Doc's Take on Obumbacare

I made my semi-annual visit to my doctor on Wednesday. I asked her opinion on US hwealth care reform and she said that she was disappointed with Medicare reimbursement. Many doctors have stopped taking Medicare patients and she wonders who's going to look after us boomers.

Her practice in Bruigville has declined markedly since the start of the Great Recession. When you're unemployed or forced into early retirement with no insurance, health care is low priority. She worries that many people are going to suffer and die from otherwise manageable health problems.

But her biggest worry remains insurance companies practicing medicine in defining treatment regimens for individual patients. Doctors have become eyes, ears and hands for insurance companies who decide what kind of care patients will receive. Medicine has become a bureaucracy, with care too often being defined by the skill in coding disease so insurers will provide treatment. This can only get worse with national health care.

Like me, doc says she will have to work until she dies. So we're in a race to see who goes first. At least I'll have a doctor in old age who will look after me.