Limited or Limiting Government?
by Thomas W. Kendall Sr., M.D.
As a medical professional for 33 years, it is my opinion that if the Health Care Reform bill, which recently passed against the will of the majority of freedom-loving Americans, is not repealed, the American medical dream will have become a nightmare. This will signal a demise of liberty.
The United States Constitution is not a document to limit the expression of liberty of a free people, but rather to limit the coercive, oppressive, godless tyranny of those who consider themselves superior to others.
No jurisdictional authority exists or is implied by our supreme law that would allow mandated medical care, much less determine the nature of that care. Decades ago, the term crisis had frequent use in clinical medicine when the critical time of a patient's prognosis was defined by the evidence of vital recovery or imminent death. American medicine and America itself is at a crisis. Will the honor, courage, and aesthetic of those who have made themselves the servants of their patients be mongrelized into servitude of the state?
At the 2009 Annual Medical staff meeting of the Greenville Hospital System, two speakers were commissioned to speak on Health Care Reform. Dictums such as "Doctors, you are going to have to change the way you think," and "Doctors, you are going to have to become team players," were among some of the most alarming comments. But when Charles Darwin's name was mentioned and his evolutionary conclusions were invoked, that "Doctors would adapt or they would not survive," I was compelled to respond.
"Is it a presupposition that the Federal Government has any responsibility in health care?" I asked the speakers. One responded with laughter and said he would not address that question. The other said, "We don't know what it's going to be like when these changes are implemented."
What will happen as the Health Care Reform Bill becomes the new way? Initially there will not be significant change in the delivery of services, but as the progressive regulatory restrictions limit medical decision-making, doctors and patients will begin recognizing the following substantial changes:
1. Doctors will face fines and imprisonment for failure to adhere to ever-increasing bureaucratic regulations that have little if anything to do with providing the best care for the patient and have everything to do with control of the doctor and profession.
2. Innovation will shift from cutting-edge technological advances benefitting all of mankind to isolated government selected interests to benefit politically-motivated elitist agendas.
3. The patient-physician relationship becomes vulnerable to politically appointed non-medical administrators whose philosophies put the well-being of the state and its ruling class over the well-being of the patient. This is perhaps the most important change.
Most Americans are not aware that only 18% of U.S physicians were members of the AMA (American Medical Association) when "Obamacare" was signed March 23, 2010. This organization received much media attention in its support of the legislation which protects its monopoly of the coding of medical care procedures that is required for physicians to receive payment for services. Physicians are polarized in these ideological debates. Do they do what is best for their patients or what is best for the nationalistic, socialization of our once free and prosperous nation?
Now is the time for those who have never thought it necessary to be involved and take action. Unless the principles of the framers and their ideas which produced the Articles of Confederation, the subsequent U.S. Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, are embraced and defended, we do not deserve the liberties that our heroes past and present fought and died for. Several physicians were involved in drafting our founding documents. They knew about tyranny. We physicians today must oppose this breach of our founders’ intent. The Hippocratic oath I pledged upon graduating from medical school included the promise "I would allow no harm to be done to my patient." This attack on American freedom is harmful to all of us. It arises from within our own halls of legislative, judicial, and executive responsibility. WE THE PEOPLE must acknowledge our contribution to this current crisis. We must act immediately with courage and conviction to return our Republic to the rule of law. We must return to constitutional rule and limit government's oppressive tyranny, not liberty-loving free Americans.
