Citizens vs. ObamaCare: ‘Million Med March’ Draws Hundreds in St. Louis
“I just want to tell the government to slow down, get it right or don’t do it at all,” said Dr. Dan Windsor, the St. Louis-area addiction specialist who led the Million Med March rally on Saturday afternoon outside the St. Louis County Government Building in downtown Clayton. “We’re for health care reform, but responsible health care reform.”
One of at least 21 rallies held in cities across the country, the St. Louis event attracted more than 300 people — including physicians, nurses, other medical professionals, and ordinary citizens — who, like Windsor, favor the concept of health care reform but oppose the reforms contained in legislation now making its way through the U.S. Senate.
“We feel this is pretty irresponsible, very irresponsible to proceed in the dark of night, to put together 2,000-page bills with all the legalese in there that you can’t understand,” Windsor explained.
Pointing to words most people do understand (i.e., mandates, penalties, agencies, commissions, and programs), he summarized his feelings about the aforementioned legislation by saying, “It all sounds like a lot of bureaucracy that’s gonna be tough to get through for me to see my patients.”
Dr. Robert Wiele shared views surprisingly similar to those shared among members of the fast-growing tea party movement during the past year.
“Increased government involvement will not help anybody,” said Wiele, an emergency room physician with 27 years of professional experience. “It will not give more care, and it will be unaffordable.
“You only have to look to Massachusetts,” he continued. “Care has suffered, and they’re running out of money. It’s unsustainable.
“You can also look at our (Veterans Administration) system which is inefficient and has total government control. In fact, they even have protection from lawsuits, but can’t make it work efficiently.”
More important to Wiele, however, is his belief that it is unconstitutional to require people do or buy something.
“The idea of having to buy insurance or go to jail totally is unconstitutional and takes our liberties away,” he said.
I have worked in the health care industry for over 20 years and agree with the first four points listed in the article. The National Practitioner Data Bank was set up for a good reason and it may be the case that some providers have “made the list” for petty reasons and I hope that organizations think very carefully before they decide to report anyone.
Congratulations to Missouri and other states looking to protect their citizens’ rights and challenging the reach of the federal government. Jane Cunningham is fighting the good fight, hooray for the state Sen.
Unfortunately, republicans have refused to support health care reform for over 20 years now. They started to propose some health initiatives only after they suddenly realized that they were on the wrong side of history (again) and the vast majority of the american people wanted it. But their meager proposals, offering more insurance big business company solutions offered no hope and continuing calamity for our citizens.
However, you are correct, this bill is not the best. Some are upset at the lack of a robust, strong public option, though I have now tend to agree with the blue dogs to oppose outright nationalisation. Also, you should correct your article. Contrary to what you portray, the AMA now supports health care reform and has endorsed this vital legislation. These people that protested should be fired as they are traitors to their to a profession that ignores the sick, the poor and the elderly in our land. Shame on them.
2. Fired for having a dissenting opinion and believing that the plan will be counterproductive? How very totalitarian of you. Incidentally, you can’t fire a business owner, except by refusing to be a client. Since many doctors own their own practices, no one but their patients can fire them.
You think the sick, poor and ederly are ignored now??? Wait until the goverment controls your health care. And yes, Death Panels are back. But all the politically correct things will be covered, abortion, addiction treatment, sex change, but goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa.
Poor Citizen:
Don’t you get tired of being repudiated post after post?
According to the AMA only 29% of practicing physicians belong to their organization.
Sadly, there’s no evidence in the article that Dr. Windsor understands the basic issue. Would he be happy with a one-page bill passed in daylight that established no bureaucracy, but still enslaved his profession?
The fundamental principle is this: the Federal government has no business whatever being involved in the health care or insurance businesses beyond its proper role in any other business.
That role should be limited to protecting the rights to life, property, and voluntary trade – largely State functions anyway, giving even less for the Feds to do.
If, by some impossible miracle, the Feds actually managed to lower costs and improve health care quality the bill would still be completely immoral. Freedom is the highest social value and the purpose of government is to protect it, not diminish it.
6. Jeff Perren: “The fundamental principle is this: the Federal government has no business whatever being involved in the health care or insurance businesses….”
A few million seniors who depend on Medicare and Social Security might disagree with you.
Hey Poor Citizen. Saying the bill is “not the Best” is a huge understatement. I have spent my life caring for the sick in various capacities and the points this article makes are spot on. TONS of money is spent trying to avoid being sued. In this climate you are a fool not to practice defensive medicine. Nobody ever got sued for doing a c section but plenty of docs have been sued for not doing one. The mass exodus of doctors from the AMA after this “endorsemnt” has not been reported. Most who belong to the AMA are in academia and have no clue to the business side of running a medical practice. Poor citizen is sadly mis-informed. ALL of us in medicine work our asses off everyday regardless of ability to pay. I never even look to see if patients have insurance. You need to wake up and realize that this is not about health care . Nobody is ever turned away who is in need. This takeover is a looming disaster for our country and it is very demoralizing to those of us in healthcare. the government can’t even wait for this to pass . They are already trying out rationing principles with this mammogram PAP smear debacle. Wait til they have a legal mandate to ration. I don’t think Americans are going to tolertate the fall out
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What world does #2 live in? Where I live this suspicious and ill considered Bill is very unpopular, both with the insured and the medical professionals. This will be reflected next Election when a lot of these politicians are shown the door.
Perhaps #2 can direct me to the part of the Constitution that puts the Federal Government in charge of Health and Medicine. Or Banking, or Automotive Industries for that matter.
If Medicare is such a shimmering example of efficiency, why is the Fraud measured in the tens of billions of dollars? Why does Medicare pay the fraudulent claims first and investigate them later, only to catch a small percentage of the defrauders? Why does go on year after year? Because it is easier to just pay it. After all, the money does not belong to the fat Federal butts in swivel chairs that pay the fraudulent bills, the money comes from us, the taxpayers, who are apparently too stupid to be trusted with our own money.
This health care take-over is really not about health care at all. It’s about being able to control us from birth to death.This universal Health care take-over by the government has been planned by the left-wing socialist-communists for at least 40 years. Clinton tried Hillary Care and it failed. Others before that tried it and failed. If, Obama and his friends can get this take-over thru with the public option you can look for everyone to be on it in 5-7 years.
Go to: http://www.takebackmedicine.com for all the info. Their 800# is 635-1196. “Association of American Physicians and Surgeons” founded in 1945.
The AMA has endorsed the Health Care legislation all along. However, not all physicians are members of the AMA; in fact, few are. That is something most people are unaware of. The doctors and nurses with whom I’m acquainted, both in my local clinic and in the city hospitals, are not in favor of the present health care legislation. In fact, they’ve expressed the opinion that they will all be out of business if it goes through.
9. Richard A:
It’s quite interesting, you should hang out at cnn.com and others to learn and understand their belief system. They’ll claim Article I, Section 8; “levy” taxes and “promote the general welfare”. They believe morality and equality of the pursuit of happiness can be legislated. They believe the United States is a democracy not a Constitutinoal Republic. They believe profit and pay should be regulated by the government. They believe this is about dem vs. repub NOT about liberty vs. tyranny.
While we’ve been busting our butts working to make a better life all these years, they’ve been slowly but surely subverting liberty. They don’t care about health care, they care about control. They’ve been at it since 1917.
We just woke up and realized what they’ve been doing all these years, and I mean democrats and republicans.
Why don’t Democrats address tort reform?
Howard Dean stated, ”The reason why tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on…” (http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/53126 ) In other words, it’s OK to take on the Insurance industry, the Biomedical industry, assorted medical societies, or cut shady deals with Big Pharma or the AMA, etc. But let’s not anger the trial lawyers… Could this have anything to do with the fact that nearly 80% of lawyer donations in 2008 went to Democrats, with Obama alone receiving nearly half of all donations? (see; http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/select.php?ind=K01 )
For years, liberals accused Bush of expanding the deficit by needlessly spending billions in the Iraq war. Yet the current proposals for healthcare reform are likely to add $1-2 trillion i recurring costs every decade -the equivalent of two Iraq wars going on simultaneously, for the rest of our lives. And not a word of complaint about cost is heard among the liberals…
No, now the likes of Poor Citizen accuse doctors who oppose the current reform of being “traitors to their profession.” Given what many suspect will come about if the current proposals are enacted (budget-busting deficits, rising taxes and diminishing services), one could argue the real “traitors” are those supporting the proposals. And what, then, is Poor Citizen’s reaction when a prominent member of the left-wing’s sacred teacher’s unions states that “collective bargainging” is more important than “reducing dropout rates” or “improving teacher quality” ( http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-1122edit1nov22,0,2514797.story )? A traitor indeed?
The fundamental problem with the current so-called healthcare reform proposals is they simply shift much of the cost from the private to the public sector; they address WHO pays, not WHY we pay so much (or how to make it cheaper). Instead of fixing the fatal flaw in the American system, they prolong it with government financing.
7. Reality is what it is, even if it is unpopular. The fact is, Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional, and even if they weren’t, they would need to be abandoned anyway because there is no money to pay for them. We’ve promised over $100 Trillion in social programs and we haven’t set aside a dime of it.
Washington is not interested in what YOU think!!..
… YOU can show them what YOU think of things in the 2010 election and more so in the 2012 election!!!
Campaign AGAINST!! the people that do NOT care what YOU think, want, need!
The Democrats have been ignoring the town halls, the march on Washington DC this past July 4th, & the most recent protest before the House passed the ObamaCare Thing. The Democrats are ignoring us. They have their agenda for absolute power & they want it. I think they need to be careful what they wish for…
The 2010 political perfect storm is coming to wipe out the Democrats…
Come on people. This is not about democrat vs. republican. It is about liberty, the Constitution, our very freedom. Don’t lie to yourselves, both parties are guilty. This skirmish is not about left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative. That’s a smokescreen they use. It’s about Liberty vs. tyranny. They’re attemptig the takeover by control of our very lives and they must be stopped….democrat & republican alike.
Poor Citizen: Since when did governement intervention into anything actually improve the situation or lower costs? The Democrats “solution” is simply the socialization of 1/6th of the economy at the expense of sick people. Republicans have proposed solutions year after year, that aside from the pandering piece of legislation that was the Medicare Drug Bill, have relied on free market solution; you know what those are, the same solutions that provided you with a really good, but relatively inexpensive computer on which you write your leftist tripe, the hybred car that carts you to Starbucks and the $3 latte that you sip while discussing ficitious global warming with your dinosaur hippie friends.
Lars, quit trying to whitewash the situation; mostly Democrats are in for their unconstitutional power grab while very few remaining RINO’s are their enablers. The Democrats are going to be wiped out in 2010 & Obama has to pass his Marxist legislation into law FAST or else it won’t happen. However, Obama did not take into the account of WE THE PEOPLE. WE THE PEOPLE are their bosses–we are not their slaves. They have another thing coming if they want to reverse & take our liberty & freedom away from us.
Sebastian Shaw: It’s not whitewash, it’s the truth. Repeal the 17th Amendment.
Tim Bones: Excellent post!!
Lars, why did the power grab start with the Democrats? They now control several banks, 2 car companies, & want to control health care (ObamaCare) & tax oxygen (Cap & Trade). The Democrats will turn this recession into a depression with ObamaCare & Crap & Tax. We will be slaves of the government thanks to the Democrats lust for power…
What ever happened to the. If you work hard you get rewards out of life. Who in there right mind thinks the goverment will run another Free program like this any better than whats out there now and it want cost a dime? For who?? those who live on the goverment. If you belive the rich will pay think again the ones supporting this program are RICH…
A few things to think about:
Lets check the goverments track record.
Social secerity sytem most of us under 50 will not see a dime. ” Systems broke” takes up most of the national budget.
Postal service- thinking of not delivering on Saturdays “Systems Broke”
many others
one last thought: With China owning so much of our country what would stop them from coming over and demanding payment and when we cant pay they turn the White House in to the Red House!! remember Rome when you cant pay or they cant get the milk from the cow its time to slughter it…..