stock of insurance companies are the owners of the hospital companies and pharmaceutical companies. The insurance companies want the price of hospitalization and drugs much more expensive and are holding the American people hostage like Al Capone did when selling his “insurance “.

The cost of medical care is much more dependent on the cost of hospitalization and drugs than what the doctor makes or spends doing tests...the curtailment of the capacity of doctors to do tests attempts against patients and only benefits insurance companies who want nothing done for the patient.
We need to simplify, deregulate and free doctors from the oppressive system that exists and will be made worse by the program that United Health Care is writing for the congressmen to enact. The sweet deals in Washington will kill America. I hope you can help us.
Very truly yours,
Jaime Durand MD

The White House opportunity was sponsored by Doctors for America, who do support the President Health Care reform plan. The request for doctors to participate came from them, not the White House. The names of the doctors were submitted by Doctors for America and those doctors had to submit their names to participate. I question if Dr. Novak had been on that list or if there was another Dr. Novak in the area for which he was mistaken.

I have read many different sites of physician groups trying to get involved in the debate, including AAPS. I understand that even physicians do not agree on the reforms. But my pitch is to have meaningful dialog as oppose to untruths and hate mongering. I agree and would hope that physicians will still have the freedom to practice as they choose and those physicians that can take care of patients through cash practices will continue to do so. When someone feels threatened, they fight back, sometimes by creating fear in others so that they will have allies.

If you disagree, disagree reasonably, without deceit. If the public option is unfavorable, but has a chance of passing, fight for it not to be a mandate, but an option. Stay strong in the fight for Tort reform.

In all of the differing opinions about reform, the one idea that really the majority of physicians have concern about is malpractice issues. Collectively I think we call rally around that.